PASTORAL CHAT

Keeping count of Earthquakes

1. Six Earthquakes in 3 months and 3 weeks! Every earthquake is a reminder of His Coming and the end of the world! (Matt. 24:3, 7)

From Dec 26, 04 the terrible undersea tsunami that killed 300,000 to April 16 there are 5 more earthquakes. No. 2 killed 500 more in Iran and No.3 shook Japan. No. 4 was another big one that shook the island of Nias, killed 2,000, the reading was 8.7 on the Richter scale. No. 5 struck Padang, South Sumatra which affected Singaporeans, sending 700 running down the buildings. The 6th quake struck Nias again reading 6.2 scaring people running to higher ground. This happened as recent as Saturday, April 16, 05.

2. Do you know since the great tsunami of Dec 26, 04 till May 15, 05, 4½ months there have been 8 earthquakes, i.e. Jesus is reminding us His Coming is very, very near and we should be winning souls before He comes.

3. Let me now add one more, No. 9 which took place in Japan last week, and 27 were hurt in Tokyo which caused the stopping for one day of the bullet train and flying out of Tokyo.

I preached on the coming of Christ in conjunction with earthquakes some years ago and a B-P pastor criticised me for scaring our members. Now that I have counted 9 earthquakes in 6 to 7 months I cannot be scaring people. I am getting my members to look up and not look down upon the world lest they be left out!

– T. T.

 

 

GENESIS

Notes From A Weekly Study Conducted by Pastor Quek
(Taken from Newsletter of Cherith Fellowship, Vol. 1 Issue 3, July 2005, edited by J.T. Joseph)

CHAPTER 4
Verse 7
‘… shall be his desire …’: the reference may be to Abel’s desire to rule over Cain – cf. Gen. 3:16; ‘… and thou [Cain] shalt rule over him …’ right of the older brother.

Verse 8
The act was clearly premeditated. Cain was angry at God, but knew he could not touch Him > took it out on Abel, who was closer to God than Cain.
Note the rapid progression of ‘total depravity’, after Adam’s fall. Those with a ‘low view’ of sin would have us believe that a long period of time had elapsed after the Fall. Not so, for we see the first two humans born after that event, well and truly schooled in sin.

Verse 9
God confronted Cain. He wanted the lad to face the issue squarely, and repent. It’s a mistake to avoid confrontation just to preserve a semblance of peace> tends to lead merely to a truce, and not reconciliation.

Verse 9 [last part]
A Christian is his brother’s keeper. With (saving) knowledge of Christ comes Christian responsibility. Neutrality or procrastination are both unacceptable.

Verse 12
The hard labour imposed on Cain was to allow him less time for devising mischief.

Verses 13 – 24
The twofold division of the human race is demonstrated in the distinction between Cain and Abel. We can only assume that Adam and Eve loved their sons equally, and had instructed both in the knowledge of God as the boys grew to manhood. What we see manifested in Cain and Abel are therefore innate (spiritual) differences.

Outwardly pious, and keeping the ceremonial observances relating to worship of the one, true and living God, Cain – in time –showed his true colours.

This conflict between the two spiritual lines of humanity continues unabated, and Satan seems, in our time, to have the upper hand. We know, however, that ‘the God of peace shall bruise Satan under [our] feet shortly’ [Rom. 16:20]. God’s punishment of Cain may therefore be seen as the archetype of the final punishment to be exacted upon the Serpent –his eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire.

By application, those who obey not the gospel of Christ will ‘be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power’ [II Thess. 1:9].

God’s curse did elicit from Cain a clear recognition of his lifelong guilt, and concomitant sorrow: he cries out that the punishment of his iniquity [5771/‘aw-vone’] is hardly bearable – not that it was undeserved.

Whilst this may not have been sorrow unto repentance, it shows that he, at least, had sobered up: gone was the pride with which he had earlier decided what offering God should be pleased to receive from him.

God spared his life, not exacting the death penalty imposed from Gen. 9:6 onwards. In part, this left the door open for repentance, properly so-called. In part also, Cain’s restless wandering served as a stark reminder to the antediluvians of the consequences of disregarding God’s holy law.

