Saturday, April 04, 2009
The nice thing about dogs is that they can be replaced, leaving only good 
Balaam & Baal
This story from Numbers 25 and Numbers 24 has sent me to my knees. Here the Israelites have received God's words, wandered through the wilderness, seen the Lord conquer nations, and while God is speaking through a donkey and that diviner, Balaam, Israel is worshipping Baal, Balaam's God. Our tendency is to ask, "how could they?"
But everyday we do the same thing. We read the Word of God, we hear him speak intimately to us, we see Him work in our lives. Still we fall back to worshipping our pleasures: tv, leisure, family and things, even religion and the truth that we know.
Israel's sin was that it kept falling prey to the culture around it rather than setting itself apart as God's holy treasure. Over and over God judged the people of Israel for it's idolatry.
Why are we surprised when discipline comes our way even as we idolize the things in this world? We should welcome it because it means that God is loving us as his treasured child and bringing about our rescue from this world that tempts us away from him and the joy he has waiting for us in him.
The following passage is long for a blog, but read it and fall to your knees and pray that you would be counted with the righteous protected by the blood of Christ!
2 Pet 2:1 - 22 (ESV) 1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. 17These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
Oh, God help us to not be enticed by the Baals of today.
But everyday we do the same thing. We read the Word of God, we hear him speak intimately to us, we see Him work in our lives. Still we fall back to worshipping our pleasures: tv, leisure, family and things, even religion and the truth that we know.
Israel's sin was that it kept falling prey to the culture around it rather than setting itself apart as God's holy treasure. Over and over God judged the people of Israel for it's idolatry.
Why are we surprised when discipline comes our way even as we idolize the things in this world? We should welcome it because it means that God is loving us as his treasured child and bringing about our rescue from this world that tempts us away from him and the joy he has waiting for us in him.
The following passage is long for a blog, but read it and fall to your knees and pray that you would be counted with the righteous protected by the blood of Christ!
2 Pet 2:1 - 22 (ESV) 1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. 17These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
Oh, God help us to not be enticed by the Baals of today.
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The ESV Study Bible is the next best thing to a seminary education!
The ESV Study Bible is the next best thing to a seminary education!
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Stand Up and Dance
Yesterday waiting for big brother to get home from school we all sat around watching Elijah, who’s three, dance to Veggie Tales Christmas music. But he got tired of dancing alone, so he started saying, “Stand up, Grandma. Stand up and dance.” “Stand up, Grandpa. Stand up and dance.”
So trying to get out of the post election doldrums this phrase, “stand up and dance,” has haunted me today. The election results and polling clearly show that the moral absolutes that God ordains are still respected by many people. So stand up for them and don’t lose heart. Then get on your knees and pray for Obama and our leaders to be in line with the majority of Americans on the beauty of God-given life and marriage.
And dance because presidents come and go by God’s decree, but God remains the same yesterday, today and forever.
“For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor (or the president).” ESV 1 Peter 2:15-17
So "Stand up and dance," For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. " ESV Romans 13:1
Friday, October 24, 2008
How to Vote
John Piper offers this excellent perspective on life and voting:
"This world matters. But it is not ultimate. It is the stage for living in such a way to show that this world is not our God, but that Christ is our God. It is the stage for using the world to show that Christ is more precious than the world.
So it is with voting. We do not withdraw. We are involved—but as if not involved. Politics does not have ultimate weight for us. It is one more stage for acting out the truth that Christ, and not politics, is supreme. "
Read the entire article here.
"This world matters. But it is not ultimate. It is the stage for living in such a way to show that this world is not our God, but that Christ is our God. It is the stage for using the world to show that Christ is more precious than the world.
So it is with voting. We do not withdraw. We are involved—but as if not involved. Politics does not have ultimate weight for us. It is one more stage for acting out the truth that Christ, and not politics, is supreme. "
Read the entire article here.
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