COME, LET’S DO THE MATH!
September 23, 2025
God, Jesus & the Saints v. Lucifer, Satan, the Devil, the Ancient Serpent, the Dragon
September 23, 2025COME, LET’S DO THE MATH!
September 23, 2025God, Jesus & the Saints v. Lucifer, Satan, the Devil, the Ancient Serpent, the Dragon
September 23, 2025SIMILE: “The Bible is like …”
The Bible is like a Keyboard! You can’t play the best music with only the black keys or only the white keys. You have to use all the keys to make the best music. You can’t make the best music with only the high notes or only the low notes. You have to use all the notes.
The Bible is like a multi-faceted Gemstone! Think of the Bible like a huge diamond with many facets. You hold it in your two hands and turn it this way and that way. You can’t see all of it at once, but you feel its weight and every way you turn it is beautiful. Rainbow lights flash out in all directions as you turn it in the sunlight and marvel at its beauty and radiance. It’s endlessly fascinating and wondrous.
The Bible is like an Owner’s Manual! If you buy a bicycle, a motorcycle, or a car, it comes with an Owner’s Manual from the manufacturer who made it. The Owner’s Manual explains the many different parts and tells you how to care for it, how to maintain it, and how to repair it if something goes wrong. You don’t want to run out of gas, but you probably will. You don’t want to have a flat tire, but you probably will. You’ve got to keep the brakes in good working condition. You’ve got to change the oil according to a regular schedule. So it is with us and the Bible! God is the maker, the manufacturer, the Creator. We are His finest creation and He grants us His creative power at the highest level in making our own children as loving couples in “one flesh” marriage. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within” and “The Kingdom of Heaven is a hand.” Well, if you have a good relationship with God, the Kingdom of Heaven is “within” your heart, mind, and spirit; and if you have a good relationship with your neighbors, the Kingdom of Heaven is literally “at hand.” If something goes wrong in your relationship with God, read the Bible! Return to him! Repent! Revive! If something goes wrong in your relationship with your siblings or friends, read the Bible! Find out the sorts of things that can go wrong in human relationships in the huge variety of “Bible Stories” and consider how to make things right. And who is your closest “neighbor”? It’s your husband or wife! If you have a problem in your marriage relationship, read the Bible and find out how to apologize, forgive, get back to basics, and keep God as the Central Partner in your marriage covenant commitment.
And why do we have to read and study the whole Bible? If you don’t read the whole Bible, you won’t learn how Joshua’s curse on the man who rebuilds Jericho in Joshua 6:26 falls upon Hiel who rebuilds the city in 1 Kings 16:34. If you don’t read the whole Bible, you might imagine wrongly that the “serpent” of Genesis 3:1 is a mere snake and not understand more deeply from Revelation 12:9 that the Serpent is the Devil. If you only read John 1:1, you know that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” but you don’t realize from Proverbs 8 that Wisdom is also God’s eternal companion and feminine counterpart – “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old.” And if we don’t read the whole Bible and “put the pieces together” like a jigsaw puzzle, we won’t understand that God’s promise of a New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-34 is fulfilled in the person of Jesus at the Last Supper when he says, “This is my blood of the New Covenant.” (Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20) The Bible begins with the Creation in Genesis 1 & 2 and the Bible ends with the New Creation in Revelation 21 & 22.
1 Corinthians 7:1-11 – [Paul’s sage advice concerning marriage begins here.] “In order to avoid sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except by common consent for a limited time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; but come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. .. It is better to marry than to burn with passion. .. A wife is not to depart from her husband, and a husband is not to divorce his wife.”
Ephesians 5:22-33 – “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. .. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. .. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ‘For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and unite with his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church. Let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” [See also Colossians 3:18-19]
Revelation 1:8 & 11 and 22:13 – “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, says the Lord.” [Reflect deeply on what I call “Biblical Symmetry” – Genesis 1 & 2 is the Creation, while Revelation 21 & 22 is the New Creation. Sin & evil enter the world in Genesis 3 and are destroyed in Revelation 20. Marriage is depicted in Genesis 4:1-2 and Revelation 19:7 – “The marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.” * The Bible ends as it begins!]
The Bible is like a Keyboard! You can’t play the best music with only the black keys or only the white keys. You have to use all the keys to make the best music.
