Hi Everyone
This is our Good Friday Bible study. If you are wondering what Good Friday has to do with the image below, listen to the audio and read on to get blessed!
Chris
Some Facts About Cockroaches
Let’s talk about cockroaches
- Cockroaches don’t live very long – about a year or 2 depending on the breed
- They eat almost anything (even each other)
- They are clean in the wild
- It’s what they eat that makes them filthy
- Their main sense is from their antennae – movement, smell, touch
- They don’t rely much on sight and they can’t hear
The Parable of the Cockroaches
There once was a man who had two sons whom he loved very much. In his garden were many fruit trees, but there was a certain one that had certain poisons that would harm his sons.
He warned them against eating of that tree.
Well, like the story would go, one day the younger son, along with his wife, ate of the tree. And guess what? Lo and behold, they both became cockroaches.
As a cockroach, the son was much aware of the fact that he was once a man! He knew for a fact how much he had lost, transitioning from a human to a cockroach. He tried hard to speak with his father, to get back to being a human again, but alas, it was hard for a cockroach to communicate, let alone enjoy a normal relationship with a human father as you might expect.
For starters, their tastes were very different. Cockroaches do not naturally go for clean things, and take in anything. How they “saw” things around them also changed dramatically. Instead of using his sense of sight, the cockroach son now relied on other senses, mostly his antennae. The son was also painfully aware of the fact that unless something was done quickly to save him, his life would be a short one year or less. Then there was the specter of getting squashed or smashed by someone.
All that had happened to the younger son made the Father very sad. He loved his sons very much and dearly wanted to rescue the younger son. He immediately planned a rescue mission: His older son volunteered to be the one to rescue the younger son.
Meantime, the younger cockroach son and his wife started to reproduce. There were many generations of cockroaches in a short period, and as time passed, the fact that their great-granddaddy was once a human became more and more hazy and less significant. Less and less were they able to appreciate in their limited brains what being a human was. To them, being a cockroach was all there was. They became absorbed with living the best life a cockroach could enjoy in the short span they had. They built cockroach empires, accumulated everything they could in the hope to make their cockroach lives more meaningful. This involved taking in everything they could, clean or unclean, which made them very dirty indeed. In their quest, they had even started to eat one another. They were very unlike the human that their great-granddaddy once was. This absolutely broke the heart of the Father, who wanted so much more for his descendants. Each day, he watched this cockroach empire grow, knowing that while he was there and loved them, they were not aware of him and could not see him nor talk to him. How he longed for each of these and wanted to bless them and have relationship with them! Instead, he sat quietly, knowing that His movements would scare these descendants who no longer could relate with him. What a heart-rending time it was.
Soon the time was ready for the older son to proceed with the rescue plan. Using an old method he knew, the Father was able to change his older son to become a cockroach. Unlike the other cockroaches, he had not eaten the fruit and because of this he was able to communicate with his Father throughout the rescue.
The plan unfolded quickly. The older son went amongst the roaches to tell them about the father and how he wanted to rescue them from being cockroaches. Some had heard something about this “father” but could not understand the depths of it in their limited cockroach brains. Others outright hated him, because he got in their way of looking like they were the best cockroaches in the cockroach empire. Many others were simply too busy surviving as cockroaches to bother. There were some, however, who had felt that being a cockroach was a miserable experience, and knew in their hearts somewhere that there was more to life than scurrying amidst the rubbish and fighting to live a short, meaningless life. These followed the older son, becoming his disciples.
One day, the unthinkable happened – the roaches that did not like the older son took him and had him killed. They plucked off his antennae, pulled out his legs and had him completely mashed. While this was brutal, it turned out that this too was part of the father’s plan. You see, in order for the rescue plan to work, someone who had not eaten of the tree had to take the place of the younger son, and vicariously, all his descendants.
Nevertheless, the thought of a human becoming a cockroach, only to be completely humiliated and murdered by other cockroaches, is quite a thought to swallow. Fortunately, as a part of the plan also, the older son arose from cockroach death and returned to being a man shortly after having been cruelly murdered as a cockroach.
Having been cockroaches all their lives, this thought of becoming a human was a wild stretch of the imagination for many. For those who believed, the rescue plan was effected the moment they declared it. Miraculously, each of these became human again! They started to enjoy the love of the Father as they heard his voice for the first time. It took quite some convincing, though. As cockroaches, they were not used to using or believing their sense of sight and hearing, but were instead were used to their senses of feel and vibration.
