JUBILEE

On one of this writer's several trips through Africa, in Kenya, I stayed at the world famous Treetops Hotel. A hotel with 50 rooms built in the trees, and since 1932 has been a place where people can watch wild animals come to watering holes and places for food. I have also stayed at Tiger Tops in India. You just never know what type animals will appear.

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Phillip, were at Treetops in 1952 when she learned her father, King George VI had died and she was the ruling monarch of the United Kingdom. A kingdom encircling the earth...Canada, Australia, India, etc.

This is the Queen's jubilee year, 50 years as Queen of England. Last week ten other crowned heads celebrated with her at Windsor Castle. This writer was at Windsor, Edinburgh but never at Buckingham. Buckingham Palace has 175 rooms, 70 bathrooms, a staff comprising a small army for one 86 year old woman and 90 year old man.

The word jubilee does not appear in the Bible but we know that there was a 50 year celebration, a time when all debts were forgiven (Leviticus 25:8-55). Just as the land was supposed to lie fallow every seven years, Sabbath for the land, so debts were forgiven as a Sabbath and perhaps this was God's action when the 650,000 captives were taken to Babylon for seventy years. Perhaps some significance when Nehemiah returned with 50,000 to rebuild the temple.

God does not waste words. You can depend on His promises, provisions, laws of conduct.

Do not depend on Joel Osteen's “study bible”. Poor Joel is just an entertainer, tickling the ears of thousands who want a cafeteria religion where they can pick and choose the things they want to believe. (The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. Matthew 4:16) Only those who have walked in darkness, even dead, know the joy and brightness of the light of Christ. Champion boxer George Foreman said, “When I was born again I felt I had been raised from the dead.” We know that the unsaved prefer darkness to light (John 3:19). Before the foundation of the world, God chose those He wanted to share eternity with his Son. He scans the universe protecting them. As the apostle Paul tells us, we are to live a separated life (Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called [to be] an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. Romans 1:1). Do you really think that Joel, his large stadium church, the people who laugh and clap through his message, think they are separated from the world, the flesh, the devil? Just as with a barrel of apples, a basket of potatoes, cancer cells in healthy tissue, there must be separation if all are not contaminated.

It is a hard trip, a journey not a destination. The Children of Israel wore shoes of iron and brass (Thy shoes [shall be] iron and brass; and as thy days, [so shall] thy strength [be]. Duet. 33:25). He promised them strength and provisions for one day at a time. Joel and so many prosperity preachers would have you prepare for a life of leisure. Even God designed birds to build nests not barns. He knew it would be a tough trip, no flip-flops, even combat boots. Christianity is serious business, God does not mess around.

In God's hands, no darkness will come to us that He does not allow, economic woes, sickness. We are no different from the world if we depend on what we can do or what government and the world can do for us. Our own works are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Trust in God, not experiences or anything else. God gave Himself the name, Lord of Hosts (The LORD of hosts [is] with us; the God of Jacob [is] our refuge. Selah. Psalm 46:7 & 11). Twice God says this to us in the book of Psalms, verse 7 and eleven. When God says something twice you'd better pay attention. Do you really think that Joel, when his pastor father died, and his prophetess mother asked him to take over, who had reportedly attended Oral Roberts School, had preached once knows about the tough trip? Likewise, “Pastor” Melissa Scott, wife of dead Dr. Gene Scott, who admits to never having seen a Bible ten years before she became pastor, is prepared for preaching or teaching? The paradox of God's magnificence you do not abandon life for the abundant life (John 10:10), He requires all but does not take all. From the mob, Joel – Melissa – me, in Christ you are never the same. You're never the same IF the first year or the fiftieth year.