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| SUN, MOON, AND THE TREES--PART 1 |
SUN, MOON, AND THE TREES-PART 1
For the invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuses. (Romans chapter 1vs. 20) We have already seen this scripture in the preceding chapters, but I would like to emphasize it again since this is what this tract is all about. It is important that we know that nature itself contains types and shadows of Jesus Christ, just as the scriptures do. We must realize that all the physical creation is under the law, therefore, it is under the law of sin and death. Only that which is in Christ Jesus has overcome the law of sin and death. Yes, the Lord put things in his creation to show his purposes. We have already seen several things in the previous tracts that are types and shadows of God's purposes in Christ Jesus. In this tract we will see more things that point to his purposes that we encounter every day. There are also things in the creation that show the evil one who opposes God's plans for mankind as well. This evil being, Lucifer and his evil demons, are a reality that must be encountered by every Christian who sets his face to enter the Kingdom of God.
Lets begin with something that shows Jesus Christ as nothing on this earth can. Did you know that the sun is a type of Jesus Christ? The sun has been worshipped by men all down through the ages. Roman sun worshippers entered the church of Jesus Christ and corrupted it for centuries. Even today it is worshipped in various ways. The secular humanists of today have a form of sun worship as the "life giver", which in a sense is true. However, the son of God, Jesus, is eternal. The sun is not, it is dying. Some day it will either explode into a supernova, or, it will become a red dwarf and eventually die as a black hole. When it dies all flesh must die with it. Have you ever watched a sun rise? As it rises in the east the shadows of darkness flee and the world is encompassed in light. John (chapter 1 : 4)says: In him was light and this light was the life of man. Light shows both beauty and ugliness for what it is. The light of the sun brings out the beautiful colors of an autumn day and it also exposes the sordid ugliness of a garbage strewn back alley. Everything is laid bare by the light of the sun. The light of Jesus Christ will lay bare all the evil that has been done by evil men in the coming judgment. Evil people hate light. Their deeds are manifested in light, therefore, they hide them in darkness. They know that their evil intents and purposes will be laid bare in the light of truth. Most all carnivorous beasts of the jungle hide in the shadows of darkness to prey on their unsuspecting victims. The terrible carnage of war is spawned in the dark closets of greedy men and evil politicians.
The sun is a type of Jesus Christ the true source of life. The life that he gives is eternal. The sun gives life also but it is seasonal, and the life that it gives, sooner or later must die. In the spring, as the dark cold days of winter recede into the warm April sunlight, we see the little seed spring fourth from the earth in its new body. (see the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians) This is nature's type and shadow of the newly saved Christian who has committed his life to Jesus Christ. He too, will someday be given a new body when the Lord appears. (1st Corinthians chapter 15). The little seedling raises its arms toward heaven as it grows in strength. It gives up water vapor that rises heavenward and falls back as the warm spring rains, these rains make the life within it more vibrant so that it can withstand the enemies of life that encompass it in a hostile world. The new Christian raises his arms in prayer. And their prayers rise heavenward like fine incense to God who causes the Holy Ghost "rain" to fall on them. He makes them strong and healthy in the spirit. This Holy Ghost rain enables the new life of Jesus Christ in them, to withstand the hostile demons of satan. They want to kill this God given life that now resides in them. A famous atheist once said: "If all the people in this world, who call themselves Christians, lived according to the words of Jesus Christ, this world would become a virtual utopia. For a brief moment the light of Jesus Christ struck the barren soul of this atheist, and life sprang fourth for a time, but it soon died in the cold icy winds of doubt and unbelief. This is similar to a seed on a barren, rocky crag of a high mountain top. The warm light of the July sun causes the life in it to spring fourth. A beautiful flower is born but in a few days it dies as the cold winds from the high mountain glacier kill its new life.
Some of you will say, "But I'm already alive, how does Jesus give me life"? Are you really sure that you're alive? We encounter a term in the study of thermodynamic systems that do work. This term is called entropy. Entropy can be explained thusly: 'It is the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to the ultimate state of uniformity and inertness'. This is just a fancy way of saying that the universe is constantly loosing energy. This energy cannot be recovered; it is lost forever. The universe will eventually lie cold and still in an inert, uniform state of absolute zero.....death! This brings to mind the Word spoken in the scriptures; The heavens and the earth shall wax old as a garment and be folded away but my word will never pass away. ( IS. 51 :6 and HEB. 1 : 11) Our sun is one of these thermodynamic systems that do work. The sun is constantly doing work on the earth to maintain its physical life. However, our sun is slowly dying. The heat it gives off to warm the earth is the form of energy spoken of above that we call entropy. Entropy is the energy that is lost as heat in the nuclear furnaces of the sun. This heat is lost forever, it cannot be recovered. The little man with the enlarged, bald, toothless head and the spindly legs; who is the product of the imagination of the evolutionist, the superman of the future, has no hope of eternal life. When we view him in the light of entropy, we see him lying cold and still, frozen forever in his self made frozen tomb, as the red sun of the earth blinks out into a magnetic mass called a "dark hole". But, the words of Jesus Christ, "Know you not, that you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God", will live forever in the body of Christ.
