Dear Pastor Charles: I was reading my Bible the other day and came across a verse I do not understand. It is found in Matthew 16:28, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Does this mean that some of the disciples did not die? Thank you for your response. Perplexed.

Dear Perplexed:  

Great question. Thank you for reading your Bible. Actually, this verse is explained in the very next chapter. Matthew 17:1-3, “After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.” This “transfiguration” is a picture of Jesus coming into His Kingdom. It is interesting to note that Elijah and Moses were present and talking with Him. Moses represents the Law and Elijah represents the Prophets.  This is what we call the Old Testament but Jesus referred to these writings as the Law and the Prophets.

    

Would you like to know what they were talking about? If you look in Luke 9:30-31 you will find out; “Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.” In other words, they were talking about Jesus’ upcoming death upon the cross. Peter, James and John were seeing Jesus Christ being glorified in preparation for His sacrifice. The Bible tells us in 1 John 3:2, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Matthew 17:2, “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light.” That brilliant, shining light is the glory of God that each child of God will one day shine and be clothed with. Moses once stood in the presence of God and his face shone with this same light. Remember how he covered his face soon afterward? The 'glory light' began to fade away as soon as he left the nearness of God.     

    

The Apostle Peter, who was present on that day, gives us more detail about the significance of the Transfiguration of Christ in 2 Peter 1:16-18, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” So this “coming” that Peter is referring to is actually a picture in miniature of the coming Kingdom.

    

No, my perplexed friend, none of the original disciples are still alive on the earth and waiting for Christ’s return. They each passed through the portals of death the same way each of us will one day pass unless the Lord returns first. In that case, if we are a child of God, we will be transfigured as well. Listen to what was revealed by Jesus to the Apostle Paul; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed."  The "dead" Paul is referring to are those who have passed on who died as a believer in Christ. This time is also referred to in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, “According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” 

May that time come soon!

    

I sincerely hope that I have given you a satisfactory answer to your question. Keep up the great work and continue to read your Bible for the time is coming, and, I believe, very soon, that the Lord will come back for those of us who are "alive and remain." 

May the Lord bless and keep you as you study His Word that is "able to make you wise." 

                                                                   God bless!

                                                                         Pastor Charles… 

PS: I am in the process of moving some of my blogs to a new website where there will be a central location for my work, http://underthestainedglassmedia.com . I am making constant improvements to the site and am adding a few conveniences for visitors such as: online Bible reading and links to Christian businesses that deserve the support of the Christian community. No, I am NOT becoming a commercial enterprise that exists for the purpose of extracting money from you. These works are, and will always be free of charge for anyone who will take the time to read and to seek the Lord. Jesus is the true, and only, Author and Giver of Life. It is by His Spirit, that He freely gifts His people for the building up His body, the church. Receiving a gift and reselling is just not my cup of tea. That would be highly impolite and would be a smack in the face to the Giver.  However, in full disclosure, the links to the Christian businesses found here, and on my website, will provide a small percentage back for any purchase that you may make while visiting the businesses via the links. Any amounts that come back will be used solely and entirely to reach those who are seeking to know the Truth which will set them free. God bless! Pastor Charles...  

Dear Pastor Charles: I hope you will address an issue for me that has been on my mind for some time. Isn’t it true that a minister’s primary responsibility is to visit the members of his church? Our minister seems to think that the only reason he is paid is to preach on Sunday. What do you think? Disgruntled.

Dear Disgruntled:

    I think that if you really are that dissatisfied with your minister you should ask if you can share some of the load by doing a part of the visitation yourself. He will probably have a heart attack or die from shock. Problem solved!

    The answer to your question is no. A minister’s primary responsibility is to preach and teach the Word of God and to pray. Secondly, he is to provide the leadership, motivation and training for the body of Christ, the church, to assume the majority of the visitation and other tasks.

    The Book of Acts gives us the biblical perspective of the role of the minister in the local church: Acts 6:1-7, “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word." This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.”

     A crude paraphrase of this passage today might read something like this: “Today, as the demands in ministry are ever increasing, Sister Bertha is complaining because the minister did not come to see her when she had her toenail removed. He went to see Brother Jimmy in the hospital when he had his heart attack but he just doesn’t seem to care about the way she suffers.” Please forgive this crude illustration but that is sometimes the way it appears to a minister.

    If your Pastor is a true minister of God, he loves you more than you realize and probably spends a great deal of time in prayer for you and others. It is an awesome responsibility to be called by God to faithfully deliver His Word week after week. A minister often wonders whether or not he is reaching those whom he serves.. He studies and prays and seeks Gods guidance for that one time a week that God will be able to speak to them through him. He visits those who are in hospital or are having surgery. He tries to contact the shut-ins as well as the visitors from the previous Sunday. He probably prepares and teaches weekly Bible studies, a Sunday night service, and maybe a week night service as well. He oversees the staff and administration functions of the church. He counsels those with emotional difficulties, hurting marriages and spiritual dilemmas. He is expected to attend every meeting for each committee or board in the church. All to often, he neglects the needs of his own family because of the demands of the church family upon his time. The telephone rarely stops ringing, even when he is supposedly having time off. Yet he still receives criticism because he is not doing enough.

