Hijacking the Rainbow (Part 1)

Jesus Christ Never Compromised

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. And what we do here is we try to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, who never compromised. Sadly, I do. Sadly, you do. But it�s nice to know there is someone who never compromised, never caved to temptation, even though he was tempted to the fullest degree.

And the Lord Jesus never caved or fell to temptation. Tempted but never sinfully responded, never sinned one time, never spoke sinfully, never thought sinfully. That�s what boggles my mind, never even having a sinful thought.

Symbols and Why They Shape Meaning

That is amazing to me. I like symbols. I don�t know if you like symbols or not, but symbols are very, very powerful. Symbols help you remember things. There are many advantages to symbols. Let me throw out a few symbols that have powerful meaning behind them.

Swastika, yin and yang, however you pronounce it, I don�t know these things. All-seeing eye, peace sign, Jolly Roger, I didn�t say Jolly Rancher, Fred. Hammer and sickle, pentagram, female symbol, male symbol, biohazard.

Black, black power, smiley face, four-leaf clover. Now, if you were asked the question, what�s your favorite symbol in all the world, I wonder what you�d say, Rolling Stones, Tom? I hope not. I saw that picture on Twitter the other day, it�s a zombie alert.

Oh no, sorry, false alarm, it�s just the Rolling Stones. I had a picture of the Stones, you know, 77 years old, walking down the street. My favorite all-time symbol, of course, is the cross. And when Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, what does he say?

�I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. He had just got done talking about, in chapter 1, �The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

The word of the cross is the power of God. And that symbol, the cross, when you see it, maybe you think of the resurrection, Jesus is no longer on the cross. Maybe you think of a Persian way to torture people, and let�s not even let the criminals feet touch the ground to soil the earth.

Maybe you think of propitiation. Maybe you think of substitutionary atonement. Probably what you should be thinking of, in addition to many of those things, is Jesus lifted up like the serpent was in the book of Numbers as Jesus makes that connection with Nicodemus in John chapter 3.

Probably my all-time favorite symbol has to be the cross, and it is probably yours as well. But if you had to pick number two symbol, what would you pick for symbol number two? What would it be? Symbol number two, well, I�m still waiting.

I�m still waiting for an answer. If I only had my coffee around here, I�d take a sip, I�d take a chug of it, but I don�t. It�s over across the room. I could probably just wait now and run over there, and you wouldn�t even know the difference.

24 and a half minutes, boom, shazam. My second favorite symbol of all time is the rainbow. When you think of the rainbow, what do you think of? What do you say, hmm, rainbow signify, and you know where I�m going.

The rainbow has been hijacked, and we on this show today, the powers invested in me are vested in me, maybe invested too. I�ve got the best theological education money can buy, did you know that? When a modern person thinks of the rainbow, I know what they think of, and so do you, and we�ll talk about that just in a little bit.

But if you go backwards in time, not all the way back to Genesis yet, but backward in time, Norse mythology said the rainbow bridge connected men and gods. So Bifrost connected to the world of the Midgard.

I�m sure I�m not pronouncing those things right. If you think of Irish leprechauns, the secret spot at the end of the rainbow is where they have the pot of gold. Isn�t that what they say, pot of gold?

Why do they say pot of gold instead of pot of gold? In Japan, rainbows were thought by some to be bridges that would have their human ancestors, that have died, of course, would go, descend to the planet.

How does that work? Navajos think that the rainbow is a path. It kind of looks almost like a path where spirits would walk. The Maori talk about Hina, the moon, caused the rainbow to span the heavens down to the earth for her mortal husband to return to earth to end his days since death may not enter her celestial home.

Isis, of course, Greek mythology, Isis. She is a personification of the rainbow, a messenger linking gods to humanity. There�s a rainbow maiden in Hawaii. Even some quasi-reformed people, Thomas Müntzer, if you go to Stolberg in Germany, you will see him holding a rainbow flag in his hand, preaches the gospel slash social revolutionary claims.

That might go down well in downtown New York City. German Peasants War, 16th century, rainbow flag, peasants boot. So you have a flag and a boot. This is social change, new change, new era, dawning of the new era.

Isn�t that a special song? This is the dawning of new era. Maybe that�s not special. Who knows? Maybe it�s Fun Boy 3. Who knows? American Revolutionary War, in that time, Thomas Paine said, you know, we should use a rainbow flag.

So if ships come to port and they want to know if it�s safe or not, good guys, bad guys, we�ll use a maritime flag to say it�s a neutral place. Yes, please come here. Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, 1994.

Let�s call South Africa, after apartheid, the Rainbow Nation. Apple computer logo has even incorporated the rainbow at times. The Italians have a peace flag used in a peace march in 1961, which was like a rainbow and it was a protest against nuclear weapons.

The Rainbow Flag and Modern Identity Politics

Well, these days, in our era, the dawning of our new era, Rainbow Push. When you think of the rainbow, you probably don�t think of Rainbow Push. You think of the rainbow flag, the homosexual flag. But the background to all that is the Rainbow Push non-profit that had Jesse Jackson take the People United to Save Humanity push and National Rainbow Coalition.

