The Great Hope of the World

Posted on by John Lewis
The kingdom of the world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and His King, Christ.  God has acted within history to set His king on the throne forever, amen.

This is the gospel they preached.  This is what they went about announcing….

But in Thessalonica, the Christians are called 

For those making the accusation (yes, it is an accusation), it means that the way the world has been put together is being flipped around.  The established world of Caesar, a world which valued power, privilege, wealth, status,

Because this Jesus, whom the early Christians called “King”, announced the government of God like this – “

Because the Jesus whom they called King announced the government of God like that, the earliest Christians had to radically reimagine the world, and they did.  The knew what this Jesus preached in the sermon in the mount and other places, and now that they 

So they went to their bibles, what we call the Old Testament.  They went to the prophets.  The Hebrew prophets had done the same thing.   The Hebrew prophets, in their poetic prophecies, had re-imagined the world.  

These earliest Christians paid close attention to these ancient prophecies because they believed they were coming true, right there and then.  In other words, these earliest Christians were taking their bibles, the Jewish Old Testament, and saying 

This is one of the texts these early Christians studied…

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.”  

So we have this king with the seven fold anointing, he’s going to judge 

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  

The great problems of the world have 

I’ll say it like this – the Great Hope of the World is NOT lions becoming vegetarians.  That’s not the great hope of the world.  What Isaiah is doing is reimagining the 

The world of Caesar is a world run by lions, leopards, bears, and wolves.  That’s why both the book of Daniel  and book of Revelation (both written much later than Isaiah) incorporate the image of these 

The world of Cain is a world organized around violent power where the weak and the children always suffer the most.  But after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the world is ruled by a lamb!!  The world is, indeed, turned upside down.  It’s mind blowing.   It forces you to rethink or reimagine everything.  World history’s

Who has a little lamb as their symbol?   There is a Kingdom that does.  We confess that after the death and resurrection of Christ,

Or if your stance is to imagine a non predatory world when lions become vegetarians, then I’ll say I imagine a non predatory world when the root

We who believe in this lamb
John Lewis
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Published by John Lewis

My name is John and I am a 45 year old who had lived life separated from the power of Christ for most of my life. I have been in my recovery from alcoholism, gambling addiction, and sexual addiction since May 2014. I finally accepted Christ into my life in September 2014. I started reading the Bible in May 2014 at the urging of my 12 step sponsor. Then I found the scripture that changed my life. It is found in each of the first 3 Gospels, as I was pleased to find out. It is found at Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17, and Luke 5:31, all at the calling of Matthew by Jesus. From Luke -"Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi's fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus' disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with such scum?" Jesus answered them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor - sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent."" Luke 5:29-32. I had to reread that in Matthew 4 or 5 times when I first came to it. At that point in time, I was the scum Jesus was chastised for eating with. And the response he gave...that he did not come for all those people who thought (with my agreement) they were better than me. That he came for ME!! That's the power of actually picking the Bible up and reading it. It changed my life. So now I still read the Bible every day, discovering new things about God and Jesus Christ. To paraphrase a certain Ethiopian eunuch, how can I understand the scriptures unless someone teaches me? So I read many books and listen to many podcasts. I am learning much from listening specifically to podcasts by Brian Zahnd, Allister Begg, and to a lesser extent Ravi Zacharias. This blog is kind of my spiritual journal as I learn to walk with Christ. And no, that walk is Not for Punks!!