Understanding Olam

The Importance of Defining Bible Words

Every time we fail to define a word as God used that word in the Bible, we open the door to believing something that God simply did not teach. For example, those who redefine the word “baptism” to include sprinkling allow individuals to believe that infant baptism is what God intended. There is another word, the Hebrew word olam, which is often misunderstood and which leads many to wrong conclusions about what God actually taught.

How should olam be understood

How should “olam” be understood?

The Hebrew word is often translated as “eternal,” “perpetual” and “forever.” The Jehovah Witnesses try to find proof here that, while 144,000 will enter heaven, the rest of mankind will be on the earth, for “…the earth abides forever (Hebrew word is olam)” (Ecc. 1:4). The Seventh Day Adventists, who want to find proof that God intended for the Sabbath to be kept even in the Christian age, find the verses which say the Sabbath was to be “a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever (olam)” (Ex. 31:17). The problem is that these denominations fail to understand the word olam (translated as “forever” in these passages above). The Hebrew word does not convey the same meaning as the English word “forever.”

How can we see that this is true? How do we show the true meaning of the Hebrew word olam? It is a simple process. Just look at the other things in the Old Testament which were to abide olam (forever). Just let God define the word.

What things did the Old Testament describe as being olam? Genesis 17:13 affirms that circumcision as a religious act was to abide forever. The same is true of the Passover (Ex. 12:14-17); slavery (Ex. 21:6); the Levitical priest wearing bonnets and girdles (Ex. 29:9);  the priests washing their hands and feet as a religious act (Ex. 30:21-22); the entire Levitical priesthood (Lev. 7:34-36); the blowing of trumpets on the first day of every month (Num. 10:8); the perpetual existence of the stones placed at the crossing of the Jordan (Josh. 4:7); and the amount of time Samuel would serve at the temple (1 Sam. 1:22). The word olam is found in every one of the verses listed in this paragraph.

One cannot be honest in selecting verses to support the eternal earth or the eternal Sabbath while denying that the other things no longer are binding. All these things stand or fall together.

Then, what is the meaning of olam? It simply affirms that those things given were intended to be long lasting with no end in sight. It was God’s assurance to Israel that His commands could be trusted by men. They were not temporary. They were established by God, and He alone would determine when they would end.

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That’s Not Love

When Love Really Isn’t Love

There are a great number of religious bodies today which advertise themselves as loving bodies of believers. This is fantastic and the way Christ’s Church should be identified. In fact, Jesus told his disciples the following in John 13:35: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another”. The Bible has much to say about love. A scan of I Corinthians 13 lists a great number of attributes of love including patience, kindness, a lack of arrogance, proper behavior, and a desire for others betterment. God is love (I John 4:8). Jesus is the image of his father (John 14:7). Jesus Body is the Church (Colossians 1:24). Consequently, to know the Church is to know true love.

do you ignore wrong in the name of love

Do you ignore wrong in the name of love?

When is love not really love? Consider the mother who loves her son so much she cannot discipline him. A lot of these children seem to be found at the grocery store. Little Johnnie wants this, wants that, wants the other. “Yes, Yes, Yes”, mother gives in every time except one. “No”. What is the reaction of little loved Johnnie? Plug the ears. Johnnie throws himself on the floor and starts screaming. Mom starts pleading and negotiating to get him to stop. “No” becomes “Yes”, all supposedly in the name of love. How about the mom and dad who buy their children booze so they won’t go out and drive drunk. Is that true love? Perhaps true love is when mom and dad let their teenager go out alone with the opposite sex, hormones racing. A large amount of folks have no problem with this. How many of these young people experience the hands and lips of another person all over them and won’t end up marrying that person? How would they like these moments videotaped and shown to their future spouse? Even worse, how many of these arrangements end up with unplanned pregnancies or worse yet abortions? Purity lost from the first touch, dreams shattered, potential murder, all because they were loved so much they weren’t chaperoned and potentially embarrassed by the presence of mom or dad. True love? How loving is it to offer the child the choice of whether or not to attend Church? Certainly with infinite teenage knowledge, the teenagers know what is best for their life. True Love or not?

