MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
March 29, 2023
God’s Saving Enmity
Part 13
THE HARDEST ENMITY (VARIANCE) CHRIST’S FAITHFUL HAVE TO BEAR
Jesus solemnly instructed—not just counseled, much less merely informed or suggested His first Twelve disciples including Judas Iscariot — what their working orders were. Read Matthew chapter 10 prayerfully. Ask for divine grace, wisdom, and power to fuel your effort to jettison whatever preconceived opinions you may have, especially those that have been “traditionalized” into your religious beliefs, upbringing, and widespread acceptance.
When diligently and objectively traced back to their earliest origins, it will be found to the horrified surprise of many that most of the prominent ones were not Biblical at all but were based on ancient heathen worship, and pagan beliefs and superstitions that were “Christianized,” as part of the prophesied “falling away.” The line of prophecies connecting Daniel with Revelation exposes these.
Now, for a closer look at one of the most startling and difficult aspects of individual “crosses they would have to bear” outlined in Jesus’ training manual and working orders for the first Twelve. He, the promised Messiah and the One who they promptly left all they were engaged in as their humble livelihoods, in response to His invitation, “Come, follow Me,” told them (all emphases and words in brackets mine):
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a SWORD. For I am come to set a man AT VARIANCE against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s FOES shall be they of his OWN HOUSEHOLD. And he that loveth father or mother MORE than Me is NOT WORTHY of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that TAKETH NOT HIS [this] CROSS, and followeth after Me [His teachings and life example] is not worthy of Me.” Verses 34-3&, KJV.And to think that the triumphant announcement of the incomparable angelic choir to the humble shepherds and pagan magi or Persian wisemen/scholars above the fields of Bethlehem at Christ’s birth was, “Glory to God in the highest, PEACE and goodwill towards men [on earth]”
Was there an imponderable mistake somehow? A staggering contradiction between that song of the angelic heralds and Christ’s words to His first Twelve?
We’ll see on next week’s MWM. Meantime, please contemplate for yourself the foundational principles laid down in Genesis 3: 15 regarding what I call the Grand Parallel Subjects of the Bible-
the great controversy and the plan of redemption!
Bless all, NMF.