   What I would like to ask you is this: What are you doing for the cause of Christ? How many people have you visited lately? If you have time to criticize the efforts of someone else, then you have time to pitch in and help with the tasks at hand. You see, God has gifted each member of the body of Christ and expects each of us to share in the load of the ministry. There is an old song that says, “My children want to be fed at my table, but they don’t want to work in my fields.”

    My advice to you is to stop judging your minister and ask him how you can help. Pray for him and lift him up. You might be surprised at how effective he can become when he spends his time doing what God has called him to do and you are busy doing the same.

    I pray that you will release this burden of condemnation that you carry towards your minister and remember that he is only a human being, just like you. If you still feel disgruntled after praying for him, I would suggest that you make an appointment with him and share your concerns. Give him a chance to show you his side of the story. You may just be surprised at all the things he does that you are not aware of.

                                       May God bless you as you grow in His grace.
                                                                            Pastor Charles…

Dear Pastor Charles: I am writing regarding the protection of endangered plant and animal species. There are some who say we’ve gone too far to protect these species from extinction, and some who say we haven’t gone far enough. I believe the Bible says God instructed man to rule over all the earth. My question is: How shall man rule regarding endangered species? If man allows a species to become extinct has he done wrong in God’s eyes? Thank you. Curious.

Dear Curious:

    Thank you for the great question. In order to answer it we will need to examine the Scripture you are referring to in which God granted to Adam the dominion over His creation. Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” It is good to keep in mind that God had just completed His creation and saw that everything He had made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31).
 
    God granted to Adam great power and authority over the earth to accomplish what was required of him. It is important to remember that God granted this authority before the fall of man. Prior to the fall, Adam was in close relationship with God as they walked together in the Garden of Eden. Adam’s vision was not yet clouded by sin so he possessed a superior intellect as a result. Adam was far more than a glorified gardener. God intended for him to be the ruler and caretaker over all of creation as he was created in the very image of God. This “dominion” denotes authority in the strongest sense. Therefore, Adam was to be the ruler over the entire earth with only God as his superior.
 
    What a responsibility that would have been for Adam. Never forget that when God calls someone to perform a task, He always grants the power to complete it. Only a little side note, way back when I was considering full time ministry, I had a family to support, a business to run and employees who were counting on me for their lively hood. I somehow knew that God was calling me but I couldn't quite understand how those obligations would be met. I sure couldn't do it on my own without letting a bunch of good people down. I was consulting with one of my spiritual mentors at the time about it and he put it to me this way; "If God places the order, He will write the check to pay for it." That made a lot of sense to me back then and those words still prove to be true even today.

    If only Adam and Eve would not have succumbed to the temptation of Satan they would still be ruling the earth today. So, as a result of the fall, Adam and Eve lost their clothing of glory, along with their innocence, which led them to realized that they were naked. You know the story, God had to kill an animal and use it’s skin in order to provide for them. Sin was, and still is, a bloody business. At that time, Adam lost the power to completely control his environment resulting from his loss of fellowship with God. He was now subject to physical death as a result of his spiritual death.

    What a sad loss that was for all future generations, including you and I. Before Adam and Eve sinned, they were completely provided for. There was no death and no need for the killing of animals for food. In fact, all of God’s created order were vegetarians. Genesis 1:29-30, “Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so.” 
 
    My how much we lost when sin and death came into the world. So, now we struggle to manage God’s created order without the God given wisdom and power that is required to do it. The sin that so easily besets us clouds our vision just as it did Adam after the fall. Yet, we are still responsible to God for the protection of the environment. It is the age old story of having responsibility without having authority. We lost that authority because of sin and it cannot be regained on this side of glory.
 
    Fortunately, God foresaw this problem and provided for our reinstatement under the dominion of a second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:19, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man {Adam} the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man {Jesus Christ} the many will be made righteous.”  Today, we can be made righteous in the eyes of God through faith in Jesus, but the restoration of nature to it's original condition will not happen until He physically returns to assume dominion over the entire earth. The first Adam once had it and he lost it. The Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, will restore it. Then and only then will the lion be able to lay down with the lamb. Then and only then will there finally be peace on earth. Then and only then will there be a restored and perfect environment in which there will never again be an endangered species of plant or animal.
 
    So, my curious friend, it is important for mankind to protect the resources that God has provided. It is also equally important for the highest order of creation to protect the lower orders. However, we must keep things in a proper perspective. The Bible tells us in 2 Peter 3:10-13, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”  We should take care of the resources that God has provided for this old earth because she is our only means of physical existence, but set your heart upon the new heaven and new earth that God will one day provide.

    You asked that if man allows extinction of a species, has he done wrong in the eyes of God? May I kindly say to you that sin is wrong in the eyes of God and the extinction of a species is the result. The species I am referring to is mankind, you and me brother. That leaves only one viable option and that is to choose life through faith in Jesus Christ. Set your desires upon Him for Jesus truly is the only hope for the world today.

    Thank you once again for the great question. My prayer for you is that God bless and keep you as you look forward to His coming. I pray that He will come soon.

                                                               God Bless,
                                                                 Pastor Charles…