In The Beginning

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God. John 1:1,2

I have said this before but I make no excuse for repeating it!  Jesus Christ was alive before he was born!  The cross was not the end of Jesus Christ anymore than the manger was his beginning.  On one occasion, Jesus said, "...Before Abraham was, (before Abraham ever existed) I Am." (John 8:58)  "Before Abraham..." that reaches back quite a ways!  "I AM" That goes back to a realm where past and future do not even exist.  It goes backto the place of no beginning and no ending.

John 1:3 reads, "All things were made by Him..."  All created things had a beginning but Jesus the Creator , was already there!  In Revelation 1:8 Jesus said, "...I am the beginning and the ending..."  He was there before the beginning of created things and after created things (as we know them now) are ended.  Jesus the "I AM" will still be there.

Armageddon is coming and war is a terrible thing.  No ordinary person wants war!  The only ones who want war are the despots who don't get personally involved.  I walked through Manila, Phillippines in the later part of 1945.  What a discouraging sight!  Of the four bridges there, three had been destroyed, and most downtown buildings had been destroyed.  Rubble and ruin filled the streets not to mention the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers tht had not yet been gathered up.  Armageddon will be bad but is not the end of everything that God has planned for His people.

There is a better day coming when war will be no more.  In the words of the old spiritual, "I'm gonna put on my long white robe, down by the riverside, down by the riverside.  I'm gonna put on my long white robe down by the riverside and I ain't gonna study war no more.  Ain't gonna study war no more, ain't gona study war no more, ain't gonna study war no more."

Men will "blow away" a large part of the earth before this is over but God will make a new one. (Revelation 21:1) Men have a nuclear device now, (so I read) that can destroy Los Angeles.  Men do not now have nor shall they ever have, a device that can affect the New Jerusalem and if you are a discple of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have property there (John 14:2) "...I go to prepare a place for you."

It is a place where "...neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,and where thieves do not break through and steal."  (Matthew 6:20) and where no scud missle nor chemical warhead shall ever find a target.

I have experienced and I believe in, God's protection in this life.  I am not a fatalist!  I believe that prayer changes things!  I pray for our troops and our country!  I remember that there is a future for us where there will be no "arms race" no "weapons of mass destruction" no more hate and violence.  It shall all be under the care of that One Who has "no beginning and no ending."  (Rev. 22:20)  He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming quickly."

Amen.  Even so, come , Lord Jesus!

(Pastor Bill Cummins, Sheridan, WY, drbc@bresnan.net)