Nonsense Articulated Resoundingly

 

 

Nonsense articulated resoundingly

Which is NAR for short,

Is the “New Apostolic Reformation”

Which many like to exhort.

 

Reform and Reformation

Are on everybody’s lips

But what it means still puzzles me

Both in church and politics.

 

New Apostolic Reformation!

I have a problem with every word

And when the three are combined,

They are even more absurd.

 

Why New in the first place

For something that’s over 2000 years?

Is it something revealed just recently

That before had not appeared?

 

Like, these are the days of Elijah

When Elijah had left a while,

A whole lot of repackaged stuff

Has become a new fashion style.

 

The Bible is an ancient document

Thus, its revelation is not new

So be careful whom you chase after,

They may obscure your view.

 

From the New to Apostolic

In fact, New Apostolic is the term:

It’s neither Peter nor Paul nor John

And this makes me squirm.

 

If it were it couldn’t be new

The apostles are in the foundation:

The foundation of the church I say,

Meaning its early inauguration.

 

 

The apostles laid the foundation

With Jesus the chief cornerstone,

No other foundation can any man lay

In a foreign field or home.

 

You’d recalled Peter’s message

On that remarkable day of Pentecost:

A message calling all to repentance

And pointing them to the cross.

 

The central theme was Jesus

Whom the people had crucified,

This same Jesus was the risen Christ

By whom all are reconciled.

 

Reconciled to the Father-God,

Whose Son they had utterly despised,

That had come to bring them salvation

But by most he was denied.

 

Resoundingly speaks of loudness

Where there is no holding back,

No effort or cost is considered too much

In dispensing alternate facts.

 

Yes, we live in a post-modern age

In which truth is becoming recessive

And the pseudo gospel message

Is by no means abrasive.

 

A strange mixture, my friend,

Of the Word and designated pretexts

With a deletion of noted essentials

To allow for liberal flex.

 

 

A gospel that is directly opposed

To the one that's in God’s Word,

Another gospel, as Paul would say,

From the one on Pentecost heard.

 

Nonsense articulated

In the churches and without

And compared to the quiet believers

These charlatans convincingly shout.

 

Experience is their thing,

Biblical doctrine is second-class,

An obsession with the charismatic gifts

And fakery unsurpassed.

  

Why harp on Reformation?

Transformation is the dire need,

 The Holy Spirit is on offer to do this

As we sow the spiritual seed.

Transformation works from within

Reformation from without,

That the latter relies of the former

There can be no doubt.

 

Nonsense articulated resoundingly

Does not make it sense

And the “New Apostolic Reformation”

Is an inexcusable offense.

 

Stewart Russell © April 18, 2023

To the Jew First

 

 

In two Bible references

You will find this phrase,

Go to Romans 1:16 and 2:10

And thereupon gaze.

 

To the Jew first

But what does it mean?

When examined in its context,

What can we glean?

 

Quite a lot, you’ll see
If you but take a look

But it is important my friend

To read the whole book.

 

Therein is the context

Re the saints at Rome

Made up of Jews and Gentiles

As a diverse one.

 

 

Distinct, yet unified,

By faith in Jesus Christ:

Both Jew and Gentile redeemed

For the same price.

 

And this is critical

As we look to the future,

For we must examine this past

To get a right picture.

 

To the Jew first:

Chronological or priority?

A study of the book of Romans

Will help you see.

 

Who’s more important:

The Gentile or the Jew?

Neither of them is more important;

I thought you knew.

 

 

For in Father Abraham

Both were to be blessed

And in the Lord Jesus Christ only

Both find their rest.

 

Not one way for Jews

And another for Gentiles,

The contrast, I will dare say,

Is one of Satan’s wiles.

 

It’s one of Satan’s tricks

For which many still fall

Believing that Israel’s ethnicity

Is Israel’s all in all.

 

A special gathering in

Is yet reserved for them

Since God did make a promise

Re Abraham’s children.

 

Every promise of God

God does indeed fulfil

And He does so in accordance

With His divine will.

 

 

Some have been fulfilled

And some are ongoing

Like the millions of souls saved

Through evangelizing.

