Deuteronomy 2:1-4 (ESV)
"Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the LORD told me. And for many days we traveled around Mount Seir. [2] Then the LORD said to me, [3] ''You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward [4] and command the people, "You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful.
And for many days we traveled around Mount Seir. "Many days" here meaning 38 years. Thus Moses shortens all the things that had happened during those years. Korah's rebellion happened during these years, and Aaron's rod had budded as testimony against the rebels, but these are events insignificant to Moses, for Moses regrets these 38 years as wasted years. He wishes these years never had happened. True repentance thus produces regret and hatred of wasted years that are result of unbelief and sin. We despise the days of our lives that we spent in the wilderness of rebellion, those days when we were following the prince of the powers of the air, doing the will of the Gentiles and following the traditions of our fathers, bearing fruit of the deeds which we are now ashamed of.
You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Why did God make Israel make wander around Mount Seir? Perhaps it was to show them the misery of their state in refusing the blessing of God that God had promised to Jacob. God may have been showing Israel through the 38 years in the wilderness the 'blessedness' of Esau, whom God had HATED, as it is written:
Malachi 1:3 (ESV)
but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert."
Perhaps God was speaking to Israel during that time, 'Look at the how much I have 'blessed' Esau with this Mountain I have given them as a dwelling place, even though I hate them! But look at you: I love you, and would bless you with a land that is infinitely better, and give you a future that would glorify be through the birth of Christ. But look at you now, because you did not believe in my Word! You are homeless, walking as a cursed people, even though you are blessed!' Indeed it would have been painful for Israel to wander around the land of Esau for so long. They would have known that Esau had traded in his blessings for a pot of stew. And likewise this generation had traded in their blessings for flesh, for longing of Egypt.
They had become like Esau:
Hebrews 12:17 (ESV)
For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
Like Esau, though this generation had desired to inherit the land of Canaan, though they sought it with tears, they were rejected. Have a look at Moses:
Deuteronomy 3:23-27 (ESV)
"And I pleaded with the LORD at that time, saying, [24] ''O Lord GOD, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours? [25] Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon.'' [26] But the LORD was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the LORD said to me, ''Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again. [27] Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward, and look at it with your eyes, for you shall not go over this Jordan.
If Moses, the best of that generation, was thus refused entry to the inheritance, how could the rest of the generation inherit the land? Why did this happen? Because they despised the blessing, because they did not believe the worth of the inheritance, and counted cucumbers and leeks of Egypt of more worth than Christ. Do we desire the blessing and the promise of Jesus Christ more than all things? Then we will not do as Esau and this first generation did and sell our souls for a pot of stew. Judas sold Christ, but sold his own soul at the same time, for 30 pieces of silver. How much is Christ worth to our souls? Is He beyond all silver, all gold, and all the glories of the kingdoms of the earth combined? Is Christ more valuable than our own life?
Turn northward and command the people, "You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir. This does not mean through the middle of the land of the land of Esau. For Israel, while they were in Kadesh, had already asked to go through their land, by the King's highway, yet were refused:
Numbers 20:17-18 (ESV)
Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or vineyard, or drink water from a well. We will go along the King's Highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory." [18] But Edom said to him, "You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you."
So in this time God commands Israel to go around Edom, by its coasts. For it is written, that Israel had to "go around the land of Edom":
Numbers 21:4 (ESV)
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.
As Israel saw later, this was the harder way, than through the midst of Edom, which was undoubtedly more comfortable. The way that leads to life is hard, but the way that leads to destruction is easy. By making Israel go through this narrow and hard way, God sanctified them, making their hearts to reveal what was in them. And as it was revealed in the incident of the Bronze serpent, there were still in their hearts the relics of complaining and unbelief. These needed to be revealed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. The narrow way thus reveals our sins, that God may heal them through repentance and the Gospel. Thus the way of hardship is necessary for life.
They will be afraid of you. Edom had seen Israel circling around their land for this 38 years, and had become more and more terrified Israel's presence. It may be that they thought Israel would come and possess their land, which was why they had refused entry to them in Numbers 20. But now this fear had increased, that they do not resist Israel from at least going around them. Their boldness by which they resisted Israel is gone, and they are now frozen with terror. God had cast the shadow of fear upon the coasts of Edom, that Israel may pass by to their promise land. It is God who gives boldness:
Acts 4:29 (ESV)
And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness
And it is also God who gives fear to whomever He pleases that His will and purposes will be fulfilled:
Deuteronomy 2:25 (ESV)
This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.''