Many years before Jesus Christ was born a young man named Siddhattah Gautama lived in India. He became obsessed with the reality of disease, poverty, old age, and death. He wanted to find out what life was all about. One day he saw one of the many wondering ascetics, who lived their lives under very strict rules and spent much time subduing their bodies in religious meditation. He decided to join them in order to seek wisdom and truth. So he left his wife and new born son and went into a life of asceticism and meditation. After several years of this life of self denial, he woke up to the fact that fasting, sleeplessness, and self torment was not the answer to finding wisdom. Later Gautama saw that the selfish desire for money, self gratification, and immortality were the evil things that brought about the misery in life. Since death was the only outlook for mankind, he said we should abandon these selfish desires and serve mankind. He ended up by coming to the conclusion that all was nirvana (nothing). These ideas he proclaimed about nirvana have been changed down through the ages, but many historians believe that he encountered the specter of death and proclaimed that all is nirvana. Gautama later became known as Buddha.
Along about the same time another man was born in the nation of Israel. He was also a seeker of wisdom. His name was Solomon. He too, set out on a quest for wisdom. His account is found in the book of Ecclesiastes in the bible. He called himself the preacher. He first tried the life of a playboy. He didn't deny himself any pleasure. But he soon found that this was not the answer to life. He said vanity, vanity, all is vanity under the sun and a striving after the wind. He then set out to be a great builder. He built great edifices. He built God a beautiful temple and himself a beautiful mansion. He made gardens filled with flowers and plants. It was so wonderful that people came from far and near to wonder at them. Again he ended up unsatisfied with his life. He then decided to live the life of self denial just as Buddha did. He denied his body of food and pleasure, and sat in sackcloth and ashes. He perceived that ONE event comes to all men both the wise man and the fool. This event is death. He saw that all his labor and endeavors came to nothing when he went to die. This again, made him cry out, "vanity, vanity, all is vanity under the sun and a striving after the wind. All that is left for a man to do is love the Lord God with all his heart and love his neighbor as he loves himself " Both men encountered death and in their way cried out, "We need a Savior."
Many years later, another man tried to deny self by his own will. He said," The things that I don't want to do are the things that I find myself doing and the things that I want to do I do not." He found a law working in his body that is just as powerful as the laws of physics. This law fought against his will to do good. This man also echoed the Cries out of the past. He cried. "Oh wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from the body of this death? This man was the apostle Paul. However, he had found the answer. He went on to say: " I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin. For there is now no condemnation (death) to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." Those men like Buddha and Solomon who lived under the law of sin and death ended up crying out, "we need a savior". No wonder Jesus said that Nineva and Sodom would stand up in judgment against this generation. They were like Buddha and Solomon, because they did not have the light and Life of Christ in their day. Until Jesus came and opened the door to life there was only NOTHING..... VANITY.......DEATH!!!
Jesus said that we must be born again to enter the kingdom of God where there is eternal life. Real life! John 3:36 says: He that believes on the son has life. He that believes not on the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. By what we know about entropy and the eventual fate of the universe, this is very true. Reincarnation is merely a pipe dream. Jeremiah once said, "cursed is the man who trusts in the arm of flesh". No man has ever invented a perpetual motion machine, no man ever will. This writer once taught a class on the theory of electronics. He asked the class if a generator hooked up to a battery that was feeding it's electrical energy back into the battery, would run forever. They said that it would not, but no one could say why. The reason is entropy. Heat is lost in the wires, eddy currents in the generator, and chemical reactions in the battery. This heat is in the form of entropy and it cannot be recovered. Christianity is based on a new birth in Jesus Christ. Most all other religions are based upon salvation through flesh. The universe that our God created is no perpetual motion machine. It is a system of death. Perhaps before Adam sinned it was perpetrating itself, but now it is dying. Jesus Christ is the only door out of this system of death. Only those who believe on him and keep his commandments will ever escape from this death. His resurrection is the only proof of real life given to a world of death.
