The Dead Sea Scrolls, Scrolls of Jerusalem.

The Dead Sea Scrolls Aren’t The Dead Sea Scrolls; Jeremiah 32 and The God of Faith

My secondary title exaggerates. Of course, scrolls were found in the Dead Sea region. At the time of this writing more than a thousand scrolls have been found, scrolls from the pens of hundreds of different scribes. But other scrolls have also been found in other regions. In or near Jericho, Origen is said to have discovered a cache of scrolls, found a jar like those at Qumran. (1) At Masada, scrolls very like those at the Dead Sea have also been found. (2) Norman Golb in his book, "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?" makes a very persuasive case that prior to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, libraries from Jerusalem were spirited away from Jerusalem in order to save them from the oncoming Roman armies. At their destinations the books were enclosed in jars and hidden away. 

As I think on these things who could help but remember Jeremiah 32? Jeremiah had been prophesying (correctly) that Jerusalem would be taken by Nebuchadnezzar but now in chapter 32, another word comes to the prophet. God tells him to buy a field and get the deed. Now, this word from God is very surprising. It’s as if God is saying in April of 1979, “go buy some land on Three Mile Island. Invest!” And the Lord continues “Take these deeds, both the sealed deed of purchase and this open deed and put them in an earthenware vessel. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” (3) the promise continues “For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them. Fields shall be brought in this land of which you are are saying, It is a desolation, without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.” And in Chapter 33, “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: In this place which is waste, without man or beast, and in all of its cities, there shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks. In the cities of the hill country, the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negeb, in the land of Benjamin, the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them.” (4)

Now let’s fast forward to the first century. The Romans are coming and the elders of Jerusalem know that the city is doomed. They decide to hide their libraries, learning from Jeremiah they decide to hide their books in jars and in the earth itself. They hide away their books to preserve them, yes, but also to remind God (because they have been reminded by him!) that one day the land would again be inhabited, that one day there would again be heard, “the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, and the voices of those who sings, as they bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord.” Now fast forward once again to 1948 and to the discovery of the young Bedouin boy. Driven from Europe and the United States the refugees and survivors of the Shoah have returned to the one place that seemed open to them, to the Holy Land, to Israel. Could it have been the Lord who directed the play of the Bedouin boy that day? Could it have been God reminding us in his humble way of who he is? He is the God of faith. He made a promise to Israel and he keeps that promise, but even more he sticks by Jerusalem and Israel, come hell or high water. And what a lesson that is, for the Jews certainly, but even more for the nations. Do we see yet, the goodness of God? The Jews are God’s people but also an object lesson, showing us the character of the God who is great and good.

  The promise to Jeremiah came true in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and it came true again in the time following the Holocaust. How many times can God fulfill his promises? Let me answer that question with a question. What are the limits of the goodness of God? The so-called “Dead Scrolls” are a witness to the God of Faith, who doesn’t forget, who walks along side us, whose glory is to make both Jew and Gentile into conquerors, conquerors to the nth degree. And why does he do this? Here, I will let the reader do his own exploration. Open the Bible with me and see why.

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 1.Golb, Norman, Who Wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York, NY: Scribner, 1995). p.105-109

 2. Ibid., 132.

 3.Revised Standard Version of the Bible (New York, NY: Oxford University, 1973).

 4.Ibid.

 Ibid.

We Hid Our Faces

 In the Old Testament Moses' face shone when he came down the mountain after speaking with the Lord (Exodus 34). But after Moses had given the law to the people, they asked him to veil himself because they were afraid. However, we then read that when Moses went into see the Lord, he took off the veil. Who could imagine veiling one's face before the Lord, before his friend, before THE friend?

When we gather in our congregations, we are in the same position as Moses was in the tabernacle. We are with the Lord; we look to him and shine. How? We shine because he is shining on us. But there's more! We then look at one another-- we see the shining faces, that pleasure and delight and glory and we do what comes naturally, we shine even more, going "from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:17ff). This is why many are against masks in the church, because the churches are the assemblies of God. The Lord Jesus has promised to come on Sunday and he comes and is among us, our friend and our savior and we shine!

And what of all the masks we see in so many places now? Short answer: they have no future. How come? Not because of man. Man holds down the truth in unrighteousness. We are caught up in a delusion and we cannot get out.

However, this is the new covenant time and we will be unveiled, all of us.  According to Isaiah 25, "the veil that is over the face of the nations will be removed." And this promise is not only for when Jesus comes but it can be fulfilled right now. We see the power of death.  The fearfulness of it has all the tribes and ethnicities in its grip.  But death has no victory. Death has no future.  Let's stop praying just for ourselves. Let's pray first for the churches, the congregations and then at the same time, for all mankind that we would all be delivered from these coverings and not just the ones that we can see. Help us Lord to be freed from these veils that cover the eyes of hearts and keep us from seeing one another as You do. For too long we have hidden our faces from those who are incarcerated, from the refugees, from the unborn, from our neighbors of opposite political stripe. We have hidden from the poor man, we have hidden our faces from the tribes, from the slaves and descendants of slaves, the builders of this land.  It has been our great loss. At the end of the day, we have hidden our faces from the Lord Jesus. 

We don't have to save the world, I am not calling for more "busyness," just that the eyes of our hearts would be uncovered and we would see as the Good Samaritan saw, as God sees and understands us and loves us. All I want is that the constipation of our hearts would be unblocked, to put it crudely! I want the Holy Spirit, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty! (2 Cor. 3)

Not Without Them

 Our work is not to withdraw but to engage, to have the fights, discussions, everything. Not over Facebook, not online but face to face. I don't want healing, happiness or peace if it means going on without those who disagree with me. I want us to be together come what may. I would rather be miserable with those who I think are loonies, nazis, stalinists, totally wrong weirdos than be happy without them. I would hope those who think me a bleeding heart dumb liberal pinko commie would want the same.

Shine

 

We are all far too familiar by now with “cancel culture.” Bullying has lessened but been replaced by this far crueler practice, a practice which we can see throughout the Bible. In Genesis 2, when Adam sinned, “he hid from the face of the Lord.” In Isaiah, the man of sorrows, Lord Jesus, is one from whom “men hid their faces.” I must confess that there have been times when hearing a knock on the door, I went and hid in the bathroom until the visitor gave up and went away! But God is different; he goes out. He walks in the garden in the morning breeze and seeks after Adam and Eve when they have hidden themselves. In the New Testament also, the Lord persists.  When the disciples lock the door on him and everyone else, he passes through that door and speaks to them and breathes on them the Holy Spirit. He seeks and saves the lost. My ancestor, Robert the Bruce betrayed the freedom fighter William Wallace and caused his death by agreeing to meet with Wallace and then avoiding him for the next month. But the Lord is different, he seeks us out, his face shines on us. In Genesis when darkness, “covered the face of the deep,” his word went out, “let there be light,” and there was light. Though we hide our faces from him, closing the eyes of our hearts and turning away, he looks for us and has compassion. He really is the Good Samaritan who sees us and comes to us and heals us and carries us. He looks at us hiding in darkness, hiding from our neighbor and from him and his heart goes out to us. He loves us still and proves it. “May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the LORD lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace.”