And you put those two together and so you have Rainbow Push. Social, civil, political, activism, Rainbow Coalition. Remember, Jackson ran for president in 1984 and he wanted to stand up for people who were oppressed and from every creed and race, anything that had to do with Reaganomics was bad.

When was the last time you heard the word Reaganomics? And he gave a speech in 1984 at the Democratic National Convention, the DNC there on July 18th, happened to be in San Fran. Isn�t that special? I love San Fran.

The speech called for Arab Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, youth, disabled veterans, small farmers, lesbians and gays to join with African Americans and Jewish Americans for political purpose and any other Americans who don�t like Reaganomics.

When you think of the symbol today though, the rainbow, you are going to think of the gay pride rainbow flag. And so let�s just give you a little background of that and then we�ll look at the text so you can reorient yourself toward north so you can get the shackles of your mind off because media does influence us.

And when people see rainbow now, what do they think of? It was 1978 when the rainbow flag was used by the gay community in the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade. That was when it was just GL or LG before we had to add all the other things.

We�re going to have to keep adding those. You might as well just leave a space at the end, N plus space. Gilbert Baker, who was, according to one account, an artist and a drag queen, is the one who designed the rainbow flag.

And he, of course, knew that you have a powerful symbol like this to represent nations and now we can represent ourself as a country or a group of people. He said, quote, �We needed something beautiful, something from us.

The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things. Plus, it�s a natural flag. It�s from the sky. Even though the rainbow has been used in other ways in vexillography, there it is, vexillography, this use has now far eclipsed any other use that it had.

So he originally designed, Baker did, a flag, eight stripes, and these colors represented sexuality, life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony, and spirit. And in the spirit of Betsy Ross herself, he designed it himself and sewed the material for the first flag himself.

Now there was another version, a different prototype, and it had hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit.

He then went to Paramount Flag Company and started selling his, what they call, I didn�t call the gay flag. So the rainbow has been used for many different purposes, but what�s the biblical definition and what�s the biblical symbolism behind the rainbow?

That�s the question for today on No Compromise Radio. Of course, Judy Garland sang the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and she was very popular. I don�t know if you know this, very popular with gay activists, with the gay community, 50s and 60s.

She was very supported by the GL community at that time, gay and lesbian community. And she said, �When I die, I have visions of homosexuals�, she had a different word for that, but I won�t say on the radio, �singing over the rainbow and the flag at Fire Island being flown at half-mast.

That is according to Forrest Wickham�s account. Now, technically, what is a rainbow? If you�d like the meteorological phenomenon known as rainbow, you can combine words like reflection, refraction, dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light, multicolored arcs directly opposite the sun, reds the outer arc, violets on the inner arc in the primary rainbow.

It�s really an optical illusion when you have light going through water droplets at what�s best 42 degrees from the opposite direction. If it�s seawater, there�s a high refractive index in rainwater, et cetera.

Genesis 9 and the Meaning of the Rainbow

But Genesis chapter 9 tells us what you should think of symbolically. Actually, it�s more of a symbol to God than it is to us. Here on No Compromise Radio, how God thinks of the rainbow is how you should think of the rainbow.

Or, if you like it in paratribal terms, the way God thinks of the rainbow, you must think about the rainbow. If you want to use it for other things, it�s a nice decoration, or you think of prisms or light or something like that, I understand that.

But primarily, you should be thinking of it the way God thinks of it. God has flooded the earth, right? Genesis 6, Genesis 7, Genesis 8, the waters have receded, and now we move into Genesis chapter 9, and God begins to talk to the people, the eight remaining people, in a way that�s very similar to the way God talked to Adam and Eve as we start over.

And God, Genesis 9, 1, blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Doesn�t that sound like Genesis 1, 28? I think it does. Just like God says to Adam, The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heaven, upon everything that creeps in the ground and of all the fish in the sea.

In your hand they are delivered. You are to have dominion over these animals. Noah, doesn�t that sound like the same command that was given to Adam? Sounds like it to me, Genesis 1, 26 and 28. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.

Oh, no wonder there�s the fear of you and the dread of you upon the beast, because there are going to be food. As I gave you green plants, I give you everything. So, you want to eat these animals. They�re going to be running from you.

You�re going to have to catch them. J. Vernon McGee, the inimitable, deceased radio Bible teacher, not a deceased radio, but you get me. You get my drift. I try to edit as I talk. It�s harder to do than you think it might be, said there�s nothing great about vegetarians.

It was a bunch of vegetarians who were destroyed in the flood. And J. Vernon McGee would be correct. The animals now have terror. They used to be pets. They used to walk right into the ark, not afraid.

Now they are. God tells them, but you shall not eat flesh with its life that is the blood. Why? Well, Leviticus 17 will then tell us the reason. For the life of the creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.

