Grace & Truth: The Narrow Gate

GRACE AND TRUTH

THE NARROW GATE

Johannes Broos

Grace & Truth

In a Biblical narrative and in detail, the reader is invited to join part of an amazing journey God has designed to start with one man to prepare a people to bring forth one Man to bring Salvation to all of mankind. It describes the various life’s of an ancient people and their different nature. The first king of Israel, Saul, and second king, David, the man after God’s own heart and in the lineage of Jesus. When passing through the Narrow Gate we are offered to drink from the Living Water and to start our own journey with the living God. No longer alone, but with the best Friend ever. He will be the lamp for our feet and a light on our path and part of every aspect in our life. God’s intrinsic value for each and every human being is beyond understanding and His great love and mercy are incredible.

John 4:14 (NIV) But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Author Bio

Johannes Broos, a native of the Netherlands, is a formal farmer and an internationally operating businessman. He is happily married with three daughters, three sons-in-law, and four grandchildren. He and his family reside in South Africa. When he is not managing his own company, he enjoys nature and reading (with emphasis on history). Recently, Johan has sensed a calling from the Lord that inspired him to write the book you hold in your hands. About his new calling Johan says, I feel like a fountain with new ideas, and never in my life have I been so excited to do something for God’s Kingdom by His guidance and inspiration. Indeed, he is working on two more books at this time.

Copyright © 2017 Johannes Broos. All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of Johannes Broos. Requests may be submitted by email: johbroos@gmail.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Unmarked quotations are paraphrases by the author.

Editing and formatting services by ChristianEditingServices.com.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is dedicated to all members of the human family.

We are all loved by an awesome Creator.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

PART 1: THE TRUTH OF GOD IN BIBLICAL TEACHING

Chapter 1. The Truth about Us

Chapter 2. The Broad Way and the Narrow Gate

Chapter 3. The Truth about Truth

Chapter 4. Conscience, Good, and Evil

Chapter 5. Human Rebellion

PART 2: THE PLAN OF GOD’S GRACE IN BIBLICAL HISTORY

Chapter 6. God’s Way to the Narrow Gate

Chapter 7. The Birth of the Hebrew People

Chapter 8. Joseph and His Dreams—Famine in the Land

Chapter 9. Moses and the Exodus

Chapter 10. Joshua and the Conquest

Chapter 11. The Judges

Chapter 12. The First Kings of Israel

Conclusion

Endnotes

Index

Scripture Index

INTRODUCTION

I wrote this book because of a burden inside me to share important information with all humans who are seeking for truth. There is much confusion and deception today, yet God’s truth remains. It is my hope that every reader of this book will learn how God operates through His truth and His grace to accomplish His eternal purposes in our world and in our lives. Humanity has fallen into sin and death, but God has a perfect plan for redemption. That divine plan is taught in Scripture and worked out in biblical history. It was initiated by God’s love for humanity and is fulfilled in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Part 1

THE TRUTH OF GOD

IN BIBLICAL TEACHING

1

THE TRUTH ABOUT US

To live a meaningful life in this world is not an easy task. There is much confusion and deception and conflicting opinions and feelings. Many believe education and science will give us truth and knowledge, but in many ways the result has been just the opposite. There is uncertainty and confusion in religion, politics, economics, the environment, and our future. Morality is not settled in society, and there are conflicting ideas about good and evil. Our modern Western culture is upside down.

Where Do We Come From?

So where do we start with all this? I think we must start where it all began, with the crucial question Where do we come from? This question must be answered correctly if our journey here on earth is to have meaning. Knowing where we come from gives us the right answer for where we are to go in this life—and what comes after this life.

We are told constantly that our origin is found in evolution. However, the Bible, the Book of Life, tells us we are created not as animals but as beings made in the image of the Creator (Genesis 1:26). Human beings are the direct creation of God, apart from any evolutionary process. This is the clear teaching of Genesis.

