Matthew 6:25-34

"Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." 

Matthew 6:29 (NIV) 

Phoebe and I made a shopping trip to Canadian Tire and had to stop and admire all of the flowers in the garden centre outside the door. Beautiful colours, different shapes, different sizes - flowers are amazing. If there is one thing that should bring doubt into the heart of an atheist and evolutionist, then BEAUTY is that one thing.

We all see some practical value to function, that is: a plant could adapt/evolve over time to become more functional - but BEAUTY? There is no reason that anything should adapt into BEAUTY. There is seemingly no purpose to BEAUTY and yet we recognize it and we enjoy it. BEAUTY proves the existence of a Creator, and it gives us a glimpse of His character. When we say that BEAUTY is in the eye of the beholder, we are scratching around on the surface of the greatest Truth there ever was, that BEAUTY was created by and for the enjoyment of the Creator, and that a Creator who enjoys BEAUTY is a wonderful God.

Our Lord tells us to look at the BEAUTY of the flowers, and reflect on the desire and ability of our God, to make the grass of the field BEAUTIFUL. He then makes the point that we can trust this God to look after our clothing needs. Our Lord doesn’t want us to make a mistake and fall into the trap of worrying about how we look, but rather to trust the God who created and appreciates BEAUTY. He is looking at you right now - you are the apple of His eye, and the object of His desire. He formed you in your mother’s womb, and He formed you for a second time by the work of His Holy Spirit as He brought your soul to life in His Son. He promises to care for you forever, and if He clothes the flowers in BEAUTY and has His eye on the sparrow, then friend - we of little faith - will He not much more care for us?

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Job 39

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care." 

Matthew 10:29 (NIV)

One of the wonderful things about spring in Canada is that the song birds come back. I was sitting on my deck early this morning and I could hear birds all over the backyard. As I started to wonder which sound belonged to which bird, and what they were doing, and I thought of this verse in Matthew 10, that has been so encouraging to me over the years. God knows each little bird. He knows what they are doing and He is intimately involved in their lives and deaths.

Job 39 speaks of His presence and His care over the wild animals; the concept of God caring for the doe hiding in a thicket giving birth in pain (the fall), is to me the most wonderful picture of all. He made all of these creatures; He cares for them and continues to care for them even in this broken world of sin. We look at nature and the terrible dog-eat-dog aspect of nature, and shudder. Yet do we realize that this terrible aspect of nature is a result of sin? That God’s design did not involve death, and that in His future kingdom on earth the lion will lay down with the lamb?

Even though this world is gripped with sin and death, God still cares for His creatures in a broken world. The Bible is full of examples of God hearing the cry of one of His humans and coming to their rescue. Hagar leaps to mind immediately! We hear a bird call and wonder what is going on. God hears the cry of every creature and cares for them! Our Lord’s point in Matthew 10 is that we can trust God because God cares more for us than a bird.

I was visiting my father in his nursing home the other night and as I turned the corner of the hall, I could hear him all the way down the hall, crying out for help. Who hears those cries? Well we hope that the nursing staff hear them, but we know that God hears them. What a wonderful God we worship; a God who hears our cries when no else does! A God who understands when no one else does! A God who comes alongside us in our pain when no one else does!

Oh friend He cares for you, and He cares for me. If His eye is on the sparrow, well then, I know He watches me!

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Galatians 3

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you all one in Christ Jesus." 

Galatians 3:28 (NIV) 

I will never understand how educated people – I should say super educated - I will never understand how the educated of North America believe and teach that the Bible puts women down! There is no reasonable explanation for their behaviour and teaching; only a spiritual explanation that involves Satan and his ability to deceive and lead people into destruction.

This verse in Galatians is the only verse that I am aware of, in any “holy” book of any tradition or religion, that teaches that men and women are equal in God’s eyes. Just a glimpse into the situation in Nigeria and the rest of North Africa, a glimpse into the Muslim world, the Hindu world, the Buddhist world, will surely inform us that these belief systems (opposed to the gospel) teach and practice subjugation of their females.

Stop for a moment and consider the countries of the world - not just in our age but in the ages past - and ask yourself this question: “Where are females the freest?” They are the freest in the countries where the gospel has had influence the longest! The gospel is that all who come to Christ Jesus in faith, both male and female, all humans who approach Christ Jesus in faith, believing that He is the Son of God, and asking Him to save them, they all become part of who He is.

