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Thinking About the World and our Place in It

Ezekiel 22.6-12 as paraphrased in The Message.

The laundry list of sin and depravity is long and depressingly familiar because it tracks so closely our own time and culture.  The challenge as the church of God is to not be drawn into the world's way of thinking on these things. Nor to assume that our thinking on an issue—how we treat illegal immigrants is one—is, because it is our thinking, therefore biblical. We may, and often do, allow our own cultural prejudice to creep into our worldview.

Prayer: O Lord God may the Holy Spirit continue to challenge our thinking and opinions on issues so that we do not complacently assume that we are correct in all things.

So Prophesied; So done.

2 Samuel 12:11

Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.

2 Samuel 13:1-2

1 Now it was after this that Absalom the son of David had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar, and Amnon the son of David loved her. 2 Amnon was so frustrated because of his sister Tamar that he made himself ill, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her.

So prophesied, so done.

One of the punishments for David's murder of Uriah and sin with Bathsheba is that The Lord prophesies that he will raise up evil from David's own household, and in the very next chapter one sees that begin to happen. Amnon rapes his half-sister and is in turn murdered by how half-brother, Absalom. 

Did David contemplate this outcome and realize that it was as a result of his own sin? The text gives no indication that he did, but the reader certainly does since it follows so closely on the heels of the prophecy that this will happen.

This is the nature of sin and we would do well to take the lesson to heart.  Our sin can have a wide effect on other people who are innocent of the sin, but affected nonetheless, as was Tamar here. She experienced the fallout from David's sin.

Make Praise Your Habit

Psalms 64:10

The righteous man will be glad in the Lord and will take refuge in Him;

And all the upright in heart will glory.

The Message paraphrase captures this very well: 

Be glad, good people! Fly to GOD!

Good- hearted people, make praise your habit.

Make praise your habit.  I like that.  A habit is something that happens effortlessly because we do it again and again.  I have a habit of drinking coffee in the morning with my devotions.  I do not get tired of this habit or take it for granted; I love it. I look forward to it.

When praise becomes our habit it will have the same pattern in our lives.  It will flow easily from our lips; we will enjoy it; it will be something  that we look forward to.  We will fly to God and we will praise him with joy.

Preaching to Ourselves

David preaches to himself here. This is something that we do not hear a lot about these days, but it is vital to the Christian life.  Our souls are apt to forget God, to become anxious, to get distracted by life; we need to preach to ourselves to remind us of who God is and what he does.

Here David calls his soul to wait for God in silence because God is his only hope, his only rock, his salvation, and his stronghold. 

This is usually what our soul needs, to be called to remember who God is in the midst of our difficulties.

Notice also that preaching to ourselves results in a wider application.  David calls for the people of God to trust in God. His preaching is applied to all of God's people, which is as it should be.

O Christian, learn to preach to yourself.

Glory Road

2 Corinthians 3:7-11

But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. 10 For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

Paul does not want us to miss the glory road in 2 Cor 3.7-11! He uses the word 11 times so that we are sure not to miss it.  The glory road is the path traveled from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant or what Paul calls the ministry of the Spirit. The ministry of death had glory because it pointed people to their need for Christ. The ministry of the Spirit has even more glory because it helps people to have changed hearts and releases them from bondage to the Law to freedom in Christ and overflowing, ever present grace.

The glory road then, is a path from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant to eternity.

"Destroy Them in Wrath"

Psalms 59:13

Destroy them in wrath, destroy them that they may be no more;

That men may know that God rules in Jacob

To the ends of the earth.

Selah.

David calls here for God to be the righteous God that he is and not let evil go unpunished.  One of the things that this accomplishes is that when they see judgment on evil all men to the ends of the earth know that God rules in Jacob.

Imagine a world in which evil went unpunished. In which women were attacked with impunity and their attackers got off scot free.  I would hate that kind of world, so would you. This is why I am so happy about psalms like this one.  God is the righteous judge, he does not allow evil to go unpunished.

Spurgeon: Let even the most remote nations know that the great moral Governor has power to destroy ungodliness, and does not wink at iniquity in any, at any time, or in any place.

"Whom God Set Out to Redeem for Himself"

2 Samuel 7:23

And who is like your people, like Israel, a nation unique in the earth, whom God set out to redeem for himself (and became most famous for it), performing great and fearsome acts, throwing out nations and their gods left and right as you saved your people from Egypt?

David to God in worship after receiving the Davidic covenant.

