synthesis
"Mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth"

Introduction
This week's synthesis is the first to go out from our new ministry office in Tekoa, Washington. Besides the main article and the guest contribution, you will want to look carefully at the brand new Signs of the Times section. We are living in time when another significant prophecy, made by Jesus Himself, is being fulfilled before our very eyes. 

Food For Thought
" And God has both raised up the Lord, and will also raise us  up by his own power." (1)

The Gospel in the Three Angels
of Revelation 14
 A few days ago, I received an email commentary from one of those types of people who are constantly at war with everyone who doesn't understand spiritual things exactly as they do.

In fact, even if you don't express a doctrine in just the right words to suit them, you will have your head cut off!

I'm always deeply saddened when I run into these types of people, because I'm convinced that deep inside, they are miserably unhappy people. Along with their overinflated pride of opinion, they simultaneously suffer deep insecurities because they have yet to see the magnificence of God's love for all of humanity, and the true worth of every soul, including themseves.

Their insecurities lead them to have to "build themselves up on the ruins of others" as one Christian author put it. They constantly have to prove that they are superior in intellect and in understanding to everyone who disagrees with them.

How do I know? Because I am too well, and very personally, acquinted with someone who was terminally afflicted with this disease. It took many years of masterful application of the balm of Gilead, (a deeper knowledge of God's love in the cross of Christ and of the deceitfulness of sin) by the Master Physician to cure that poor soul.

Sapphire Stone & the Ten Commandments
The email commentary I'm refering to began with, "It is discouraging to have to rebuttal [sic] someone's study."

Then the following offer was made: " $100 offered for anyone finding one of these that refer to the Ten Commandments." This was followed by a list of nine Scripture references that contain the word "sapphire."

The first reference was for Exodus 24:10. It says that when Moses was on Mount Sinai with God, while receiving the law, the stone under God's feet was "a paved work of a sapphire stone" that was as clear as the heavens. It is true that it says nothing about the ten commandments.

But in Deuteronomy 9:9 & 10, Moses explains, "When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water: And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly."

Sanctified Synthesis in Bible Study
Studying the Bible is like detective work. You have to study "line upon line, here a little, and there a little." (2) Then with a bit of sanctified logic you can synthesize a bigger picture than you would have been able to see from any one isolated text. 

In the case of the ten commandments, the Bible never actually says that it was written on sapphire stone. All it says it that God wrote the commandments onto a set of stone tablets that He Himself delivered to Moses.

But when you combine that with the realization that God had miraculously turned the ordinary stone on top of Mount Sinai into precious, clear blue sapphire gem stone, and when you also remember that God associated the color blue with the ten commandments (3) then it does no violence to the Word of God to assume that, in all likelihood, God cut His tablets of stone from out of the precious saphire gemstone that was under His feet on the mountaintop at the time He gave the tablets to Moses. The symbolism is beautiful and it is in perfect harmony with the ways of God. 

The logic that brings one to this conclusion is guided by specific revelations from the Scriptures, whereas the rebuttal to this assumption is based on little more than a desire to rebut.

Living God's Liberty
Since this opinion about blue sapphire tables of stone is not a matter of salvation, each believer has perfect liberty under God to believe, or to disbelieve, that the ten commandments were written on blue sapphire stone.

The poor soul that feels forced to turn this harmless assumption into a divisive argument merely shows that He has not yet understood the perfect law of liberty (4) that is rooted in pure, redemptive love. His behavior indicates that his self-centered and prideful birth-nature, that we all have, has not yet been changed by the power of the gospel.

If he had been made a new creation in Christ Jesus, he would have known how to graciously defer to the conscience of others in matters that are not salvational. (5) He would feel no need to diss (6) everyone who has enough independence of thought to hold a unique, but perfectly harmless, belief that he either can not or will not see.

The tree is known by the fruit that it bears. 

The Gospel in the Three Angels of Revelation 14
By now, you may be wondering what all this has to do with the title of this article. That's a good question. One which I will answer next week!  

NEXT WEEK: "The Gospel in the Three Angels of Revelation 14"

References:
1 1 Corinthians 6:14 
2 Isaiah 28:10-13
3 Numbers 15:38, 39
4 James 1:25
5 1 Corinthians 10:24-33
6 diss: "To show disrespect to, often by insult or criticism."  diss." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 15 Jul. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diss >.

Deeper Still
Are you often frustrated by our superficial use of God’s Word? I am.

It seems we have become satisfied with the little bit of information we receive from our surface reading and then go on as though we have ascertained all that the scriptures have to share on a given subject not realizing that we have, only at best, scratched the surface. 

I was speaking once to a group of people when I mentioned that we would be studying the scriptures throughout the eons of eternity. Afterwards a lady asked how that could be since we will be with the Lord and everything will have been fulfilled.

I find it interesting and disconcerting how tunnel-visioned we have become. In the precious Word of God we have the revelation of the plan of salvation that we have only begun to understand. This plan, having become reality, will indeed be the study of the saints throughout the eons of eternity as it is as infinitely incomprehensible as the Creator Himself.

So I ask the question, “Why are we satisfied with such a superficial understanding of the will, desire and plan of God now when we need so much more?”

In Colossians, Paul is commending the church and shares his prayer for them that is also for the believers of all ages. It is especially for those who are living in these last days of earth’s history.

"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."

You see, we have it in the scriptures that we can, and in all reality need to have the knowledge of the will of God with “all” wisdom and spiritual understanding. Why, why do we not seek for this as for “hidden treasure?” Why are we not pursuing this as though our very lives depended upon it? And they do! 

synthesis is e-published on Friday (USA) of each week by New Reformation Ministries, Intl.  

New Reformation Ministries International  is a faith ministry dependent on God to supply needs through His riches in glory and through gifts of gratitude from His faithful people in the world.

New Reformation Ministries, Intl · PO Box 777 · Tekoa, WA 99033