The Emergency of Jesus

[Coliseum]

The Orthodox Jews of Jesus' time were extremely reluctant to allow any work be done on what they used to consider the seventh day of the week. The Sabbath was a day for worshiping in the temple. At first glance, many words of Jesus seem to us childishly simple to understand, and we marvel why His contemporaries had difficulty with their meaning. Jesus healed several sick people on the Sabbath and, as if this were not enough to upset the religious authorities, He even commanded one of them to carry his own bed during the Sabbath day.  While those around Him may have wondered why healing could not be postponed, these people had been sick for years, Jesus treated the afflicted as total emergencies.  He illustrated the same urgency on other occasions, as well. 

 Apostle Paul, interpreting an Old Testament verse regarding oxen asks, "Doth God take care of oxen?" (I Cor. 9:9), and appropriately reinterprets it spiritually. Those who are spiritually alert will figure out that “the falling of an ox into a well” is not a Jewish problem of 2,000 years ago, rather confronts us unceasingly.  The very moment we open our eyes, forms confuse our sight, sounds enchant our ears. Selfishness occupies our narrow views. Jesus told His contemporaries that there is no day of rest so long as suffering exists, since it can spoil such rest. Let us not just seek Christ and take advantage of the salvation He freely grants us. Let us also see Him in our suffering brethren. Unless we consider any suffering as an urgent predicament, we have not even started to fathom what religion is all about, as Jesus so graphically illustrated.   

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand

[Michael37]

2 hours ago, Coliseum said:

Selfishness occupies our narrow views. Jesus told His contemporaries that there is no day of rest so long as suffering exists, since it can spoil such rest.

Puts me in mind of a recent passage we discussed at our in-home fellowship: 

2Th 1:3-8
(3)  We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other,
(4)  so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure,
(5)  which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer;
(6)  since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you,
(7)  and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
(8)  in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 

[Sower]

3 hours ago, Coliseum said:

Unless we consider any suffering as an urgent predicament, we have not even started to fathom what religion is all about, as Jesus so graphically illustrated.   

Your intent simply escapes me.
I have always considered trials/suffering as to be endured, the cost of living in a fragile body of corrupted flesh.
Then try to focus more on my blessings, giving thanks, and wait upon the Lord for the hopeful delivery from suffering.
I do not see the 'urgent predicament', and cannot remember Jesus in any rush. Just the opposite.
I understand getting the ox from the well,  or, from the ditch, or helping someone needing help quickly.
One should also be a partaker of the fruits of his labor. Including the ox.
I suppose my view of Jesus is more a composed sitting with the people and patiently teaching.
I have never thought of him in an emergency situation, as if He didn't know what was going to happen.
Maybe the completing of the work His Father gave Him to do?
At a loss Coliseum, as I'm trying to understand you.
                         Edit
***Sorry, just noticed the post was a quote from another.***

[Michael37]

7 minutes ago, Sower said:

***Sorry, just noticed the post was a quote from another.***

Wurmbrand no less. Personally I don't enjoy "fanatical" and "hysterical" methods of serving God, but I agree to fervency as instructed in Scripture.

Luk 22:15  Then He said to them, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
Act 18:25  This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John.
Rom_12:11  not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;
Jas 5:16  Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
1Pe 4:8  And above all things have fervent love for one another, for "LOVE WILL COVER A MULTITUDE OF SINS."

STRONGS G2204
ζέω
zeō
dzeh'-o
A primary verb; to be hot (boil, of liquids; or glow, of solids), that is, (figuratively) be fervid (earnest): - be fervent.
Total KJV occurrences: 2

[Coliseum]

30 minutes ago, Sower said:

Your intent simply escapes me.
I have always considered trials/suffering as to be endured, the cost of living in a fragile body of corrupted flesh.
Then try to focus more on my blessings, giving thanks, and wait upon the Lord for the hopeful delivery from suffering.
I do not see the 'urgent predicament', and cannot remember Jesus in any rush. Just the opposite.
I understand getting the ox from the well,  or, from the ditch, or helping someone needing help quickly.
One should also be a partaker of the fruits of his labor. Including the ox.
I suppose my view of Jesus is more a composed sitting with the people and patiently teaching.
I have never thought of him in an emergency situation, as if He didn't know what was going to happen.
Maybe the completing of the work His Father gave Him to do?
At a loss Coliseum, as I'm trying to understand you.
                         Edit
***Sorry, just noticed the post was a quote from another.***

