I had a dream two nights ago that was very disturbing. I’d seen a photograph of one of the pipe bomb booby traps left behind by the Pennsylvania cop killer Eric Frein, and as I studied it closely I noticed that he had attached hundreds of small lock nuts to the side of the pipe. This was done so that when it exploded it would send the projectiles in all directions. In Iraq and Afghanistan they use ball bearings to accomplish the same end. I thought of Frein making this bomb and setting it as a booby trap so that anyone who came along, (even an innocent passer-by or deer hunter) would get shredded when that thing exploded. I wondered if he smiled as he glued each one in place.
I saw that pipe bomb in my dream and then I saw several photographs and images of atrocities that a friend had sent to me the other day that were committed by ISIS, including beheadings, mass shootings, and crucifixions. One of the worst was an image of a two or three year old beautiful little girl wearing a hand knitted bonnet staring up at five soldiers with AK 47’s pointed at that precious little baby’s angelic head. The baby was frightened and crying.
In my dream I tearfully asked God why someone would do something like this, and He answered, “Because their God, (satan) wants them to do so.” Then He made the point that He was a God of pure love and good and that satan was a fallen angel that was pure evil and wicked. And then He added that many people preferred evil over good.
Instantly I thought of John 3:19: And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
And then I woke up.
I’d often wondered how a God of love and good could fiercely judge and condemn. God revealed something to me in that dream that I never quite understood until I wrote that verse down this morning and it is there in plain sight in the very first sentence. John 3:19 begins with “And the judgment is based on this fact . . . ” Christ came into the world as a light shining in the darkness of evil sin, but much of the world still has chosen to reject the only living Son of God.
This verse was directed in the Bible to Nicodemus. Matthew Henry put it succinctly: “Nicodemus was afraid, or ashamed to be seen with Christ, therefore he came in the night. When religion is out of fashion, there are many Nicodemites.
But even though he came by night, Jesus bid him welcome (and hereby taught us to encourage good beginnings, although weak). And though now he came by night, yet afterward he owned Christ publicly. He did not talk with Christ about state affairs, though he was a ruler, but about the concerns of his own soul and its salvation, and went at once to them. Our Savior spoke of the necessity and nature of regeneration or the new birth, (being born again) and at once directed Nicodemus to the source of holiness of the heart . . . ”
Henry went on to say: “Regeneration, or the new birth, is a subject to which the world is very averse; it is, however, the grand concern, in comparison with which everything else is but trifling. What does it signify though we have plenty of food to eat and a variety of clothing to put on, if we are not born again? If after a few mornings and evenings spent in unthinking mirth, carnal pleasure, and riot, we die in our sins, and lie down in sorrow? What does it signify though we are well able to act our parts in life, in every other respect, if at last we hear from the Supreme Judge, ‘Depart from me, I know you not, you workers of iniquity?’”
I read this morning about the beautiful young girl Brittany Maynard, 29 who ended her young life yesterday in Oregon after battling an incurable brain tumor. Her husband had spent several weeks with her as she fulfilled her bucket list including visiting the Grand Canyon. He said the following about their time together: “You take away all the material stuff, all the nonsense we seem to latch on to as a society and you realize that those moments are really what matter,” he said.”
We just never know when the lights will go out in our little city. Make the absolute most of today and follow Christ in love and doing good. Fight the evil that is always beckoning you towards its shadows. Don’t be caught up too much in this old world; it is slowly but surely heading towards its just end. Christ fulfilled over 300 prophecies that He was coming as the Messiah; and each day prophecies are being fulfilled concerning His return which I believe to be drawing nigh, and unfortunately for some, it is simultaneously ushering in His fierce judgment for those who love the darkness more than the light. Selah . . .
James 4:4
You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
November 3, 2014 – Click here to listen