 

And what is more

As I am hoping you see,

This is the promise to Abraham

Given in prophecy.

 

Yes, to the Jew first:

The very first evangelists,

Also, the Gentile, no after thought

But always on God’s list.

 

For in Abraham

All nations are blessed

And their faith in Jesus, the Christ,

Is the utmost test.

 

For since Pentecost

Christ has made all one

And the dividing wall of partition

Is eternally gone.

 

 

 

No difference now

Between Gentiles and Jews

Though it was to the Jew first

That carried the news.

 

 

The blessed news

Of the glorious gospel:

The gospel of so great salvation

Which they did tell…

 

To the Gentiles afar off

Who were brought near

And now before the throne of God

We can all appear…

 

With our sins forgiven

And all iniquities pardoned

And God’s law written on hearts

That were once hardened.

 

 

To the Jew first

Was inclusive by intent

In that the first gospel message

Was for all to repent.

 

The early church

Was both Jew and Gentile,

No afterthought as some esteem

But prophecy all the while.

 

To the Jew first

Was merely the beginning

Of God’s glorious salvation to all

Without ending.

 

One salvation and baptism,

All one in Christ!

No two peoples, as some believe,

No dividing splice!

 

No ethnic division

In the kingdom of God,

All heirs and joint-heirs in Christ!

Shout this abroad.

 

 

To the Jew first

And also to the Greek,

Is the power of God unto salvation

Even as we speak.

 

To the Jew first

And to the Gentile also,

To every man that worketh good

And God’s mercy show.

 

To the Jew first

And to you and me,

Sealed by the blessed Holy Spirit

For all eternity.

 

Stewart Russell © July 11, 2025

 

A Tale of Two Cities

 

 

A tale of two cities

As chronicled in God’s Word

Is far different from Dicken’s novel

Of which many have heard.

 

Dickens begins:

 

“It was the best of times

It was the worst of times

It was the age of wisdom

It was the age of foolishness.

 

It was the epoch of belief

It was the epoch of incredulity

It was the season of light

It was the season of darkness.

 

It was the spring of hope

It was the winter of despair

We had everything before us

We had nothing before us.

 

We were all going directly to heaven

We were all going directly the other way.”

 

 

One was about London and Paris

Before and during the French revolution,

The other paints the picture

Of man’s glorious redemption.

 

One is a fictional narrative

Of a historical past,

The other is a Divine chronicling-

Future, present and past.

 

London and Paris:

Two cities in a United Kingdom,

The Old Jerusalem and the New:

And the footprint of God’s Son.

 

One is a tale

That basically came to an end,

The other is still unfolding

As the New Jerusalem.

 

England and France

Israel and the Church:

The latter to be continued,

The former we will skirt.

 

That Israel was God’s wife

Is clear in God’s Holy Word

But that He gave her a bill of divorcement

We have also heard.

 

Israel went a-whoring

That is, trusting in other gods,

Her history is replete in idolatry

As this sin is called.

 

On numerous occasions

God passed judgment on them

And on each occasion

Idolatry was the problem.

  

The first commandment is clear

Concerning who we must worship

But Israel worshipped idols

Making harlotry her habit.

 

Israel became a harlot

As well as did her sister Judah

This is clearly chronicled

In the book of Jeremiah.

 

Jeremiah 3:8

 

And I saw, when for all the causes

whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery

I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;

yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not,

but went and played the harlot also.

 

Do note Idolatry and harlotry

Are one and the same

And in this case of a marriage

Adultery is another name.

 

Prostitution is fornication

While Israel’s harlotry is Idolatry,

The former is the oldest profession

While the latter is adultery.

 

Eve, aware of God’s directive,

Still yielded to the serpent’s temptation,

Her act of spiritual prostitution

Was her acceptance of Satan.

 

When she saw

That the fruit was to be desired

She ate and gave to her husband also

And their Edenic stay suddenly expired.

 

 

The United Kingdom of Israel

Was under Saul, David and Solomon

But after the reign of Solomon

It became a dual region.