It is the blood that makes atonement for one�s life. Blood is sacred. It is used for the sacrifice. And so don�t you consume it. God has destroyed every single person, man, woman, child, young and old, male and female, in the flood except for Noah, his wife, three sons, and their respective wives.

Eight people. Well, maybe life is cheap. Maybe we shouldn�t even care now. God wipes them all out. What about us? And for your lifeblood, Genesis 9 .5, I will require a reckoning. From every beast I will require it, and from his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

For whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image. Can we please, once and for all, especially with the added emphasis of Romans 13 .4, the servant of God, the government does not bear the sword for nothing.

God�s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Can we once and for all say to ourselves, capital punishment is biblical. There is justification for capital punishment. Why? A. God says so.

B. He gives us the reason for it because man�s made in the image and likeness of God. That�s why. And if you say, well, I don�t like capital punishment. I think there�s been mistakes made. Some innocent people have been killed.

I get you. I dig. But what does the Bible teach? We are people who are under the word, not over the word, and you can�t just pick and choose things that you don�t like. I never would imagine you�d like all the stuff said in the Bible, but it�s true.

This is found in the word of God. Now, Genesis 9 goes on to say, And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth, and multiply in it. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.

For it is for every beast of the earth. Here�s this covenant. Here�s this agreement. We�re going to cut this covenant, and I think you might want to call it the Noahic covenant. I will establish my covenant with you that never again, verse 11, shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow like a military bow, a warrior�s bow, a bow and arrow.

We call it the rainbow, but the word here is the military weapon. I�ll put my military weapon in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow, the military weapon bow, is seen in the clouds, the rainbow, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature.

Of all flesh, and the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. Now think about it. It�s obvious, so obvious that you might not even know it, and then once you do, you never forget it.

Just picture in your mind�s eye now a rainbow, or pull up a rainbow online, or look out the window if it�s been raining. What�s the shape of the rainbow? Well, think to yourself, the Hebrew word is bow, military bow.

Does it in fact look like a bow, like a bow and arrow? Well, yes it does. And what way is it pointing? Is it pointing down to the earth to shoot fiery judgment darts of flood and water or fire? It�s put away.

How do you hang up a bow? That�s the way you hang it up. It�s hung up. Here is a symbol of war that�s now got an extra connotation to it, and then there�s mercy and kindness. God isn�t just just, but he�s merciful as well.

This is not just a symbol of vengeance anymore, but it�s a symbol of peace. God put his bow up when the bow is in the clouds. I will see it, verse 16, and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

This is a reminder to God. Let me remind you one more time, verse 16 of Genesis 9. When the bow, the military bow, the rainbow is in the clouds, I, God, will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

Now we look at it and say, phew, God is not going to flood us anymore. No matter how many days it�s going to rain, he is merciful, and it is no longer just a sign of vengeance, but a sign of peace, a sign of faithfulness.

God keeps his promises. God keeps his promise. Faithfulness, faithful mercy, faithfully being patient and kind. We deserve to receive his fiery, watery arrows again. But when God sees it, so this is a reminder to God.

My point on No Compromise Radio where we try to be biblical then provocative in that order, I don�t really care if you try to hijack it. Try as you may. When God sees the rainbow, he doesn�t see a bridge to the evil spirit world land.

He doesn�t see a pot of gold at the end. He doesn�t see Rainbow Push Coalition, and he doesn�t see Gilbert Baker�s flag. He sees, and this is anthropomorphic language so we can understand it, he sees and remembers the everlasting covenant he made with Noah.

Oh, remember Noah, that guy that didn�t exist with the flood that didn�t exist? Of course not. Noah was a real man. The ark was a real boat, ship. I forget what the difference between a boat and a ship might be, but if you�re around a Navy guy or gal, you better have your torpedo shafts in a row.

I met a guy the other day at the gym, and he had a Navy diver shirt on. I thought, �Well, what kind of guy wears a Navy diving shirt unless you�re really a Navy diver So I said, �Are you a Navy diver

�I know. Call me original. He said, �Yes, I am. And then he began to tell me some of the crazy things he has to do. I�m thinking, �You�re not even regenerate, and you�re going to take all those chances

And of course I said, �Thank you for serving, but what do you do when you get stuck in a missile tube? You�re trying to scrunch through that, and it�s underwater someplace, and that�s one of the things he has to do.

I thought, �Talk about scared. Talk about crazy. When you see a rainbow, I dare you. When you see a rainbow, I double-dog dare you to say to yourself, when God sees a rainbow, what does He see? Therefore, consequently, in light of when I see a rainbow, what should I think of?

I�d like to have my thoughts reflect God�s thoughts. That might be smart. That might be wise. Verse 17, God said to Noah, �This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.

The war bow, vengeance, we�re going to look at this next time as well, is now also a symbol of peace. It�s hung up. It�s set up in the clouds. It�s transformed. God is at peace with His covenant people.

Isn�t that nice? Well, my name is Mike Abenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. We�re talking about rainbows today, Romans today. Romans is later for me. And we�ll do part two next time with rainbows in the Bible.

Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.