I understand that it is very difficult for many to believe what the Bible says about this and many other issues, for to do so is to set ourselves against what science and the majority of society tell us. However, when we submit to what the Bible teaches, we find a clear and satisfying answer to the question of our origin, in contrast to evolution, which really tells us nothing about where we come from.

Excursus: The Impossibility of Evolution

Many books have been written about both evolution and creation. There are many able defenders of biblical creation who offer strong and convincing arguments for the Bible’s teaching. The strongest and best argument I have come across is that of Dr. Douglas Clarke on green symbiosis, which I will summarize here.¹

Photosynthesis

Wikipedia offers a good definition of photosynthesis: Process used by plants and other autotrophic organisms to convert light energy, from the sun, into chemical energy that can be used to fuel organisms and activities. Carbohydrates, such as sugars, are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water during the process and oxygen is released.2

A chlorophyll molecule, a green pigment, is the single most critical substance in photosynthetic plants. Actually a chlorophyll molecule is a miniscule chemical factory equipped with solar panels that is responsible for producing oxygen for human beings and animals to breathe. All our food directly and indirectly comes from this tiny little factory, which makes this world a green world. Amazingly, carbon dioxide, which humans and animals breathe out after taking in oxygen, is essential in the process of photosynthesis. The plants need carbon dioxide, and we need oxygen and food to live.

What is not often realized, however, is that photosynthesis is a process that needs both day and night. During the day the batteries in the chlorophyll molecules are loaded with light energy in order to power the complex conversion of carbon dioxide and water with minerals into oxygen and carbohydrates during nighttime. It is not just day and night that photosynthesis needs but also a twenty-four-hour day, which exactly matches the rotation of the earth on its axis. In other words, without green, without chlorophyll, without a twenty-four-hour day, without day and night, and without the sun there is no oxygen to breathe, no food to eat, and no life on earth. On Day One of creation in Genesis 1:3, God said, Let there be light: and there was light. From the beginning God’s creation was in concert with the process of photosynthesis, including the twenty-four-hour day.

Photosynthesis also teaches us that plants cannot evolve into animals since plants breathe carbon dioxide and animals breathe oxygen.

Symbiosis

Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between two or more different biological species. The word symbiosis comes directly from ancient Greek and means living together.

One example of symbiosis is pollination. Without pollination we do not have reproduction of plants, since virtually every flower needs a pollinator. Pollinators include honeybees, flies, butterflies, moths, beetles, midges, ants, bats, hummingbirds, honeyeaters, and sunbirds. Other vertebrates such as monkeys, rodents, lizards, lemurs, and opossums have been recorded pollinating some plants. Honeybees collect pollen very selectively, with the pollen adhering to their rear legs. They are extremely effective insects for pollination. It is amazing that each plant produces nectar it does not need for itself but that meets the nutritional needs of the pollinator. Some pollinators are very specific to certain species of plants and have nozzles, feeding tubes, and proboscises designed especially for those plants. Some butterflies even have a proboscis that extends during feeding.

Pollination shows us that the pollinator and the plant must have existed at the same time since the plant cannot reproduce without the pollinator and the pollinator cannot exist without the nectar of the plant. Genesis 1:11 tells us, And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. It is interesting to note that the grasses, herbs, and trees were created first according to Genesis, before the pollinators were created three days later (Genesis 1:24).

Plant-Specific Mineral Pump

Plants have very specific mineral needs for healthy growth. Mineral deficiencies cause plant diseases, hinder growth, and even cause plants to die. Only about twenty years ago it was discovered that not only is mineral deficiency harmful for a plant but also an overload of minerals is just as harmful and will destroy a plant. Minerals needed by plants are divided into two categories: macroelements and microelements, or trace elements. Macroelements are nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. Microelements are magnesium, sulphur, boron, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, zinc, molybdenum, and nickel.

Each plant species requires specific amounts of various minerals. The same minerals needed for lettuce, for example, might be deadly for cabbage, and vice versa. Plants have in their root system a kind of plumbing that is called xylem. Xylem transports the minerals, which are dissolved in water. Under the xylem is a root cap with a membrane that allows only the exact quantity of each and every mineral through, according to the needs of that specific plant. (Compare this to after his kind in Genesis 1:11.) The plant-specific mineral pump makes it impossible for one species of plant to evolve into another plant species.