Many churches today advertise themselves as a non-judgmental church. The Church will accept anyone regardless of their behaviors because they are loved. Homosexual? No problem. Pedophile? No problem. Lying to the government about your birth certificate? No problem. Cheating on your taxes? No problem. Whatever sin you are in, it’s alright, because you are loved. There is no question God loves all men as should the Church (Romans 8:35-39). However, God also commands all men everywhere to repent of their sins (Acts 17:30). When sinners don’t repent God doesn’t leave them, they leave God (Isaiah 59:1-2). Scripture establishes that Christians should not be a stumbling block for sin by enabling it (I Corinthians 8:10-13). Christians are not to fellowship with sin (James 4:4, I Corinthians 15:33). If Christians do not tell others of their sin so they can repent and be forgiven in Christ, then they too are guilty of sin (James 4:17). The Church is told to break fellowship with those who will not give up their sin (Romans 16:17, Ephesians 5:11). Is ignoring the commands of God true love (I John 5:2)? This is what must be done if many modern religious bodies are listened to today.

In I Corinthians 5, the Corinthian Church is faced with an individual who is having a sexual relationship with his father’s wife. This is clearly a case of adultery and a sin (Matthew 5:27-28, Galatians 5:19-21). Yet, the Church cared about these people. Maybe they had a number of relatives in the Church. Maybe the Church members had known these folks their whole lives. So out of love, they chose not to say or do anything about the sin that was occurring. What wonderful Christians they felt they were! Here an awful sin was occurring in their midst. It certainly had to be embarrassing and awful to someone (perhaps the father?). Yet, because there was so much love, the sin just kept on going with no objection. What a great example for the youth of the Church! How mighty these Corinthian Christians were!

Paul doesn’t seem to take the view that ignoring the sin was acceptable. In fact, he chastises the church for their arrogance about how great their love was. He establishes love does not ignore sin. He exhorts the Corinthians turn the sinner over to Satan as he would. In other words, turn the sinner out to the world and the lusts therein. They were to get rid of the wickedness. Gasp! What a harsh cruel thing. Feelings could get hurt. Hopefully, shame would result in such a situation as well (Jeremiah 6:15). It is far better to have shame instead of spiritual destruction (Matthew 10:28). Proper shame brings about Godly sorrow and repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). The inspired Paul wrote the God breathed words of I Corinthians 13 concerning love. He also wrote the God breathed words of I Corinthians 5. What he saw happening in Corinth was not love, but sinfulness.

Sometimes men operate from their own state of logic. They base their decisions on their own wisdom. However, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men; the weakness of God is stronger than men”. Enabling a drug addict is not love. Enabling a sinner is not love. Giving a gun to a suicidal person is not love. Encouraging sin by a sinner is not love. True love has the other person’s best interests at heart. The calling of God is to purity and eternal life (Matthew 5:8). Consider the advertising of a loving Church. Does it call for adherence to the commands of God and express a concern for the soul of the individual? Is a loving attitude expressed with an offer of help to escape the sins of the world? This is true love. If the call is for the individual simply to stay as they are, then that is when love really isn’t love.

2 Peter 3:9 – The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

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Where’s the Blush?

Grieving Over Sin

do you blush or feel shame over sin

Do You Blush or Feel Shame Over Sin?

The prophet Jeremiah lived among people who had become insensitive toward sin. Through the prophet God declared, “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD” (Jer. 6:15).  We too, live in a generation that is insensitive toward sin and wickedness.  Like those in Jeremiah’s time most do not even blush at the immorality and ungodliness around them.  In fact, there are many, “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” (Rom. 1:32).

Now, the people of God, regardless of the acceptance of evil around them, should always sorrow concerning sin and the shortcomings it brings.  Jeremiah was one who wept concerning the wickedness of his generation and the punishment that they would face.  In Jer. 9:1-6, Jeremiah fled into the wilderness, far away from his people because of such corruption which made life unbearable.  He wept because they were adulterers, treacherous men, deceiving their brother and neighbors, filled with lies, trading evil for evil, and had forgotten the Lord.  This sounds much like our society who no longer hold sanctity in marriage, who let lies prevail in the land, where evil is traded for evil and where many do not know God.  Jeremiah cried out, “But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears . . .” (Jer. 13:17).  But, what is your attitude toward wickedness?  Are you like Jeremiah who sorrowed over these things?  Is your heart pained at the evil around you? Do you blush at vulgarity and immodesty, or does it not bother you?

The people of God should always be grieved over sin.  The psalmist declared, “Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.” (Psa. 119:136).  Centuries later the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in which he stated with affliction and anguish of heart, he wrote them with “many tears” (2 Cor. 2:4).  It was sin and wickedness of his brethren that brought him to tears.  We are not told if Jesus shed a tear while He face the torturous death on the cross.  But the Scriptures tell us as He approached the city of Jerusalem shortly before His death He “wept over it” (Lk. 19:41) saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt. 23:37).

