Jeremiah 35

"It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall." 

Romans 14:21 (NIV) 

I find Jeremiah chapter 35 very intriguing, for on the surface it seems to be in opposite to the spirit of Romans 14. These people don’t drink wine or build houses or plant anything, because their forefather told them not to, yet Jeremiah brings them to the temple compound, gives them wine and tells them to drink it. Talk about trying to cause your brother and sister to fall; the man of God pours free wine into a cup at church and tells you to drink it! They won’t do it, because they are staying true to their way of life dictated by their founding father.

Now this story is very similar to my story - not in the nomadic sense, but in the sense that I was taught to avoid alcohol by my father. He told me that alcohol was dangerous because none of us know whether or not we are an alcoholic until we started to drink, and if we are, it would be too late! He was speaking from a life of experience, and so I listened to him.

Any person who has seen what alcoholism does in a family situation and to the person gripped by alcoholism, warns their children and loved ones to stay away from alcohol. Paul, in Romans 14, is addressing Christians who come from various and diverse backgrounds; not only do some drink alcohol and some abstain from alcohol, but some eat meat, and others only eat vegetables. Paul’s approach is Spirit focused. He doesn’t make it a matter of Law but a matter of Love. He places the responsibility on the stronger party to refrain from judging (vs 1 thru 13) and he tells us that our behaviour should be constrained by concern for others spiritual welfare.

Those of us who have been Christians a long time, and hopefully we have been growing in the Lord and His grace over that period of time, should listen to Paul’s words. We should be careful about eating meat (if we eat meat) in front of vegetarians and we should be careful about drinking (if we drink) in front of people who abstain. We should also be careful about judging those who behave differently in these two areas from us: "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit..." (Romans 14:17)

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1 John 1

"Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge." 

Psalm 51:4 (NIV)  

I was blessed right down to my socks when little Sierra quoted part of this verse these past Sunday, as part of our Awana feature. May she remember this verse and may it not just be a matter of her mind and her tongue, but a matter of her heart and soul.

David is a child of God; he is not referring in this verse to sin that he committed before he trusted in the LORD - no, he is referring here to sin that he committed as a “Christian”. Some will object to me calling King David a “Christian”, but they have no grounds, for David saw Christ clearly; he wrote about His sacrifice and His reign and wrote about his salvation through Him. But surely we are comfortable with calling the apostle John a Christian, and yet in his first paragraph of his church letter, he tells us that he commits sin that requires confession and cleansing. Is John a saint who sins OR a sinner who is a saint?

If you would like to measure the closeness of your relationship to God, ask yourself what was the last sin that you confessed, and when did that confession take place? If you can’t remember that last time you confessed sin, you have drifted away from God. David was the closest to God when he penned the words of Psalm 51. He penned beautiful worship psalms; he spoke words of great faith, and he performed many acts of faith, yet he was the closest to God when he repented of his sin. David knew that what is required of a true worshiper is a broken and contrite spirit (Ps  51:17) and John knew the same thing.

Friend, when we get close to God (true worship) and when we see Him for who He is, we see ourselves, and then we see our sin and then we humble ourselves and seek forgiveness from the One who we sinned against. This is the life we are called to, for Jesus came to call sinners to repentance. May we sinners, who are saints, practice true repentance today!

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Revelation 7

For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 (NIV)

Who can stand before God?

The peoples of the earth call out: “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”  (Rev 6:16,17). If the kings and princes can’t stand, then God is no respecter of noble blood. If the generals can’t stand, then God is no respecter of human military command. If the rich can’t stand, then God is no respecter of money and possessions. If the slave can’t stand, then God is no respecter of the terrible life experiences that people endure. If the free can’t stand, then God is no respecter of the independent humans who place high value on individuals. 

Whom then will God respect? Who will He allow to stand in His presence? It is a large multitude - so large we can’t count all the people. They are from “every nation, tribe, people and language” with special mention of the tribe of Jacob. God is therefore no respecter of language, no respecter of geography, and no respecter of skin colour. 

Friend, will you be in that multitude? Will you be one of those standing in front of the throne, serving your God day and night? 

Whom does God respect? Only His Son, the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ! Only those who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”! Only those who have done something; they have put their faith and trust in the finished work of the Lamb of God. Those are the ones, and only those, who will be able to stand. They are the only ones who receive encouragement from the words of Paul recorded in 1 Thessalonians 5. 

We have been appointed. We have been called. We have been sealed. We have been chosen. The Bible describes God’s actions towards us in different ways using a variety of words, but it all means the same thing: GRACE! God’s AMAZING GRACE!

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Psalm 97

"Far be it from you to do such a thing - to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Genesis 18:25 (NIV)

Oh friend, who is the LORD? Is the LORD like us? Is He small and powerless? Is He too blind and too weak to be just? Is He like our human judges, unable to discern lies from truth? Is He like our human detectives, always seeking to discover motives, but not truly understanding why? Is the LORD’s justice like our human justice systems, with our improper releases, and false imprisonments?

Abram didn’t believe in a God like that! Abram believed in a God who is righteous and who only does what is right. Abram believed in a God who is the Judge of every single human. A God who cannot and will not ever do wrong! Do you believe God is like that? The writer of Psalm 97 believed in a God like that. He called on all the people of the earth to rejoice, for our Creator God rules from a throne based on justice and righteousness. What a terrible existence we would have if we were ruled by a god who was not just, nor righteous. We should not make the mistake of thinking that God is righteous in the sense that “might is right”. It is true that the LORD is more powerful than anyone else, but His righteousness proceeds from His goodness. Righteousness, as Abram understood it, meant that God would never kill the righteous with the wicked.