The three biologic facts mentioned above—and there are many more—make evolution once and for all impossible. Without these processes, which evolution cannot account for, there is no oxygen to breathe and no food to eat—plain and simple. We are indeed divinely created beings as taught by the Bible, the only infallible source of truth we have.

Who Are We?

The Bible clearly tells us where we came from. This leads us to the next question: Who are we? Interestingly, this question is partly answered when we answer the first question. But there is more to the story.

In the book of Genesis we are told that God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, which was somewhere in what is today the Middle East. Today the Garden of Eden is still in our collective memory, and the name Eden is everywhere associated with something good.

Adam was given the task to name all the animals and to take care of God’s creation at large. This indicates that the Creator must have given Adam and Eve a thorough understanding of His creation. Also, in Genesis we learn that the Creator was in contact with Adam and Eve on a daily basis, for there was communication and relationship.

Because of free will, it would not have been fair for the Creator to give man only good things to choose from. How can we have free will if the only things we can choose from are good? If there is only good and no bad, free will does not exist. Therefore, the Creator placed a tree in the garden and instructed Adam and Eve not to eat from the fruit of it. However, in the exercise of their free will they chose to eat from the tree anyway.

This deed was instigated by Lucifer, a fallen angel, who in pride had come into conflict with the Creator and taken a third of the angels with him in revolt. Lucifer manifested himself to Eve in the form of a serpent, a snake. It is interesting that the serpent has remained a prominent symbol. The native American Hopis practiced the snake dance, the ancient Celts had the snake in their symbols, and even today it is widely associated with fertility or a creative life force, poison, and medicine. The snake also is associated with the occult. In Africa there is a fear of snakes that goes beyond understanding. The serpent in the garden is also still in the collective memory of humanity.

Eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in defiance of God’s command meant separation from the Creator because He is holy and cannot be in the presence of sin. Sin literally means to miss the goal. It is that which is contrary to God’s nature.

With humanity’s fall into sin, however, also came the grace of God. Genesis 3:15 describes God’s salvation plan through the seed of the woman. This salvation plan began to manifest itself in the calling of Abraham to leave Ur in Mesopotamia and go to the land of Canaan, which is Israel today. It ultimately led to the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins on the cross and to be resurrected from death after three days.

So who are we? We are Adam and Eve’s children. We are beings created in God’s image. We are also fallen beings, but through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and faith in Him, we are saved from sin and restored to relationship with our Creator.

What Are We Doing Here?

What exactly is our purpose here on planet earth? The answer to this question is beautifully illustrated by John Bunyan (1628–1688) in his famous book The Pilgrim’s Progress. This book is about the journey we as believers in Christ make during our life on earth. There are various obstacles and challenges during our journey, but ultimately we will arrive at our destination.

When Jesus Christ was on earth He said that His kingdom is not of the world (John 18:36). Therefore, as those who have accepted God’s salvation through Jesus, our purpose is to live as Christ lived and to do what He has told us to do. We are not here to play around with religion but to be about God’s business, spreading the gospel, the good news, to the ends of the world and making followers (disciples) of Jesus (Matthew 28:19–20). Those who do not know Jesus Christ flounder about trying to find some purpose to their lives. They substitute their own goals for God’s purpose and never find true fulfillment in this life.

Where Are We Headed?

The last question concerns our final destination. John 3:16 indicates that it is the will of God that every human being be saved. However, we still have our free will, and God always respects that. For those who choose to believe in Christ there is salvation and eternal life, but for the unsaved there is eternal condemnation. Our faith in Christ, or lack of it, determines where we are headed. It is a not determined by our good deeds or living a good life. Salvation is by God’s grace received through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Where are we headed? There are only two possible destinations. We are either on the broad road to destruction or the narrow road to life eternal.