This is a huge verse because it sets forth God's devotion to and salvation of his people.  Israel is a nation unique in the earth demonstrated in the fact that God set out to redeem [her] for himself. Israel is unique because her God is unique and has extravagant love for his people (which was very unlike the false gods of the nations around Israel).

In the New Testament age the Church is the object of God's love in Christ.  It is the Chrch that God set out to redeem for himself so that we have the benefit of being spiritual Israel and having the benefit of God throwing out principalities and powers left and right as he saves his people from their sins!

Beautiful picture!

"Cast your burden"

Psalms 55:22

Cast your burden on the Lord,

and he will sustain you;

 he will never permit

the righteous to be moved.

Words of faith from David here, no doubt tempered by his own experience as a shepherd and a warrior and a fugitive and a king.  God had always sustained David. God was for the righteous, therefore the righteous will not be moved.

Words we also need to claim by faith, as David wrote them.  Is your burden heavy? Cast it on the Lord he will sustain you.  He is a good Father.

"By the Grace of God"

1 Corinthians 15:10

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

Paul was who he was and accomplished all that he accomplished, not because of his own innate talent and drive, but because of the grace of God. Note how he juxtaposes his own work and God's grace to do that work. I labored...yet not I, but the grace of God. Paul works out this same truth earlier in his letter: 1 Corinthians 4:7

For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

We are what we are, we accomplish what we do, by the grace of God. Let's give credit where it is due and not steal glory from the God who gave us the accomplishments.

"Is Does not Mean Ought"

2 Samuel 3:27

So when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the middle of the gate to speak with him privately, and there he struck him in the belly so that he died on account of the blood of Asahel his brother.

A good example of how in the biblical narrative "is does not mean ought." Just because Joab treacherously kills Abner does not mean that God approved of his actions.  The writers of Scripture often write with the assumption that the reader will understand whether or not the character written about acted morally or not.  They write with the attitude "tell it like it is, warts and all."

I'm glad they wrote is way because it allows us to see human people with all of their flaws and how God works wi and through them to accomplish his purposes. Even when they do not believe in him.

We Pursue Things

Ezekiel 11:17-18

Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”’ 18 When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it.

While archaeologists have found plenty of evidence in per-exilic Israel of idol worship; they have found none, zilch, nada, in post-exilic Israel. The purpose of the exile was to rid Israel of her penchant to turn to other gods. The exile accomplished this. Never again would the Jews in Israel worship false gods.  Indeed, by he time of Christ they had the opposite problem, they had become extreme legalists. Idol worship, however, was eradicated as Ezekiel predicts here.

We do not have problems worshipping false gods today, although in our culture we have extreme difficulties with the pursuit of things rather than God, so we are idol pursuers, just not other gods; we pursue things.

Wise, Stupid, Senseless: All Gonna Die

Psalms 49:10-12

For he sees that even wise men die;

The stupid and the senseless alike perish

And leave their wealth to others.

11 Their inner thought is that their houses are forever

And their dwelling places to all generations;

They have called their lands after their own names.

12 But man in his pomp will not endure;

He is like the beasts that perish.

Oh how we need to hear these words from the psalmist. The one inescapable fact of life is that it will come to an end. Long or short, rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, life will end and we will be assured into eternity. The funny thing is that we live as if we are here forever, as if we can escape death. We build mansions and name them after ourselves; we put away "nest eggs" to make our retirement years easy, but easy or hard, the days of our lives are running quickly out.  We will die and be forgotten.

All the more reason to live in light of eternity and for the glory of God; that glory will last forever.

Such is God

Psalms 48:12-14

Walk about Zion and go around her;

Count her towers;

13 Consider her ramparts;

Go through her palaces,

That you may tell it to the next generation.

14 For such is God,

Our God forever and ever;

He will guide us until death.

The psalmist here sees a connection between Jerusalem (Zion) and God's character.  Walking around the city and thinking about her ramparts and studying her palaces will result in this message to the next generation: Such is God our God forever and ever.

Jerusalem—where the glory of God resided in the temple—was where one could consider and understand the character of God.  The city illuminated God.

For us the Word of God illuminates God.  Different place, different time, different culture; same God.

Paul Lobs a Hand Grenade of Grace

1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Paul sets out a laundry list of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God, then promptly throws a hand grenade right into the list and completely blows it up with the words such were some of you!

In other words, "do you think that being in that list disqualifies you from the kingdom of heaven? It does not, because as we both know some of you were in that laundry list before you came to faith, but you aren't any more. You are washed, justified, and sanctified.

And that is the hand grenade of grace.