God will never do anything wrong, He will always do right.

There are many things that we do not understand about God’s dealings with humans. We debate back and forth over many issues related to heaven and hell, saved and unsaved, wrath and grace. But friend, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” (Dt 29:29).

Can you leave the secret things alone and trust in the revealed truth that the Judge of the whole earth will do right? Can we follow Abram’s example, and approach God on the basis of His character and goodness, asking Him to be merciful? May we have the faith of Abram!

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Genesis 6,7

"If this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment."

2 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

Oh friend, who is the Lord? Is the Lord like us? Is He small and powerless? Is He subject to nature and time? Does the Lord have to follow the “laws of nature"? Or are the “laws of nature” simply observations of how God sustains His creation? 

It seems that those who are “hell-bent” on every one of us believing their evolutionary theories of an old earth, simply ignore the growing evidence of a world wide flood, including the latest discovery of a canyon formed by water – not ice. The fact that almost every people group in the world has a story of a flood in their verbal history, causes those who refuse to believe in their Creator, to dismiss all of these stories as fables, simply so that they can dismiss the biblical account of the flood as recorded in Genesis 6 and 7. 

There is a movie coming out of Hollywood made by godless people, which will cause controversy amongst Christians. We are not told very much about the circumstances of the flood, nor how Noah interacted or coped with the death of all humans, except his own family. The Bible does mention that Noah got drunk, and I would point out that if “survivor guilt” affects people now when a small scale disaster strikes, then we can imagine that it would have been very difficult emotionally for Noah. 

The lesson of the flood that Peter wants us to learn, is that God is able to rescue His people and punish the guilty on the same earth at the same time. We can’t do that, when we wage war, for we sustain “collateral damage” simply because we are small and powerless, and subject to nature and time. But God can do anything He wants to, and He wants to rid the world of evil and rescue those who believe in His Son. We may be frightened as we read the book of Revelation, but we should remember the lesson of Noah. God is quite capable of punishing the ungodly and saving the godly on the same earth at the same time.

"Noah" Trailer, via YouTube

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Ephesians 1

"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world."

Revelation 13:8 (NIV)

This is an amazing verse that reveals to us our amazing God! The NIV and the KJV both attach “before the creation of the world” to the “Lamb who was slain”, whereas the ESV and the NASB attach that phrase to the writing of “the Lamb’s book of life”. In either case, the truth that is revealed is amazing! 
Before God spoke and created all that is, He wrote a book, and in that book He wrote down the names of all the people that would receive eternal life through faith in His one and only Son, who is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world! This means that God the Father, and His Son, the Eternal Word, and the Holy Spirit, planned everything out, and wrote it all down before the Father spoke and the Son (Jn 1:3, Heb 1:2) and the Spirit (Ge 1:2) created. 

These verses in Revelation 4:11, Revelation 17:8 and Romans 5:6 (to note a few) completely destroy the false notion that God was caught off guard by the devil in the garden, and that He made a mistake with Israel and the Law, and that sending His Son to die was Plan C. No friend, God is not surprised by anything. He made everything, and it is only because of His will that anything exists, including Satan and the hordes of demons, and the billions of unrepentant people who clothe themselves in wickedness and turn their backs on their Creator. 

Sending His Son was Plan A. It is only through His Son that we truly see the glory and character of God revealed. Through His humility, through His compassion, through His power over sickness, nature and demons, through His passion to see people turn in true repentance and receive life, through His holiness and righteousness and His life of true sacrificial love, God has fully revealed Himself to all of creation. 

Oh friend, is your name written in this book of Life? If your answer is "YES, John. I know my name is in that book!", then rejoice and praise God for His grace and love for you, for He has had His eye on you before the creation of the world! If your answer is, "John, I don’t know...I just don’t know...", then friend, REPENT. Humble yourself before your Creator. Turn to Him and He will turn to you. Seek His face and He will reveal Himself, and He will testify with you that your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life!

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Isaiah 2

"The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled)..."

Isaiah 2:12 (NIV)

How could a human possibly have pride in their attitude towards God? Can you imagine an ant waving its antenna at you, telling you that it is more powerful and more wise than you? It is a ridiculous thought, and yet I doubt that as puny little humans lift themselves up “above” the God who fills everything, that we even have the dignity of an ant raising itself up before us. 

Every human being has pride built into us; the pride that makes us want our way before God’s Way. Numbers 12 tells us that Moses was the most humble man in his day, and he still struggled with pride. Our Lord is the only one who is humble at heart (Mt 11:29). Every other human exalts him or herself in pride before the Lord. If you doubt this today Christian, then take a test. Can you say to the Lord with complete sincerity,“I am an unworthy servant; I have only done my duty” (Lk 17:10)? Can you say with John the Baptist, “I must become less” (Jn 3:30)? Can you say with Paul, “But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you” (Phil 2:17)? 

These things are hard for us because we have pride ingrained into us, and pride is so deceitful it hides itself and adapts to our attempts to crush it.  There will be a Day when all my pride and all the actions that I have done out of pride will be disappear in fire and I will be saved from this deceitful body of death. But many will not be saved; they will destroyed along with their pride for they have never humbled themselves before the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 2 cries out, “Kiss the Son, or He will be angry!” This Day will come with fire, earthquakes and destruction, and it will bring an end to mankind’s pride. But until that Day, our Lord is patient with us not wanting any to perish (2 Pe 3:9). 

What a gracious, compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. Praise His holy Name!

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