Those who love God not only blush at sin, but lament over sin and wickedness.  They turn from it and seek forgiveness through repentance and baptism (Acts 3:19; 22:16).  They then strive to live faithfully and turn others from unrighteousness (Matt. 5:13-16).

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Medicinal Wine

Looking at Timothy and Paul’s Wine Command

In First Timothy 5:23, Paul writes to Timothy, “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.” Occasionally, I hear people say, “Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine for his illness. Therefore, it is all right for me to drink a little wine once in a while, it is all right for me to drink a little alcoholic beverage every once in a while, or it is all right for me to drink a little beer every once in a while, because Paul instructed Timothy to do that.”

there is no question that wine is not always alcoholic

There is no question that wine is not always alcoholic.

However, let us notice the context. Friends, Paul was writing to a man whom he described as his “son in the faith” (1 Tim. 1:12), and on this occasion, Timothy was a sick individual, physically speaking. The indication is that he had been drinking water, and many scholars suggest to us that there was something wrong with the water that Timothy had been drinking [i.e., cholera outbreak]. Because it was bad water, Paul says to him, “Do not drink any more water, because the water is not helping your condition any more. Drink a little wine.”

Of course, it was not wrong to drink all “wine,” because this biblical term also referred to non-alcoholic, non-fermented grape juice. In this issue, please read about the process of fermentation and see the differences between taking grape juice and deliberately creating a fermented beverage that is intoxicating and would actually make one drunk. Obviously, I have never heard of a man who was addicted to Welch’s grape juice, but I know of many who are alcoholics and drink the intoxicating kind.

It is still difficult to be convinced that Paul recommended alcoholic wine to Timothy; it is not a foregone conclusion that this refers to inebriating wine, since the evidence from antiquity exists to suggest that he was referring to the addition of grape juice to his drinking water for medicinal purposes. However, let us grant that it was for just a moment. Please note the following: (1) Timothy had been abstinent up until this point—are we going to overlook this important trait of faithfulness in this godly young man? (2) The apostle Paul said, “…a little wine,” which ought not to endorse the type of socialized drinking for which people are searching for justification; (3) he would probably dilute the juice with water (or vice versa, mixing juice in with his water); (4) he gave the specific reason for doing so, which was medicinal in nature—not social, casual or recreational. In fact, one must not automatically assume that the wine itself possessed medical properties. The wine may have simply been the antiseptic means of purifying polluted water that Timothy had been drinking by killing germs and bacterial organisms. If so, then Paul was not commending wine, but commending a method of cleansing contaminated water; (5) it took the directive of an apostle for Timothy to introduce it into his life. If Timothy had been a drinker and had been involved with drinking in the past, Paul would not have had to tell him to do so. One ought to wonder if the Christian lifestyle that Timothy chose to follow would have been patterned in a similar fashion as the Nazarite vow, in which one would “separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried. All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk” (Num. 6:3-4).

Therefore, Paul said, “…take it for thy stomach’s sake and his infirmities.” People say, “Preacher, this passage gives me the right to drink wine, because Timothy did it on this one occasion for medicine, and I need a lot of medicine!” Friends, this passage does not legalize or endorse drinking alcoholic beverages. In fact, Paul goes on to say in First Thessalonians 5:22, “Abstain from all appearance of evil,” which Timothy was sure to do—so much so, that it took a directive from his mentor to aid him in overcoming his sickness. How we need more Christians who are as concerned with their influence in public! Should this be the case, I cannot think of anyone who would want to mislead anyone concerning the dangers that alcoholic beverages poses in our society!

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Born Again or Repent

Coming to Repentance

I recently had the privilege of preaching a sermon designed to answer the question, as to whether or not an accountable person, once baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of their sins early on, who then falls away from Christ and turns his/her back on Christ and His church for several decades, needs to be ‘re-baptized’ should they “come to their senses” and want to repent and return home to their Father and His house (Luke 15:11-24; 1 Timothy 3:15; hear full lesson at: http://www.clevelandcoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/474-4-5-15-PM-Should-I-Be-Re-Baptized.mp3).

should one be rebaptized to repent

Should one be “re-baptized” to repent?