When God sees a male who is “in Christ Jesus”, He sees Christ. When God sees a female who is “in Christ Jesus", He sees Christ. The gospel truth is that our Lord Jesus Christ died on a cross so that men and women could be equal before God in Him! There are no second tier Christians, we are all equal in Christ. In the kingdom of God, we are all equal before our King, because we are all in our King; we are joined to Him spiritually, and we are one in Him.

Christ will come in power and impose His Kingdom on this earth, but now as we wait for Him, He waits for us to obey His will concerning women. He waits for us to implement His kingdom on earth, to have God’s will done here now in our lives, and in our broken world. So it is that as men and women understand this truth by faith, we begin to voluntarily put into practice what our King desires to see in male and female relations in His kingdom. Then slowly over time as we obey the Word of God, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ influences us, our cultures change, and women get freer and freer.

You say: “Wait a minute John. My issue with the Bible is that it teaches that men are to be the leaders and women need to submit. I reject the notion that women are to be doormats for men!” Friend, men are the leaders and we are called to lead as Jesus leads the church. Our Lord has never made you do anything! He speaks and speaks, and guides, and blesses. He influences. This is the role men are called to – to honour - to bless - to lead. All other behaviours are not the fault of the Bible, they are the result of sin! In Christ and ONLY in Christ are we one!

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Matthew 25:14-25

"Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man." 

Galatians 2:22 (NIV) 

Are we allowed to think of females as gifts from our Creator God to males? Is that sexist for me to think that way, or to write those thoughts down? I can see my daughters rolling their eyes thinking the “old” man is revealing his male chauvinist self again. I won’t deny that I approach the topic of male female relationship through my own slightly warped view point - but to think of females as a gift from our Creator God to males is actually BIBLICAL thinking! Not only in the creation account, but also in Nathan’s rebuke of David for not being satisfied with whom God gave him.

To understand females as a gift from the Only True King to us, is to have a biblical view of the females in our lives, and puts the onus on us to honour our King by treating His gift to us properly. A society that denigrates their females by refusing them education and involvement in the workforce stops their society from advancing at every level. That society is the servant of the King who hid the King’s gift in the ground.

So it is with us personally – do we honour the gift the King gives us or do we bury them in a hole? A male who wants the King’s will done in their lives, treats his girlfriend with purity; he refuses to look at women as objects of his sexual desires, and instead treats them with a pure love. A male who wants the King’s will done in his life, honours his mother; he refuses to despise her as she grows old, and instead honours and cares for her. A male who wants the King’s will done in his life, treats the females around him at school, at work and in the neighbourhood, in the same way his King treated the females around Him. He respects them as individuals and helps them wherever he can. A male who wants the King’s will done in his life, treats his wife with respect and love. He loves her as Christ loves the church (he purposefully sets his life aside for her benefit). He leads her as Christ leads the church (gently whispering in her ear - never forcing her to do anything).

Females are a gift to males from God, and God is watching and waiting to see how we will receive and treat this most precious gift. Will we dig a hole and bury females in our society and our lives (Nigeria and Judges)? Or will we lift them up and place them on a pedestal (how about on a moon with the sun shining all around them - Rev 12:1)? Oh friend, if we as males would realize the biblical truth of viewing females as gifts of God to males, it should completely change the way we think and act towards them, and that would completely change our homes and societies.

Let us start by sincerely thanking God for them!

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Judges 1:9-15

 

"And the Israelites inquired of the LORD. (In those days the ark of the covenant of God was there, with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, ministering before it.) They asked, "Shall we go up again to fight against the Benjamites, our fellow Israelites, or not?" The LORD responded, "Go for tomorrow and I will give them into your hands." 

Judges 20:27,28 (NIV)

The book of Judges covers roughly 400 years of history, and many of us come to the conclusion as we read it through, that things got worse and worse as the years went on. We base this conclusion on the horrific treatment of women in the account of the last three chapters as compared to the great treatment of women in the first chapter. I don’t like to read the last 3 chapters, let alone study them and draw lessons out of them! The Levite who gave his concubine to the Benjamites to rape and kill was a coward who was willing to allow his wife to die for him, instead of being willing to die for her. The bull headed stubborn refusal to allow the wrongdoers to be punished, led to open warfare that cost 40,000 soldier’s lives, and eventually led to the brutal wiping out of the whole tribe of Benjamin except for 600 men. Then their terrible solution to the problem of having killed all the women of Benjamin was to wipe out a town who hadn’t come to help and enslave their teenage girls???

