Watching the second of our two live-streamed services on a recent Sunday morning, one of the speakers at Quentin Road Baptist Church in Lake Zurich IL brought some special verses to mind.
Justin Kron, filmmaker and founding director of the Kesher Project.was speaking on the many promises God made to His people, Israel. He mentioned Jeremiah Chapter 31, where in verses 35 and 36, the prophet used objects of God’s creation to illustrate the permanence of His chosen people as a nation. Jeremiah speaks of Israel existing as a nation until the sun, the moon, and the stars, the sea, and the waves should depart from their fixed order.
These are special verses to Joyce and myself. Soon after our marriage in 1971 and living in Scotland, we found ourselves searching for God.
We were trying to find someone who could explain God to us as we were both reading books that mentioned God in various contexts. We wanted to know more. We were serious enough to write (it was a different time) home and have my Mom send us my Bible. Sure enough, it spoke of God, but we were not much the wiser about what it all meant. We tried the Navy Chaplain at the military base I was attached to, but he wasn’t much help, nor was the preacher at a local church we visited while home on leave.
Then, sometime later, a knock came to the door (A nod to my Grandkids here) at our home on Trenchard Way in Inverbervie, Scotland. Standing there was a lady who said she wanted to tell us about the Bible.
We were a bit stunned! After all our searching and having talked to a few religious professionals, was someone really just going to walk up to our door? It seemed too good to be true and an answer to prayer all at the same time—— except we didn’t know anything about prayer.
We, of course, invited the lady in, and over the coming months we became good friends with her and her family. She was a Jehovah’s Witness. I assumed that was another denomination like Methodist, or Baptist, or Lutheran, as I had never heard of it before.
We spent the better part of a year learning what the Witnesses wanted to teach us. We came to realize that there was, in fact, a God, and the Bible was real. We started reading and studying, learning more about this God.
Digressing slightly to an earlier time, it was my habit to walk with the girls down to the local newsagents in our wee village and purchase three or four Sunday newspapers. I just loved newsagent shops in the old country; there were newspapers from all over the world laid out before you. The Sunday papers always included expanded middle sections. One of the London papers featured a weekly series on the major religions of the world. Each Sunday’s mid-section focused on a different religion.
I found the series very informative, especially for someone searching to know if there even was a god. On the week the series focused on the Jewish religion, the writer made this statement: “The surest proof there is a God is that the Jewish people still exist.” That statement was so impactful that I still remember it to this day.
I knew enough history to know about the Holocaust, and many of the stories about Israel from Sunday School, the Egyptian captivity long, long ago, and other troubles Israel found themselves in. But I had no idea it had anything to do with me. But somehow that sentence in the London paper became part of my proof that there surely is a God. Who knew, though, that God would speak through a London Sunday newspaper?
It was interesting that our searching in Bible places, churches, meeting with preachers, looking for answers, all seemingly logical places, had provided us with little or no Bible or God information. Then a lady just shows up at our door wanting to tell us about the Bible, and a London newspaper of all things has a line proving there is a God!
One thing we had learned from the Jehovah’s Witnesses was that in their view, God was done with his chosen people. He had saved them from all sorts of catastrophes. He would send prophets to tell them what they needed to do, they would do what the prophet said for a while, and then they would just turn around and do whatever they wanted. Kind of a human reaction, it seemed to me, but It made sense to us that maybe a strict God would be upset and say, “That’s it!” And be done with them.
We became part of their group, attending meetings, Bible studies, etc. for probably a year. I couldn’t become a Jehovah’s Witness because I was a serving member of the US Navy and they were against the armed forces, and as it turns out, many other things.
Fast forward a few years, and Joyce and I both had the opportunity to trust Christ as our Lord and Savior and become Christians. We attended a local church.
One Sunday morning in Sunday School, the lesson was from Jeremiah Chapter 31 and included the following verses.
“Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” Jeremiah 31. 35-37
As I read, it was like an echo from the London Sunday newspaper. There is a God, and He is working.
Looking around, it was obvious to me that the sun, the moon, and stars were still in their fixed order. The sun had come up that morning; there had been a moon and stars the night before.
It was then that I thought of our Jehovah’s Witness friends and realized they were wrong. There is a God, he has a chosen people, and no matter how it looks, He isn’t done with them yet.
We know that creation was perfect, and we also know that since the time of Adam and Eve, there has been evil in the world. That’s no surprise to God. He has always had a plan; it hasn’t changed. It’s working toward a peaceful eternity.
That’s what it says in The Book; the one we know now as God’s word.
God spoke another time, in London. We, as a family, were on our way home from visiting our family in Scotland. We went to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in London’s West End.
There was security at the doors checking everyone’s bags, which in those days seemed odd. But then the play opened with a deathly quiet, darkened theater and stage and a deep, booming voice reading from the Book of Genesis. The play continues with the Biblical story of how Joseph’s brothers kidnapped him and sold him into slavery. He became a prisoner and then a slave in Egypt. And then, Joseph, because of his God-given ability to interpret dreams, became a very powerful figure in Egypt.
One of the production’s songs has a chorus with these paraphrased words, “Joseph, Joseph, we’ve read the Book, and it turns out alright.”
As we read The Book, we find in Genesis 12. 1-3: how we nationally and personally can be blessed through the nation of Israel.
The Book also tells us that Israel in the last days will recognize their Messiah.
The Book says every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Today, I find answers in more places than London’s newspapers and its theater productions..
It took me a while, but I am now a believer in God through Jesus and find answers in The Book.
“Joseph, Joseph, we’ve read the book, and it turns out alright!”
Have you read The Book?
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