KEY VERSE: “And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me” (Mat 11:6)
‘And’ in the key verse means “likewise.” Likewise,
what? That Jesus heals the sick and such from the previous verse (Mat 11:5).
That would offend some. Why so? Because only God could do such things as giving
the blind reception of their sight, the lame walk, the lepers cleansed, and the
deaf hear, the dead raised up, and for the poor have the gospel preached to
them.
Many were offended at such a thing, but all those things
verified that Jesus was the one on whom John asked and on whom the Jews had
been waiting.
As it turns out, all those things offended the Jewish
leadership enough that they wanted to kill Jesus. For what? Doing things that
only God could do, and even the simplest thing as revealing the truth to the
poor!
In modern days, many scoff at the notion of God healing.
When someone has been ill but is made well, for them, Jesus has nothing to do
with it. The doctor only diagnoses and treats; God does the healing, but nobody
anymore seems to credit God, and if they do, they are called a ‘fanatic.’ Nowadays,
few wait on God to provide the final method of healing the infirm.
I have had many friends that seemed to be dying, and
rather than wait on the Death Angel, their caretakers became ‘gods’ themselves.
Dr. Kevorkian killed the infirm compassionately, but it
remained him who did the killing. He was even imprisoned for mercy killing.
They, at one time, shot horses out of mercy for the
creature. Now that is seen as cruel, so they merely change the process. They “put
them away” in some humane manner. Pets of all types are put away in a humane
way, generally by a lethal injection of some sort. Many would rather have their
pets die without pain rather than have them in pain and still be alive. Mercy
killing animals seems to be the humane way of killing brutes.
Paul wrote a truth, “For me to live is Christ; to die is
gain” (Phil 1:21). [1]
Implied therein is that if the Death Angel comes for a Christian, then death is
gain, or a reward; that death should be welcomed.
One fine Christian lady was a faith healer and when she
became quite ill with cancer, she turned to God, rejecting the treatment by a
doctor. At first glance, it seems that her faith had killed her. However, just
as it is the Angel of God that keeps a person alive, it too is the Angel of God
that removes the last breath from a Christian. Her faith had healed her;
she was given the reward of eternal life!
Many scoffed at the faith healer who seemed to be like
scripture says, “Physician, heal yourself” (Luke 4:23). She seemed to be unable
to heal herself; even though others saw people healed in her presence. It is
because the woman was not doing the healing; it was because she had faith that the
Holy Ghost of Jesus could heal the sick.
Jesus revealed that even death does not hinder him, bringing
the dead man Lazarus back to life even though he had been dead enough to stink.
I submit that the lady’s faith did not cause her death but
healed her. She trusted Jesus and Jesus healed her!
We only think of Jesus healing the sick and raising the
dead, but the ultimate healing is death for the dead suffer no more
because their flesh is no longer alive to suffer. God finishes the good work in
you when the genome of the dead is raptured, and new incorruptible flesh is placed
over the living soul. That reconstitutes the Garden of God and creates a New
Garden in Paradise.
Paul revealed a mystery to the Christians at Corinth:
51
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 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. 53
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality. (1 Cor 15:51-53)
Many scoffed at that as well! Before Jesus generates new
flesh for Christians, the dead must arise from their graves for the blessing.
Imagine the multitude who witnessed the death of Jesus. Some saw the Holy Ghost leave Him, yet He revealed that He continued to live on. The earth split asunder, not to receive the dead body of Christ, but to release the dead from their prison; to wit:
52
And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53
And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city,
and appeared unto many. 54 Now when the centurion, and they that
were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were
done, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God.” (Mat 27:52-54)
The centurion and the hundreds saw Jesus die and on Resurrection
Sunday they must have been gathered as a unit, still guarding the area, as is
the case with any crime scene. The graves were opened and those who had been
dead went into the city, but the Roman guard did not pursue them because they
understood that Jesus was indeed who He said He was; that Jesus was God in the
flesh. They would have seen the dead walking as an army of King Jesus.
The Roman legion did not scoff; they were not offended that
the ‘Great Physician’ could heal Himself. They were not surprised that the
grave was empty because they saw so many graves that were emptied.
They never pursued Jesus when He escaped, surely because
they would be pursuing God! Jesus, although convicted and murdered for His
offenses, was never pursued by the Roman army. It appears that many were
convinced, even Pilate, that Jesus was God and that any true God could escape
punishment.
We think of Houdini and his tricks. Jesus made Houdini seem
an amateur. Jesus walked to the Cross with the crowd screaming for His death,
and then God came undone as He revealed the Light, the Man, and the Ghost of
Jesus. [3] Then, those who were patient
enough to wait – the Roman Legion who were persuaded — saw Jesus regenerated as
He merely walked through the walls of the tomb with glorious, regenerated
flesh.
