Retread

 I don’t like plowing the same patch of earth over and over again, but I will if I must, if only for posterity. It matters not how gently I go about it or what lengths I go to in presenting something as a parable that it might make the point without bludgeoning anyone; folks still get prickly. Whether one uses a scalpel or an axe depends upon the task they are set to perform, but as far as preferences are concerned, I far prefer the axe. I think I like the heft of it more than anything else. It’s not that I don’t know how to use an axe; I’ve chosen self-restraint and the scalpel instead because axes make a mess. The problem is that you can’t cut down a tree with a scalpel, so here we are about to get messy.

It raises my hackles instantly when someone discounts or brushes off the words of Jesus without a second thought. It’s not as though some trinket salesman said no man knows the day or the hour, Jesus said it. Jesus! The one person who would know better than anyone, all research and subjective opinion notwithstanding. If you’re asking me to look at a thesis that seeks to disprove the words of Jesus, you’re barking up the wrong tree, no matter who you are.

But let’s go down this rabbit trail for a bit. If Jesus lied about no man knowing the day or the hour, not even Himself or the angels in heaven, what else did He lie about? Maybe that whole thing about rewards was a sham, too; perhaps He never planned on coming back or taking anyone away. If Jesus lied about one thing, how many other things did He lie about?

I believe God over man always, every time, without exception or equivocation. Even if my flesh prickles at it, even if I’d like it to say something other than what it does, the Bible must be the final authority in all spiritual matters. The Word of God is the only sure foundation. The words of Christ are yes and amen, and no amount of forced correlation or unsubstantiated conclusions will convince me otherwise.

The devil used scripture to try to get Jesus to do a head dive from the highest point of the temple just so He could prove to the devil that He was the Son of God. Don’t you think the devil already knew? Of course, he did, but it wasn’t beyond him to twist scripture to try and get his way.

I am not in competition with anyone for anything. Some people are shadow boxing thinking they’re in a real fight, and just to dispel any such ideas, you win. I wasn’t competing. I’m not about to play Prophetic Idol or Prophecy Battles with anyone since I never claimed the title, to begin with.

You mistake me for someone who yearns for the limelight or is trying to prove himself to his contemporaries. If you lie about me, I’ll defend myself, but other than that, in the words of a song you used to hear in every grocery store some years back, I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would I say I am?

When it comes to defending the truth, that’s a different matter entirely. No, not my truth, the truth. There is a distinction there that we seem to have whitewashed, as we have so many things having an uncomfortable tinge to them. The modern-day church has even gone so far as to invent a third coming because they couldn’t cope with the reality of the second coming. I like that. I should put it on a T-shirt and wear it to church.

1 Thessalonians 4:14-17, “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

Matthew 24:29-31, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

We’ve reformulated our eschatology to suit the palate of the lukewarm and indifferent who are just looking for a bit of fire insurance but no lasting relationship. The modern-day Western church has become the Olive Garden of Italian food, where what you’re getting isn’t a tour of Italy but a tour of the deep fryer. Strangely, there are very few double-wide Italians in Italy, even though all they eat is Italian food. The same can’t be said for the regular Olive Garden crowd.

We were warned by none other than Jesus that there would be those who would say here is the Christ, and there but we should not go. We were warned that deception would be about, and many would be deceived. We were also told that it is within our capacity to be weary that we not be deceived.

Whether or not we heed His warnings is up to us as individuals. I will not suffer the consequences of your choices on your behalf, nor will you suffer the consequences of my choices. Whether or not you believe His words to be absolute is entirely up to you. The thing I can’t reconcile, though, is how would anyone be willing to lay down their life for someone whose words they doubted and whose promises they called into question.

This is not an intellectual exercise. This is life and death, eternity, and ever after. Weighty things, truth be told, the weightiest.

And since my third cup of coffee just kicked in, someone needs to qualify as God’s servant for another to be accused of speaking against God’s servant. A guy who was a Kool-Aid cup away from being the next Jim Jones, who destroyed lives and families by setting a specific date not once but twice, does not qualify. I’ve had to counsel people who sold everything and gave it away save for a white pair of sneakers because they believed the guy who said he heard the train a-comin’, coming round the bend. Do you have any idea how difficult a thing it is for someone to attempt to put the spiritual pieces back together in tandem with the physical? I’ve seen the pain of it and watched people struggle through it.

Deuteronomy 18:2-22, “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, “how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?” when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.