Judgment of the people is clear, all shall awake, some shall
awake, “some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” When Michael arises, the time of the end has
come and the promise is that “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never
has been since there was a nation till that time.” For a nation that has seen as much trouble,
even when Daniel wrote, as any nation on earth and survived, much less the
troubles the Jewish people have faced in the 2500ish years since, that is some
terrible promise. What is called for in
order to arise to life rather than contempt, is perseverance in truth and
righteousness. That last verse
essentially says, just keep on doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine. Could He say that to you? We know that ultimately we’re judged on
belief but our works are also important, He will ask for an accounting and they
do reveal the quality of our faith.
Jesus tells the disciples that it’s going to get bad. They will put you out of the synagogues and they
will kill you. How could they have
imagined all these things after seeing the reception Jesus received only a few
days ago and hearing the people acclaim Him as Son of David? They couldn’t possibly have imagined that in
only a very short time, minutes or hours, things were going to spin completely
out of control. There was much more to
tell them, the mission of preparation was not complete but, Jesus says, don’t
worry about what you don’t know, the Spirit of truth will come and lead you
into all truth. The promise of the
Spirit is essential to the survival of the group but also central to who we are
today. We maintain the truth of the apostolic
teaching and message and adapt the methods of sharing it. The teaching itself carried our nation for a
very long time and no one doubted its veracity because it also created a
certain civic order that was found pleasing.
Now, the teaching itself is problematic in our society. We need to hear the words of Jesus in warning
and we need to pay close attention to the Spirit of truth rather than the
spirit of the age.
Notice who is missing in the group that was annoyed and
arrested Peter and John? The Pharisees. Why is that?
Those who were annoyed were those who didn’t want them teaching about
the resurrection. They didn’t believe in
resurrection remember. It wasn’t about
the healing itself that was the problem, it was the brute fact of the
resurrection of Jesus, it disproved their entire belief system, attacked the
way they understood the world and God.
Daniel wrote clearly about resurrection didn’t he? They were materialists anyway because it
allowed them to pile up riches here
because there was no there, there.
The cornerstone of the apostolic message was the resurrection and it was
a sign to the Sadducees and those who denied the resurrection of the dead to
re-evaluate their way of thinking and therefore their way of life. What does it say to you today?
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