The Jews were offended; they remain offended to this day!
Jesus revealed His Identity to the mob but most of them refused the truth; that
Jesus is God in the flesh. They have not been blessed because they refuse to
accept Jesus as the truth; that He is the Messiah in whom they wait.
The centurion, ‘Longinus’ by name, was not offended by what
he saw. The other centurions who mocked Jesus and gambled for His apparel, once
they witnessed Jesus come undone, they became a new legion who could see living
souls all around them arise from their graves. God had changed them; they by then
had bright eyes and could see what others could not see!
Earlier in this commentary, I touched on death and the
humane way of killing. Jesus was killed humanely for according to the chief
priests, it was for the benefit of the Jews.
In their eyes, they were doing a good thing. They were
protecting their God, fearing that their God was incapable of fending for
Himself. Their ‘Almighty God’ who they claimed, they made feeble. He was a God
that could not fend for Himself, a God who was so weak that death could hold
Him, and a God that could not heal, even Himself. They themselves became ‘God”
because it was them who would overcame the meek, seemingly defenseless man on
the Cross, just hanging there waiting for the angel of death to take Him.
Jesus, in the key verse, was speaking about the Jews and
whosoever questioned His abilities. If they accept that Almighty God is as
mighty as He claims, then they would be blessed with extreme happiness — with bliss
in Paradise.
Soon, I will be doing a video on the old subject: a glass
half empty of a glass half full. Many see death as emptiness while others see
it as fullness, or completeness.
For some, Jesus’s healing and teaching was the glass half
empty but for some, it was the glass half full. In this situation, the ‘glass’
is the cup, or vessel, of Jesus. They failed to see what was in the seemingly
empty part of the glass — the Holy Ghost who is the Power of God.
The Jews did what seemed to be a humane thing; they
killed a ‘crazy man’ that perceived Himself as God. That was the ultimate sin
for them, and the best they could do is to kill the Man for saying it. They
could not wait on their Almighty God to heal the insanity of the man; they surely
saw it a way to reward him with an afterlife, of course caring not that it
might be in Hell for His claim.
Society has yet to learn their lesson. We still kill for
humane reasons; babies are killed in the womb because that is the ‘humane’
thing to do. There is no way that they could be happy, so women ‘bliss’ their
own children by taking their lives from them.
Not to be outdone, families even take the power of God into
their own hands; they cannot wait on God’s Death Angel to come, so they ask
that He come quicker. I am referring to euthanasia.
If the Jews had been godly, they would prayed to their
Almighty God to heal the ‘crazy man,’ Jesus. But, no; they would not wait on
God to cure His infirmity, so they took it into their own hands.
Even many well-meaning families slip into Satan’s trap. Hospice
seems a good thing, and caring well for the dying is indeed humane. However, is
it humane to withhold food and drink from the dying? I believe that the truly
humane way would be to pray for God to act quickly to bliss the dying person,
not to withhold life sustaining nourishment from them. It is as if the Angel of
Death requires help to come, not in God’s time, but in our timing.
However, hospice is meant to be a good thing and as with all
things too much ‘goodness’ kills as the Jews showed. As it turned out, Jesus
excused those who thought they were doing good things for God, “Father, forgive
them; for they know not what they do. And they parted His
raiment and cast lots” (Luke 23:34).
‘Euthanasia’ is humane people doing what they think is good
and means death done well. It is done well by others without having
to wait on God. Some of them just refuse to die and linger even longer; maybe
because the Death Angel awaits the good people to leave the scene.
Jesus would say to them, “Father, forgive them; for they
know not what they do” and then they would continue their ‘good” work and part
the raiment and cast lots, just as they did with Jesus. In modern terms, they
would probate the wills and debate on who gets what.
Sometimes death is speeded up for the love of money and the
division of the estate. At other times, probably most often, it is so that the
loved-one does not suffer. (Or is it for the living to no longer suffer?)
But who knows what suffering, or not, goes on in the minds
of those knowing where they are and why they are there?
This is not to condemn any family members nor even hospice.
Their motives are good. Who knows how much quicker a sick person might die if
we just leave them alone with the Angel of God to Comfort them as they of
course administer drugs for the pain.
What should we do to make death easier? I pray that God takes
me swiftly and without pain, and when the Death Angel comes, for my family to
welcome Him. They too can pray that Jesus comes quickly and that death for me be
painless.
(picture credit; encounterhumber.wordpress.com; "Encounter with Christ")
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