Thus, we see, that the sun is a type of Jesus the son of God. It sets in the evening in the color red. This symbolizes his shed blood at calvary and his death on the cross. It rises in glory in the morning to symbolize his resurrection to glory. But there is another light in the heavens who rules over the darkness. This is the moon. The light of the moon is a distorted reflected light of the sun. It's subdued half light makes things appear unreal. The light of the moon is a light for the predators of darkness that prey on the flesh of the weak and unsuspecting. Have you noticed how the moon tries to deceive us by imitating the sun and its seasons? It will come up first in one spot and then in another as it seems to move from the southern to the northern sky each month just as the sun does in its seasons. Can you think of an evil being who deceives men into thinking he is something that he is not? Of course! The moon is a natural type of Lucifer. His false prophets are the carnivorous
beasts of darkness that prey on the weak. These evil people are his dupes. They deceive men by saying evil is good and good is evil. Have you noticed how they tell the homosexual that his perverted sexual preference is a biological trait instead of sin? Most of us have found that sex is a choice. This is evidenced by the fact that a man and a woman will sometimes abstain from sex during the woman's estrous cycle. They do not want a child at that time. This definitely shows that sex in a human being is a choice not a genetic trait. We know what happens when a beast comes into heat. These false prophets of satan can call homosexuality a biological trait and every one believes it. Yet, if some man is caught in the act of adultery, that is called a sin. The judge calls it a sin too, as he hands out the penality of alimony payments. God has never called blue eyes or brown hair a sin because these are biological traits. One cannot help what color his eyes or hair is, but God has said that fornication, adultery, and homosexuality is a sin because it is a choice, not a biological trait. This is also true of women who turn from the natural use of their bodies to unnatural sex. We can choose to have sex or we can choose not to have sex. The only thing that anyone can truthfully say to the homosexual is; "Repent of your sin and turn to Jesus Christ".
These false prophets say that God is a God of love not a God of judgment. We know that justice itself comes of love. Don't you want justice served on those who harm the ones you love? God loves his children, too. That's what our judicial system is all about; the jury judges, then comes the sentence, and justice is served. Justice itself is a product of love but judgment must come first before justice can be served. Don't believe these evil prophets of satan. Justice without judgment is impossible. They will cry pitifully all night for the life of a mad dog killer yet they will kill thousands of babies without ever considering the lives of these innocent children. Those women who approve of abortion say they have the right to do what they want to with their bodies, but they never harm their body. It's the body inside them that they harm. Some people say that abortion will allow the human race to clean up its genetic pool by allowing the "beautiful" people to have the children. How many Einstein's have we had out of the Albert Einstein Family? How many Thomas Edison"s, Erico Fermi's,? Did all the great inventors and scientists of the past come from the rich and affluent? Indeed not! It's God who raises up and God who abases. These people would improve the genetic pool will eventually end up with a group of sterile, mentally retarded, sickly, zombies. These evil prophets of hell, are liars. Repent and be baptized in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. Then stay in the race to the end and obtain a crown of eternal life. God has said that these stooges of satan will bring about their own damnation.
We have seen that the sun and the moon are types and shadows of Jesus Christ and the devil, respectively. However there is another type that must be considered. The scriptures say that a godly man is like a tree that is planted by the river of water that brings fourth his fruit in his season.(1st psalm) Each generation since Christ has had great saints who have led their generation into more light. The apostle Paul, Clement, Barnabus, John Huss, John Wickliff, Martin Luther, John Bunyan, John Fox and many untold others. Some of these Great men lost their lives for the name of Jesus, others spent many years in cold, dank prisons. But, because of their sacrifices much fruit was brought fourth and the church received back the light that was lost in the dark ages. They rendered great service for the salvation of mankind. Have you stopped to think about a tree and it's usefulness? Just like a saint of God it's whole life has been one of reaching heavenward for light. If you go down into a deep hollow in the mountains you will see the great, tall trees. They were born as little saplings in the dim light and shadows of the deep hollow. Now, they are great tall giants; their tops are bathed in the light of the sun. How useful these trees are to mankind as they sink their roots deep into the ground thus holding the soil in place to prevent destructive erosion. The man who sinks his roots deeply in the word of God will hold the soil of God's love firmly in place. A tree's green leaves remove the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and breathe out pure oxygen. Without this purification process by the trees, man would soon suffocate in his own wastes. Without good, Christian, men who stand against the violence and pornography in our society, we too, would soon die in the social evil wastes. In the fall these same leaves put on the most colorful show on earth. People drive hundreds of miles to see the beautiful colors of the Appalachian hills. Later these colorful leaves turn brown and fall from the trees. On the ground they form a mat of insulation to protect the young seedlings from the cold. They form small cups that hold rain water. There are so many of these small cups that it keeps millions of gallons of water from running off into the streams during winter rains. This helps in flood control. These leaves also rot and form the soft spongy loam that holds moisture and prepares the ground for the seedlings to make future forests. It's branches offer protection for birds to build their nests in. These birds eat hoards of insects that would soon devastate our crops. These same branches that offer the birds protection also bear fruits and nuts to feed both animals and man. Even in death the tree is useful. Lumber and firewood are used by man for shelter and warmth. Hollow logs make shelter for animals in the hard winter months. These logs eventually rot to enrich the soil. During its whole existence and even in death the tree is useful for both man and beast. This is typical of the great men like Paul, Peter and John who were the instruments God used to lay the foundation of the church and even in death their words are received with great joy by God's people of today. Indeed, they were the trees planted by the river of waters who brought fourth their fruit in their season.
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