The world from Cain to the Flood was utterly unlike that after the deluge. Civilisation rapidly became advanced, aided by the unique and uniform climate worldwide. The ‘waters above’ or vapour canopy [no rain, as yet] produced an elevated atmospheric pressure, and doubtless filtered radiation far more thoroughly than the postdiluvian atmosphere  subsequently was able to do. This, perhaps, could account for the near-thousand year life span that was the norm.

Moreover, the gene pool was pristine: brother marrying sister [they had no other option in respect of fulfilling God’s injunction to be fruitful and multiply] had none of the deleterious side-effects that, by the time of Moses, led God to prohibit consanguineous marriages.

The rest of Chapter 4 lists the main descendants of Cain: Enoch [dedication], Irad [man of the town or city], Mehujael [God gives life], Methusael [God’s man], Lamech [conqueror]; the latter’s three sons are listed also – Jabal [wanderer], Jubal [sound], and Tubal-cain [the inventor of metallurgy, both of bronze and iron].

Mark the man, Lamech. He appears to have inspired the Cainites to defy God in matters small and great. Most  noticeably, he despised God’s injunction of ‘one man-one wife, for life’, and entered into a bigamous relationship with two women, Adah [ornament] and Zillah [shade]. Their names suggest physical beauty, which leads one to suspect that Lamech was moved more by lust than a desire for companionship.

Thus did humanity commence its downward spiral.

There is no evidence, throughout the Cainitic period, of organised government, or a system of laws to regulate society. There was as yet no human agency to superintend standards of behaviour or worship. Some heeded the patriarch Adam’s injunction and obeyed the eternal God; most, however, went in the way of Cain – or Lamech, rather.

Verses 25 – 26
The Promised Line is preserved: God “appoints” a substitute for Abel, in and through the birth of Seth [substituted]. We read that Eve named the baby, whereas 5:3 indicates that Adam did the naming. This may indicate that, though man was – and still is – the God-appointed head of the family, he would customarily consult his God-appointed life-partner in most matters.

Note that whilst Adam is declared to be in the ‘likeness of God’ [Gen. 5:1], Seth is said to be in Adam’s likeness [5:3]. Indubitably, Seth took on the fallen nature of his father [Rom. 5:12-14].

We should, at this stage, keep three points in mind:

• God instituted the chosen line and preserved it throughout history.
• God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, was being amply fulfilled.
• God’s curse upon the world, and man in particular, remained in effect, the long life-spans of the antediluvian patriarchs notwithstanding Verse 26 ‘… then began men to call upon the name of the LORD …’

 

Did this mark the commencement of regular worship of the one, true and living God?

Perhaps not.

With the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, God also appointed a place and time when men could approach Him, under certain conditions, to offer worship and to hear His word.

The first such occasion was when God instituted the principle of substitutionary atonement, teaching the meaning thereof to Adam and Eve. They, in turn, must have taught the manner of approaching God, to Cain and Abel. (It is worth reiterating that God may not be approached without the blood of the substitutionary atonement ‘covering’ the nakedness engendered by the guilt of sin.)

Thus, 4:3, 5 would have not been the first time the two brothers came up to make their offering [i.e., worship] to God. The words, ‘in process of time’ literally mean, ‘at the end of the days’, suggesting regularity in the practice of worship.

If God had been pleased to accept Cain’s offerings hitherto, then we may conclude that he, too, had followed God’s prescription as to the manner of worship.

In other words, he (initially, at least) followed his brother’s practice – Gen. 4:4 –doubtless buying the sheep he would have needed from Abel. He would, moreover, have been counselled along these lines by his brother who, though younger, was a prophet [Abel – first in the line of prophets: see Luke 11:49-51]

Life went awry after that fateful day when Cain slew Abel. The practice of individual worship, at least by the faithful, would nevertheless have continued, until the time of Verse 26 when men began to call on the name of God. This phrase thus signifies the commencement of regular, public or corporate worship of Jehovah.

Calling on the name of the one, true and living God – then as now – presupposes childlike faith in ‘Him who is invisible’.