 

God divided the kingdom

Into the North and South’

Yes, this was at God’s insistence

Straight out of His mouth.

 

 

The North comprised ten tribes

While the South was made of two

But even then, as the Bible shows,

Israel’s adultery grew.

 

Of their twenty kings

Not one followed the Lord

Until eventually came further judgment

When by the Assyrians conquered.

 

Judah was just as treacherous

For she also went a-whoring

Though a few of her nineteen kings

Stuck to God’s instructing.

 

Consistently they forsook God

And followed counter to His ways

And though many were his rescue acts

Their obedience was still delayed.

 

Throughout the Old Testament

Israel was often judged

But they had become so hard-hearted

That they never seriously budged.

 

Seventy years captive in Babylon

To the rebuilding of the temple

And this is indicative of that time

Highlighting Nehemiah and Ezra.

 

It appears also commensurate

With the time of fair Queen Esther

That foiled the plan of wicked Haman

Who was hanged on his own gallows.

 

Imagine the outcome

Had wicked Haman succeeded,

The ancestry of the Saviour, Jesus,

Would surely have been deleted.

 

The Philistines had also tried

But God used a shepherd king

To defeat the Philistine champion

With a single stone and a sling.

 

God was especially longsuffering

But Israel was continually unrepentant

And they murdered the prophets

That God had sent.

 

Upon them lay the righteous blood

Shed upon the earth from righteous Abel

Unto the blood of Zacharias

Whom at their hands also fell.

 

Thus, the lament of Jesus,

As expressed Matthew 23 verse 7:

O Jerusalem that killest the prophets…

And the judgment on that generation.

 

Her house was left unto her

Desolate!

And thus, was Israel’s judgment

And soon coming fate.

 

Exiled in 586 BC

And judged again in the 1^st Century

As prophesied by Jesus himself

Regarding their oncoming misery.

 

From Mount Sinai to Pentecost

From the Old covenant to the New

From a harlot to a chaste bride-

A better covenant in Hebrews.

 

From the Old Jerusalem

To the one John saw coming down,

The new Jerusalem where one day

We shall wear a shining crown.

 

From the earthly Jerusalem

To that of a heavenly kingdom

Evidenced on the day of Pentecost

As promised by Father and Son.

 

John 14:26 & 15:26

 

The Holy Spirit sent by the Father

But in the name of His Son

While simultaneously sent by the Son

But of the Father therefrom.

 

A tale of two cities

With one having done away

To a New and glorious Jerusalem

And an infinitely brighter day.

 

Isaiah 9:2

 

The people that walked in darkness

Have seen a great light:

They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,

Upon them hath the shined.

 

Seventy years in Exile to Babylon

And the rebuilding of the first temple

Seventy years of weeks to Pentecost

And the spreading of the Gospel.

 

No parenthesis in between

Daniel’s seventy weeks,

A straight-up count of seventy

With no modified tweak.

 

Midway in the seventieth week

Messiah was cruelly cut off,

When he was offered a pardon by Pilate

The Jewish leaders scoffed.

 

Crucify him!  Crucify Him!

We have no king but Caesar!

His blood be on us and our children

And they the Saviour marred.

 

The marred body of Jesus

Displayed on Golgotha’s cross

Just thirty pieces of silver

Was all to them he cost.

 

But from the grave He rose

As the champion of the elect

Now heirs and joint-heirs with Christ

With no outstanding debt.

 

The generic body of Jesus Christ

As represented by the born-again,

The heavenly Jerusalem John saw

Over which the Saviour reigns.

 

1 Corinthians 15:25-26

 

For he must reign

Till he hath put all enemies under his feet

The last enemy that shall be destroyed

Is death.

 

No separation of Jew and Gentile

No middle wall of partition

But altogether one in Christ Jesus

In the glorious plan of redemption.

 

 

A tale of two cities:

The Old Jerusalem and the New

The Old was established at Mount Sinai,

But the New is a Mount Sion view.

 

Hebrews 12:22

 

But ye are come unto Mount Sion,

And unto the city of the living God,

The heavenly Jerusalem

And to an innumerable company of angels.

 

Stewart Russell © March 31, 2023