It is ok. But let Richard Wurmbrand defend himself, and please accept that this was relevant to the Sabbath as I shared in my opening sentences. Please read on:

"The falling of an ox into a well, was indeed a dire emergency that would not have allowed its owner to have an easy day. In fact, it might have wrecked more than the Sabbath, and perhaps his whole livelihood. A drowned ox was a big loss, for it was the animal used to pull the plow and thus obtain a crop of wheat to feed the family. If the ox had not drowned, imagine the disturbance created by the bellowing of the desperate animal. How could the owner tried to pray or rest? The donkey was used for transportation and for carrying loads. Its falling into a well must have been, in those times, a bigger disaster than wrecking a car nowadays. Also, how long could a family survive without water? Thus, the situation could not be ignored or postponed. There is no step by step procedure on how to hoist an ox out of a well, yet great skill is needed. The animal could not be made to climb or back out of the well. Known tricks to entice the animal with food or beating it, any threats would be useless. The one suffering the loss would try all orthodox and unorthodox methods, use all approved and unapproved, pleasant and unpleasant means, in order to get his animal out, in whatever shape. There is no indication as to how much time or financial and emotional effort the task would take. No expense would be spared for the situation would be desperate and the only wish would be for mercy. The owner would work frantically against time and most likely alone, for the place is narrow. Such a disaster occurs suddenly. A small slip and the damage is done.  It is necessary to consider all these angles in order to grasp what Jesus tried to reveal; how dependent we are on God's help and mercy. A man who had been totally paralyzed for 38 years had not the remotest chance of jumping into the pool, for divine healing. Yet suddenly, because Jesus intervened, he was walking, even carrying his bed. (John 5:4) This unheard-of event was interfering with religious practices that demanded total rest.  Christ's contemporaries, in their religious fervor, were performing their routines, while many a cripple attended the Sabbath temple service. Such suffering did not disturb them.  Under the ‘Pretense of keeping the Sabbath' the contemporaries of CHRIST were unwittingly denying the sick unique opportunities to be healed and praise God for such miracles. Jesus reproached the Pharisees for not entering the Kingdom of Heaven themselves and as well preventing the entrance of others. This is why the Lord Jesus told His generation that there is no time to rest so long as everyone of us, so to speak, has his ox down the well."

I hope this helps some. God bless you.

[lftc]

18 hours ago, Coliseum said:

Let us also see Him in our suffering brethren. Unless we consider any suffering as an urgent predicament, we have not even started to fathom what religion is all about, as Jesus so graphically illustrated.

A good reminder of the primary mission with the New Commandment.

Wurmbrand's use of the word religion may be misleading to some in the current western world, where the term is more of a pejorative.  In his context it meant the body of the Christ, the true church, refined by persecution to those that truly know Jesus.  No one just stays a believer because there are some good principles to learn and apply.  Not when you probably will pay for those good principles with torture and death.

Thank you for posting it, Coliseum.

Regarding your screen name:  are there still lions in your life?

[Coliseum]

1 hour ago, lftc said:

A good reminder of the primary mission with the New Commandment.

Wurmbrand's use of the word religion may be misleading to some in the current western world, where the term is more of a pejorative.  In his context it meant the body of the Christ, the true church, refined by persecution to those that truly know Jesus.  No one just stays a believer because there are some good principles to learn and apply.  Not when you probably will pay for those good principles with torture and death.

Thank you for posting it, Coliseum.

Regarding your screen name:  are there still lions in your life?

Very strange to ask if there are lions in my life. If I compare myself to Richard Wurmbrand, who was tortured and suffered unspeakably and yet, when God asked him his name, he shamefully bowed his head and said to the Lord, "Jesus...I have no name. May I take your name"? Then I must confess more so that there are no lions. They devoured Christians, and I must ask in light of the answer Richard gave, how much less of one am I. Yet, only by his immeasurable grace, and for no other reason, He chose me. 

In prison, where many Christians gathered, one in particular---a Priest---never seemed to do anything wrong. The others asked, "If he does not sin, what hope is there for us"? Then, once in a heated argument amongst them, the Priest shouted in anger. They all said, "Oh Jesus. Thank you. Now there is hope for us too." I say, like them, "Thank you Jesus. There is hope for me too, a sinner."