During the delivery of that lesson, the definitive conclusion reached, was that no, they didn’t have to be baptized again as long as they were originally baptized for legitimate biblical reasons – and here’s why: Just as with a physical or biological family, once a baby is born into it, they are always a member of it – no matter how they may live their life afterward. Even if, after a baby is born into a physical family, they grow up and go off to live a terribly sinful and contrarian life for a while and then want to straighten out and return home, they don’t have to be physically conceived, carried, and born into the family again! Nicodemus tried that absurd line of reasoning once already – didn’t work then, won’t work now (John 3:4).

The same exact thing is also true in the spiritual world. Having been previously “born again of the water and the Spirit” as Jesus said one must be in order to see and enter the kingdom (or church, or family) of God (John 3:3-5); that is to say, once one has repented, and then by faith been baptized in water for the forgiveness or washing away of their sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38, 22:16), they have at that exact point, been “born again of the water and the Spirit” and thus have been born into and become a member of God’s family (Galatians 3:26-27).

But what happens if they then later fall away, or fall from grace (Psalm 101:3; Luke 8:13; Hebrews 3:12, 6:6; Galatians 5:4; And yes one can “fall away,” or “fall from grace” according to the bible: http://www.clevelandcoc.com/?page_id=130)? What happens if they turn their back on God their Father and go back into the world of sin (2 Peter 2:20-22)? Some might be inclined to exclaim, “Surely they cannot still be considered a child of God in such a sinful state… can they?”

Well, let us first look to the Scriptures for our answer. As we read the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, the son takes his inheritance and turns his back and travels away from his home, his family, and his father, and lives a terribly wanton, wasteful, wicked and sinful lifestyle. But despite all that, when he comes to his senses and decides to return to his father, how is he addressed by his father? Verse 24 says, “For this my son was dead…” He may have been living a dead and separated in his sins lifestyle, but he was still – and always had been, despite the worst of sins he had been committing and indulging in of late – still his father’s son and a member of the family! Of course his father didn’t approve of his sin! Of course he was acting as a woeful and sinful and awful son! But he was still a son and a member of the family – no matter how terribly an acting and/or erring one!

The same can be readily evidenced from the life of David, the “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22) and father of Absalom. Absalom was a sneaky, conniving, treacherous and bloodthirsty son, seeking to take both his father’s throne and life by force (see 2 Samuel, chapters 13-19). But when Absalom was finally killed in battle against his father’s forces which he was seeking to overthrow so as to kill his father as well, what did his father David do and how did he refer to Absalom?  And Joab was told, “Behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.” So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people. For the people heard it said that day, “The king is grieved for his son.” And the people stole back into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But the king covered his face, and the king cried out with a loud voice, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son” (2 Sam 19:1-4)!

Some of you may have had children which you raised in the church; children who obeyed the gospel early on but then later turned their backs on the Lord and His church and walked away from both their physical as well as their spiritual families and out into the swine fields of sin. Perhaps it went even further. Perhaps they wound up either incarcerated or incapacitated by their bad choices. Let me ask you a question: Are they still your child no matter what mess they might have gotten themselves into? Or, will they have to be born into the family again should they ever decide to return? No, of course not – they’re still your child! Now, there is no doubt they may have to repent and make some changes just like the prodigal did. They cannot “continue in sin that grace may abound! Certainly not” (Romans 6:1-2)! But as to their sonship, they are still sons – even if desperate and destitute ones – and yes, even when in the swine fields. This is why a person who was once born into the family of God by virtue of their being “born again of water and the Spirit” when baptized into Christ, in water, “for the forgiveness of their sins” and to “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38), need not be baptized or born again, again, upon their return home, should they have fallen away since. Many will need to make some major changes and commit themselves to some life-altering repentance when they return to their Father’s house for sure. But they are still children of the living God by virtue of the blood of Christ, and have been since their baptism – even if terribly erring and apostate ones in the interim.

Now; what happens if these still-children of God never decide to repent and return to their Father and His house? Well, like Absalom they make themselves enemies of their loving and adoring Father, and will undoubtedly perish in their rebellion. Yes, there will be actual children of God, suffering in eternal hell (Hebrews 10:26-31). And just like many Hollywood depictions of one-time police officers who turned to crime and were caught and imprisoned amongst those whom they once arrested and convicted, can you imagine the horrors that will be inflicted on those who were once faithful children of God, testifying against the impenitent reprobates whom they will now be spending eternity imprisoned alongside/amongst? Perhaps that’s a portion of what the Apostle Peter had in mind in 2 Peter 2:20-22.

Therefore, let us thank God for each and every rebellious member of the family that returns, and pray to God we can reach more of our erring brethren – yes our erring brothers and sisters still – before it’s too late!

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