Month: March 2022

Throughout I Chronicles we see two stark contrasts. Time and time again David sought the Lord first….while Saul consulted a medium for direction. David relied on God’s wisdom and His blessing before acting, while Saul foolishly struck out on his own. This illustrates the need to go to God first, and not when you’ve already made up your mind of what you’re going to do and you just want God to bless it. You need to seek God first to enable Him to fill your heart and mind with His insight and direction, not as a last resort when everything you’ve tried has failed. It’s not surprising that the name of this valley meant Vale or Valley of Giants…(an imposing designation that probably many of us have felt we’ve visited before.) David inquired of God first not last, and in return God delegated to David authority and dominion over his enemies.

“In later times…” is not a future period of time right before the Second Coming of Christ, rather in keeping with the overall perspective of the New Testament, it’s the era inaugurated by Christ coming as a baby and will end at His return. This end-time tribulation is here, today, now, and will only get worse as the very end draws near. (II Thessalonians 2:3-7) And as we get closer, godlessness will increase, even within the four walls of the Church. II Peter 3:3 warns us that in the last days scoffers will come saying, “Where is this Coming He promised?” There will be the deception of many as false teachers with their false doctrines infiltrate the pulpits…causing many to forsake the faith and rebel against the truth of the Gospel Message. But the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, can guide the simplest of us if we only allow Him. We also have the example of Jesus and His Ministry to follow as a blueprint for holy living in a very broken world today. Combine this all with God’s Word, and I assure you that it will be easier when you hear something… to discern whether it’s from God or not. (I John 4:1)

How long have you waited on the Lord for a prayer of yours to be answered? A month, a year, a decade? It can finally get to the point that we think God has forgotten us and our request is just being ignored. But Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years for the promise of a son to be fulfilled. By then, Sarah was 99 years old and well beyond childbearing age. But it says here that God was gracious to her, miraculously enabling Sarah to conceive. God always does what He says He will do, and accomplishes every promise He has made. Our job is to wait, patiently trusting in His Word…for He is faithful to all He has promised. Or as Joshua 21:45 tells us, ” Not one of all the Lord’s good promises failed; every one was fulfilled.”

In other words, everything that will ever happen to you goes through God’s hands first. This is the concept of God’s providence…His caring provision for His people as He guides them in their journey of faith, accomplishing His plan and purpose in them. His mission always to save us and shape us more into the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. But we don’t always accept His sovereignty when trauma, loss, and suffering comes into our lives and we are forced to submit to His Will, not ours. At that point I’m reminded of Corrie Ten Boom who said, “When we are powerless to do a thing, it’s a joy when we can come and step inside the ability of Jesus.” It’s joyful submission on our part that acknowledges God’s providence in our life, regardless of the situation…knowing that God remains in control…and that we can learn to be content in all circumstances. (Philippians 4:11-12)

This group of degenerate false teachers were twisting Paul’s words in a very perverted way.  They took Paul’s Teaching in Romans 6:14-15 where he writes, as Christians we are no longer under the Law but under grace… and distorted it to persuade people that they were also free from the restraint of God’s moral Law.  Their prey of choice were brand new Christians not yet grounded in the faith and without foundational knowledge of the Word of God.  This still goes on today in many Progressive-type Churches where the Word is twisted to fit the current Social environment and world view.  But slavery is slavery just as corruption, immorality, and perversion have no place in God’s Church.  We all are slaves to something…it can be joyful slavery to God (Romans 6:18) or it can be slavery to sin, which leads only to death.

I’ll be the first to admit…I make mistakes – I fail miserably – I struggle. At times I’m a complete and total mess falling very short from what God would ever want for me. But I’m God’s mess, and I know beyond the shadow of doubt that God can turn any mess into a masterpiece. And in this is where wisdom lies. For wisdom calls to me, “Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding.” that’s because all wisdom and understanding have their source in God, and the fear of the Lord is where wisdom can be found. And when I am rightly related to God, daily meditating on His Word, I find this wisdom…powerful and encouraging, that gives me insight and prudence to make better decisions.

Why do you go to Church? Do you go out of duty, or obligation…or maybe because you’re expected to? May I be so bold as to say you need to go to Church for others, not yourself…so hear me out. The Psalms are full of praise and worship among the brethren, ” I will give You thanks in the great assembly; among throngs of people I will praise You.” (Psalm 35:18) for when we gather together with others to worship God, everyone is encouraged and uplifted. So if you’re not there…you are truly missed…for a part of the body is missing. Some of my greatest encouragement in Church has come from seeing people going through really tough times, but still in Church every Sunday. We’re talking cancer, loss of a spouse, and other devastating events, and sure they spend the Service broken and weeping…but they are there among us and we can love and pray for them. They say that worship will get you through some of the roughest times in your life, because it shifts your focus from the problem to the Problem Solver. So remember, when you are in Church, amongst the Body of Believers, we are all edified.

In Ephesus there was a silversmith by the name of Demetrious who crafted idols, but he was losing business on a daily basis. Why? Because Paul was preaching the Gospel Message in Ephesus and people were coming to Jesus and renouncing their man-made shrines. So Demetrious called together his fellow craftsmen to rile up the city. His tactic was to deceive, twist the truth, and exaggerate when he told the crowd, “Men, you know we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited…” (verses 25-27) In other words, Demetrious appealed to their greed and persuaded them that Paul’s preaching was impacting their livelihood and that it needed to be stopped at all cost. And all this cunning deception worked, for after he spoke soon the whole city was in an uproar….but comically, it backfired on him, for it tells us that most of the people didn’t even know why they were there rioting and the officials dispersed the crowd without charging Paul for anything.

If the Old Covenant had been perfect…Jesus would have never had to come to earth. If the priests didn’t have to repeatedly offer sacrifices daily and yearly for unattainable cleansing…Jesus could of stayed in heaven. But the Old Covenant, based on works, (first spoken of in Jeremiah 31:31-34) was flawed from the beginning…because mankind is flawed and in our corrupt condition it’s impossible to keep perfectly. That’s why Jesus came…to free us from the yoke of ceremonial observances, rites, and rituals that never completely took our sins away. The New Covenant then becoming a law of faith rather than works…a law of the Spirit of life rather than sin and death…and a perfected law as Jesus offered Himself as the ultimate sacrifice…once for all.

When the priests and Levites traveled out into the desert they wanted a name. But John the Baptist was emphatic…”No, I’m not the Messiah and neither am I Elijah.” This shows up again in Acts 14:12 when Paul and Barnabus healed a crippled man in Lystra…and suddenly the crowd wanted to give them names in order to make sacrifices to them. The caution here is that as humans we want to idolize the person, not the events surrounding them. Time after time in the Gospels Jesus had encounters with nameless people…the woman with the issue of blood, the demon-possessed man, the woman at the well, the leper. The Gospels are written this way so that each one of these anonymous people could be you or me, only in a different time and place. That’s because each one of these unknown, nameless people were sinners needing Jesus in their life, and we don’t need their name to appreciate the teaching.