I do enjoy reading vs 9 through 15 of the first chapter; here we have a man who is willing to die (to risk his life to win the hand of a woman) and we have a woman whose father respects her enough to give her property. These verses are more like it - they are verses you can point your children to! We wonder at the reasons why society disintegrated over those 400 years - YET chapter 1 and the last 3 chapters happened in the same time period, in the same generation. Judges 20:28 tells us that Phineas (the same Phineas who stopped the plaque at Shittim before the Israelites crossed the Jordan) is the high priest of Israel.

The book of Judges doesn’t reveal the slow disintegration of a society, rather it reveals the need for society to be governed by a king! When people do what is right in their own eyes disaster befalls a nation. When people are ruled by a king whose decisions are based on justice and righteousness, the nation thrives. Out of this tribe of Benjamin would come Israel’s first king named Saul whose reign is linked to the town whose girls are stolen. Out of the tribe of Judah who had 22,000 men killed in this episode, would come king David, and then Solomon and then our King of kings and Lord of lords.

There is nothing we can do in Nigeria to help these girls, but there is something we can do to help the girls around us, right now. Submit your life to the King, obey His righteous rule in what you do, what you say and what you think, and submit to the governing authorities.

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Judges 19 thru 21

"They found among the people living in Jabesh Gilead four hundred young women who had never slept with a man, and they took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan." 

Judges 21:12 (NIV)

The terrible reports that we are hearing from Nigeria regarding the 300 school girls taken captive, brings to mind this account in the last 3 chapters of Judges. We of course do not have the same amount of detail surrounding the Nigerian situation as we have about the details that led to the situation described in the last 3 chapters of Judges. However the similarity in the main stories is obvious - young teenage girls are kidnapped through the use of violence and will be forcibly given to strange men to become their wives. 

Once again in history, men act violently toward women, and the world is powerless to stop it! I read in a news account that the Nigerian parents are Christians and are praying to their heavenly Father to deliver these girls back to them safely. No doubt people will soon start pointing towards the plight of these girls as proof that God is either not in control or conversely, that He is not worthy of worship, because in their minds, a good God would never allow something like this to happen.

The last verse of Judges tells us the reason for these terrible things happening: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” The reason these things happen throughout all of history is because of a lack of civil government. God gave this world to humans to govern. He will help us with it. He will even intervene miraculously, but the responsibility to keep your family safe, your neighbours safe, and your citizens safe is the responsibility of the king. God instituted civil government as the protector of its citizens, actually as God’s agent here on earth (1 Pe 2:13,14). Paul reminds us to pray for those in authority, kings and government. Civil government - the rule of law, honest and strong police, impartial justice, and social welfare for those who can’t help themselves - is government that recognizes the authority of the Judge of all the earth, and works for the betterment of every citizen. Nigeria doesn’t have it, neither did Israel in the years following their entrance into the Promised Land. Canada has it, and may God be pleased to continue to bless our land with good civil government. May we always pray in our hearts as we sing with our mouths the chorus of our national anthem:

God keep our land, glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee;
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

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Revelation 12:10-12

"They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." 

Revelation 12:11 (NIV) 

This is a beautiful and amazing passage of Scripture!

We begin to feel small as the Lord reveals to us the cosmic spiritual nature of the warfare that is so huge in comparison to us. We look up into the heavens and are overwhelmed, and to hear that Satan comes out of the heavens and takes 1/3 of the stars with his tail, puts this evil spiritual creature into a proper perspective. We make cartoons of him, and we joke about him, yet he is no joking matter, for “even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” (Jude 9). He has celestial power, he has tremendous power and he is our enemy - what are we to do? James tells us to submit to God and resist the devil. We need to do both and in that order; for without submission to God we stand against Satan in our own strength and will therefore be defeated.

Revelation 12 reveals for us the way of victory, the way to triumph over this huge spiritual beast.

The way of the blood of the Lamb: submit to God, come humbly before your Creator and be forgiven by the blood of His Son who is the Lamb of God. Not some of your sin, but all of your sin, be completely washed, be white as snow and Satan the accuser will have nothing to point to and shriek: “death to John!”

The way of our testimony: confess Jesus as Lord. (Is He my Lord?) Confess it. Testify to it, not only in words but in deeds, in everything may Jesus Christ be Lord!

The way of the cross: if the Lord Jesus had shrunk back from death, we would all have been lost forever, and so we are called to take up our cross and die. DIE - DIE - DIE. A Christian is called to death, and those who call Him Lord will follow Him into death. Those who are martyred come to mind, and yet all Christians are called to love the Lord more than their lives! More than wealth, more than fame, more than the world.

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