Yearly Archives: 2019
Berean Searchlight – June 2019
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Stephen’s Short Ministry
The Soul and Spirit
God’s Purpose in Satan’s Hindrance
“Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us” (1 Thes. 2:18).
God has a plan for each of our lives, a plan that is for our good and His glory. We should not forget, however, that Satan has a plan for the believer’s life as well. His designs are for destroying our lives and testimony for Christ through sin, false beliefs, and poor decisions. Paul’s mention of “the wiles of the devil” in Ephesians 6:11 teaches us that Satan has strategies, methods, and schemes to make us fall or run away in the spiritual battle. Satan can’t take away your salvation (Col. 3:3), but he can destroy your testimony. Like a thief, he can also rob you of your joy in Christ and your assurance of salvation.
After establishing the church at Thessalonica, Paul had tried “once and again” to reconnect and visit them, but it had not worked out. The reason, Paul wrote, was that “Satan hindered us.” The Greek word for “hindered” is used of making a road impassable. In the context of athletics, it meant cutting someone off during a race. In a military context, it referred to cutting a trench in front of an advancing army to prevent the enemy’s progress. Satan does the same thing in our Christian lives: he blocks the path, cuts us off in mid-stride to trip us up, or impedes our spiritual progress.
We do not know specifically what Satan did to keep Paul from going back to Thessalonica, but we do know that Paul attributed the obstruction to Satan himself. However, we see now how even Satan’s hindrance was part of God’s providence for Paul’s life. God allowed and used Satan’s opposition and brought good out of this roadblock which Paul perceived as bad. As He did with the Cross, God accomplished His own purposes, using the devil to do so.
The consequence of Paul’s inability to go to Thessalonica was the writing of a letter, a letter that became part of our Bible. This letter, in turn, has resulted in glory to God and, for the past 2000 years, untold multitudes have benefited from Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians and have been blessed by its divine truths — our blessed hope of the Rapture (4:13-18), to name just one. It was because Paul faced a satanic roadblock in his life that we have 1 Thessalonians. We do well to remember this anytime we face a blocked road or barrier in life that we perceive as bad, because God can work to bring something good out of it for His glory and our blessing.
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
Moses and Christ
Is God a Thug?
“Atheists say that God is a thug and is not moral at all… what about the story of the bear mauling kids to death just because they called someone bald? Ricky, why is such material recorded in the Word of God?”
“… Elisha… went up… and… there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said… Go up, thou bald head… And he… cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them” (2 Kings 2:22-24).
God’s covenant with Israel said that He’d curse them if they didn’t obey Him, with the intensity of the curses increasing if they persisted in their disobedience (Lev. 26:14-21). So we know that God’s people in Elisha’s day must have ignored His initial curses if He allowed wild beasts to rob them of their children (v. 22).
“Little children” go to be with the Lord when they die, so the bereaved parents of these little ones were the biggest losers. But if losing their children caused them to begin to obey God’s law, it may have led to their eternal salvation. And God is always more interested in our eternal destiny than He is in allowing us to lead a trouble-free existence in this life.
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
A Great Supper
Will the Earth Be Destroyed?
“Pastor Stam wrote that ‘the earth will never be destroyed,’ that it will be made new instead (Rev. 21:1). What do you say about 2 Peter 3:10,11?”
“…the earth…shall be burned up…all these things shall be dissolved…” (2 Pet. 3:10,11).
Paul uses that same word “dissolved” to describe the dissolution of our physical bodies when we die, saying, “if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God…eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1). When our bodies die, they dissolve. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “then shall the dust return to the earth.”
Yet in speaking about the day of his resurrection (Job 19:25), Job wrote, “in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:26,27). That means that the physical bodies we have now are the same ones we’ll have for all eternity, even though the Bible says they are “dissolved” at death. Our bodies will be made new, but Job says they will be the same flesh.
We know that our experience as members of the Body of Christ will be the same as Job’s, for our apostle tells us that at the Rapture the Lord will “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). And in speaking of His glorious resurrection body, the Lord echoed Job’s words when He said, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I myself” (Luke 24:39). He told them to handle His hands and feet because His new body still bore the wounds His old flesh incurred (John 20:27).
Of course, the glory of our new resurrection bodies will greatly exceed the glory of the body we plant in the ground. It will exceed it in glory as much as a six foot stalk of corn exceeds the kernel of corn that farmers plant in the ground (1 Cor. 15:35-38). But it will still be the body that is dissolved in the ground, just as the corn stalk is still that same kernel of corn. That’s the point of Paul’s comparison.
So when Peter uses that same word to say that the world will be “dissolved,” I have to think that the same thing applies to the earth. It will be a new earth, a much more glorious earth, but it will still be the same earth.
Someone else responded to Pastor Stam’s article to point out that John saw a vision in which the first earth was “passed away” (Rev. 21:1). But in that same Two Minutes devotional, Pastor Stam went on to cite verse 5, saying, “He didn’t say ‘I make all new things,’ but ‘I make all things new.’ There is a difference.”
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
Berean Searchlight – May 2019
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