2

THE BROAD WAY

AND THE NARROW GATE

In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus spoke about a broad way on which many people are traveling and of a narrow way that leads through a small gate. We all once traveled on that broad way, which according to Jesus leads to destruction. To flee from this way one must go through the narrow gate. This narrow gate can be entered only by humbling ourselves. It has been said that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. This indeed is what is required to go through the narrow gate and to make that different journey, a journey that leads to life.

The gate to this journey is narrow, not because only a few are capable of walking on that road but because few choose to walk it. Here we see both the grace and truth of God. He graciously makes the narrow way available to all who will choose it. But there is only one truth that leads to eternal life. The broad way allows for many so-called truths, but they lead to eternal destruction. The truth that leads to life is Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

Let’s be honest about that broad way. You start on that road by rejecting the Creator and His revealed way to life. This has dire consequences because now you are on your own. You are not anchored in God, and your whole life depends on your own wisdom and your own effort. As you continue on this road, you become vulnerable to many ideas and beliefs the world offers.

Most people are on this broad way, and therefore most are very susceptible to the deception of the world and the devil. This explains how entire societies, even those with a Judeo-Christian background that recognized the difference between good and evil, can be drawn into evil and extreme violence. The Second World War and the Holocaust could never have taken place if the majority of the German people had not bought into the false doctrine of Hitler and the Nazis. Only a few people, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemὄller, warned the German people of the evil of Nazism. Even the churches were politically correct about what was happening in German society.

Racism has no place in creation because the Bible teaches we are all related. We are all created in God.s image and equal under God.s law, including unborn children. Yet evolution dominates the thinking of the world, and it does not make all people equal. It gives us the idea of .survival of the fittest.. Slavery, abortion, and unter- and übermenschen are a few of the consequences of the evolutionary conclusion that human life has no intrinsic value.

Even modern technology that has very positive short-term results can be destructive in the long term if the truth of God does not guide its use. Consider the green revolution, which came about as an idea to feed the world. A process was launched to industrialize food production with the aim of dramatically increasing the availability of food. On the surface this looked like a great development. Today our world has been totally changed by it.

An agrarian geneticist, Nazarene Stampelli, initiated the idea of the green revolution in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1970 Norman Borlang, the father of the green revolution, received the Nobel Prize for work that saved more than a billion people from starvation. This, of course, was a very good development. But when you look at the end result of this revolution, it gets scary. Half of the world’s population moved from the rural areas into the cities because they were not able to compete with big companies and their large investments. Much fertile soil was depleted of minerals and organic material, and huge portions of virgin forests were logged. Spraying of chemicals killed wildlife on a huge scale, and seeds disappeared and can no longer be reproduced by farmers themselves. Large multinationals are in control of seed production, chemical fertilizer, and pesticides. Other large companies possess patent-protected seeds and chemicals, and almost every farmer worldwide depends on these and other large corporations in order to be able to produce food. GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds are another dangerous development. They pollute non-GMO agricultural fields, and we can only hope our health is not endangered by this. Then we have the packaging industry, which goes along with the industrialization of food production with the result that wherever we go we are confronted with plastic bottles, bags, and other litter. There are huge islands of plastic in the oceans, and it is getting worse and worse.

Do not these things reflect the broad way that leads to destruction? What would have happened if most people had taken the narrow way and followed the rules on that road through the narrow gate? How different our world would be today if people accepted God’s gracious offer and followed the truth rather than stumble about on the broad way, which is absent of truth and leads to eternal destruction.

Excursus: Healthy, Sustainable Food Production

Is there a way back to growing healthy food in a sustainable way? Yes, there is. There are two new methods that take us in that direction.

Aquaponics is a combination of fish farming and hydroponics. Hydroponics is a soilless culture in a growing medium fed with mineral nutrient solutions in water. Both cultures have disadvantages on their own, but combined, they offer many advantages. Fish farming needs much clean water, and hydroponics also needs much water and soluble fertilizer. In combination, these two cultures can feed the plants with the fish water through the hydroponics system, while the water is cleaned by the plants and ready to be recycled to the fish tanks again. It is much more sustainable than conventional