Slowly, as these became increasingly aware of their newfound senses, they started to enjoy relationship with the father. Their tastes also changed to enjoying clean human food. Yes, there were trying moments when the urge to eat garbage was there, but increasingly, their new identity took hold and they realized for fact that truly they were no longer cockroaches but humans.
The other cockroaches could sense some changes in the now-human ex-cockroaches. They couldn't put a leg on it (they didn't have fingers) but knew that these were now different – they weren’t all about fighting for survival and enjoyment of the short cockroach life. They were always talking about how they could live for so much longer than other cockroaches and planning their lives around this seemingly eternal lifespan. They readily gave up whatever they had as cockroaches, eschewing these, they said, for “eternal rewards”.
Being once cockroaches, these new humans could also relate with the other cockroaches, and started to explain to them about these changes in their lives. As each of these heard about who they were really supposed to be, about the rescue plan by the older son and how it was now as easy as believing and declaring their belief, even more cockroaches became humans again.
This greatly pleased the heart of the father. His deepest desire was to see all his descendants rescued, that he might have a chance to love and bless them.
Are You Saying We’re Cockroaches?
By itself, life on earth is short, meaningless and miserable. How many of us think that perhaps 80 years is a long time to live?
80 years is only 29,220 days!
Genesis 5:5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. (NKJV)
Adam lived 930 years and while that might seem like such a great long life to live, having lived in the presence of God for what was for eternity, he knew he had so, so much more.
Comparing the life that Adam had in the Garden to what he got after that is like a comparison of a man becoming a cockroach - except worse.
A Life of Vanity
We may try to fool ourselves with everything – wealth, pleasure, power, ego, control, even good deeds and the practice of religion but at the end of it, there is no point – we are all going to die and unless there is something more, it was written by Solomon a long time ago:
Ecclesiastes 1:2 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” (NKJV)
Ecclesiastes 3:19 For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. (NKJV)
Like the cockroach returning to a human state to relate with the Father, our only hope lies in returning to being a spirit being to relate with our Father in Heaven.
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (NKJV)
We Were Made for Eternity
Whether we like it or not, we are all going to live forever. Unlike the cockroaches, we don’t die and become nothing. There is a part of us that will live forever, the soul.
Eternal life as defined in the Bible is knowing God the Father and Jesus:
John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (NKJV)
Outside of this is eternal death, separation from God for all of eternity. Until we came to know Him, we were by default in eternal death.
Knowing the Father makes me enjoy Eternal Life, the new life that I have. As I know Him more through His Word, I manifest a greater likeness of Him (2 Corinthians 3:18). I AM already like Him, but like the cockroach-made-man, I need to realise this.
This is Why He Came to Earth
This is why Jesus had to go to the Cross and die, that we might become New Creations, to become like God the Father to have relationship with Him again:
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (NKJV)
He came to live in us. Once that happens, He is one with you forever and you are spiritually alive, like the cockroach made into the man again!
He came to die for all the effects of sin (Matthew 1:21):
- Jesus died that we might live again
- Jesus took punishment for sin that we might not have to
- Jesus bore the stripes that we might be healed
- Jesus was stripped of all, in shame and nakedness, that we might be clothed in His righteousness.
- Jesus took mockery on our behalf, that we might never have to be mocked in eternity
- Jesus was rejected as the Son that the son could be accepted
- Jesus was forsaken, that we would never be forsaken again
- Jesus did not get an answer from the Father, that we might always have an answer from Him
- Jesus forsook all authority that we might be regain all authority
- Jesus was emptied of all riches, that we might be made rich
- Jesus thirsted, that we might never thirst again
Ours Part – Only Believe
Like the cockroach-became-man, we who believe have been made like Christ.
1 John 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. (NKJV)
What we need is to believe who He has made us to be, the completed work of rescue. No longer are we just men, we are now sealed with the Holy Spirit, one with Him, never to be separated from Him. He lives in us and the best thing we can do is agree with what His Word says about us.
John 17:22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. (NKJV)
The more we walk by faith in the Word of God instead of what we see, the more we become like Him. His truths start to set us free.
John 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (NKJV)
This is Why Good Friday is Good
I am happy to announce that on Good Friday, the rescue plan was accomplished by Jesus.
John 19:30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. (NKJV)
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (NKJV)
God loves You. The rescue was completed almost 2000 years ago. If you have never received Him, He wants to be in you, to guide you, nurture you, see you free with His truths. If you already believe in Him as Lord, He wants to make you more like Him everyday. He wants your heart that He might walk with you each day.
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