Edited November 3, 2019 by Coliseum

[lftc]

27 minutes ago, Coliseum said:

Very strange to ask if there are lions in my life. If I compare myself to Richard Wurmbrand, who was tortured and suffered unspeakably and yet, when God asked him his name, he shamefully bowed his head and said to the Lord, "Jesus...I have no name. May I take your name"? Then I must confess more so that there are no lions. They devoured Christians, and I must ask in light of the answer Richard gave, how much less of one am I. Yet, only by his immeasurable grace, and for no other reason, He chose me. 

In prison, where many Christians gathered, one in particular---a Priest---never seemed to do anything wrong. The others asked, "If he does not sin, what hope is there for us"? Then, once in a heated argument amongst them, the Priest shouted in anger. They all said, "Oh Jesus. Thank you. Now there is hope for us too." I say, like them, "Thank you Jesus. There is hope for me too, a sinner."

I'm sure this is the first time you found my posts to be strange. (self focused sarcasm)

I thank you for the answer you gave, explaining by way of Wurmbrand that you do struggle with sin.  As we all do.

And I am sorry that I was not clear in the question.  I was thinking about the subject, caring about other people in their suffering, and I wondered if your screen name implied that there was some level of suffering occuring in your life.  As I have been somewhat of a student of early and middle Roman history, the mention of the Coliseum brings a whole spectrum of thoughts in my mind, none of them pleasant, all of them highly educational for this present age.  The Coliseum was the temple for the blood worship of human suffering, allowing self-focused people to indulge in the illicit pleasure of watching hated people suffer then the self-focused people could return home to eat, drink and be merry.  Not that your screen name makes me think that you want those things, but rather, thinking in love, that you viewed yourself as one of the hated objects on which people pour out their judgement.

Did I dig a deeper hole, or does that make it clear that I was asking out of concern for your well being?

[Coliseum]

16 minutes ago, lftc said:

I'm sure this is the first time you found my posts to be strange. (self focused sarcasm)

I thank you for the answer you gave, explaining by way of Wurmbrand that you do struggle with sin.  As we all do.

And I am sorry that I was not clear in the question.  I was thinking about the subject, caring about other people in their suffering, and I wondered if your screen name implied that there was some level of suffering occuring in your life.  As I have been somewhat of a student of early and middle Roman history, the mention of the Coliseum brings a whole spectrum of thoughts in my mind, none of them pleasant, all of them highly educational for this present age.  The Coliseum was the temple for the blood worship of human suffering, allowing self-focused people to indulge in the illicit pleasure of watching hated people suffer then the self-focused people could return home to eat, drink and be merry.  Not that your screen name makes me think that you want those things, but rather, thinking in love, that you viewed yourself as one of the hated objects on which people pour out their judgement.

Did I dig a deeper hole, or does that make it clear that I was asking out of concern for your well being?

Brother, I too have suffered, but we all do according to how Jesus allows. I have had things happen to me that I know people would never believe. I have witnessed and have been part of in the scientific community things that left me fearfully overwhelmed. I never speak of those things just like my father in WWII never wanted to tell me about the German soldier he had to kill to stay alive. There are things left unsaid because of the pain remembered.

I appreciate you thinking of me as I have you from time to time. I have always appreciated you. I can tell you that Richard Wurmbrand was a beyond phenomenal giant of the faith and a man who is my modern hero. I have written to his son, Michael, several times, who lives in Romania and was subject as a boy being left out to die while both his parents were in prison for their love for Jesus. When the husband of a family was imprisoned, no allowance was given to a family by the government to sustain them. Richard was told that his son was dead, and his wife Sabina turned to prostitution---none of it was true. Sabina forgave the man who killed her entire family, and in tears brought him to Christ. I could go on, but just to say that like @Abby-Joy, who shared her heart of the many things in her life that were unimaginably true, so I say absolutely they can be just as she described. I have a heart for my sister who many have denied. There are truths in this world too hard to fathom, and it is why when there come times of persecution, then Christians understand a small impact of the price our beautiful Savior paid for us.

Thank you so much for asking.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Coliseum

[lftc]

4 minutes ago, Coliseum said:

There are truths in this world too hard to fathom, and it is why when there come times of persecution, then Christians understand a small impact of the price our beautiful Savior paid for us.

And begin to understand that the Kingdom of God is not like this world.  And then want to be like Jesus.

I ask the Father to bless your day today.