The strength or weakness of our hearts are all in His hands. Let us ask for boldness, that our hearts may know of God's sovereignty and power over all things, that we may not be insecure or be fearful or any sudden terror, but be filled with all boldness to do His will.
So be very careful. Israel were not to take advantage of the fearful state that his brothers the Edomites were in, but to be careful that they don't cause any strife with them. Israel were not to threaten them, or to be as lords over them because of their fear, but to treat them with respect. Here we learn that Christians must also never take advantage of their religious authority over those who are weak. We are not to trample on those who are fearful, but strengthen the weak hands. We are not to use truths of the bible to destroy those who are weak and sensitive, but to speak the truth in love, that they may be healed with the balm of His love, while being convicted of sin. Just as God doesn't trample on those who tremble before Him, but looks into them, and treats to them tenderly, we are to treat tenderly those who fear us, and not make them be afraid even more. Christ, though His signs were fearful, loved to say to His disciples: "Do not fear". He calmed our fears by His tenderness. Likewise let us treat those who fear us, those who are weak, those who are humble. True godliness is not to be a tyrant. God never crushes those who are already contrite, but carries them carefully:
Isaiah 42:3 (ESV)
a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.
The reason why God told Israel to "be careful" was perhaps that they had thought that God would deliver the land of Edom to them as a possession. They had possibly thought that God would destroy them like the inhabitants of Canaan. But God does not give Edom to them, for God had given the land to Esau, for, though not blessed with the Gospel, Esau is still the child of Issac. Also, Edom was still Israel's brother by the flesh, as God calls them "your brothers, the people of Esau". God still wants us to care for our families after the flesh, though they not be believers. God wants us to take care of them, and not treat them as one of our enemies. He wants us to be careful how we treat them, though they may resist our faith. We must treat them with utmost respect. For by doing this they may also come to faith, and become our spiritual family also. God does not want us to neglect them, even if our spirits have nothing in common. We have a responsibility for the people of our ethnicity, our race.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Presumption is as iniquity and idolatry
Deuteronomy 1:43-44 (ESV)
So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the LORD and presumptuously went up into the hill country. [44] Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah.
So I spoke to you, and you would not listen. God spoke through Moses, and said "Do not go up", but Israel refused to listen, and went up to fight against the Amorites. As Christ said to Jews of His time, the Word of God had no place in their hearts:
John 8:37-38 (ESV)
I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. [38] I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."
The reason why we cannot listen to the words of God is that there is another voice in our hearts. As we see from Christ's words above, it is the voice of the devil. It is the voice that tells us to hate Christ. It is the voice that tells us to despise the Word of God:
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, ''You shall not eat of any tree in the garden''?"
When our mind is filled with the voices of Satan that tell us to mock, twist, doubt and reject God's Word, then there is no place for the Word to be heard and believed on in our heart. And when we don't listen to the word of God, we can only go by presumption. Israel guessed that it would be the right thing to go up and attack the Amorites. They didn't "really" think God would actually make them go back to the wilderness. They thought to themselves: 'God is loving and forgiving, and He can't possibly have been so offended'. So they simply guessed that God would be with them as they go up, even though Moses clearly told them God would not be with them.
The Jews, having refused to listen to the testimony of Christ, guessed and presumed that killing Christ was the right thing to do. They did not trust in God's words, and leaned on their understanding, thus by killing Christ they were doing God a service in killing a blasphemer:
Matthew 26:64-66 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, "You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven." [65] Then the high priest tore his robes and said, "He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. [66] What is your judgment?" They answered, "He deserves death."
But how so wrong was their judgment, because they presumed without hearing the word of God, and became the murderers of God in the flesh. What sin has been accounted to the Jews, the killing of the Beloved Son of God, because they refused to listen to God's word and listened more to their presumptions! How many those who have persecuted born again Christians thought they were doing great service to God, when in fact they were delivering God's children to death:
John 16:2-3 (ESV)
They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. [3] And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.
See what Christ says, though these people think they are offering service to God by killing these Christians, they will do this because they do not know God. They don't know God because they do not know His word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How scary is this idea then, of 'service to God' that springs not from faith in God's Word, especially the Gospel. It can lead to killing of Christ, and His dear people. Let us not presumptuously go up the hill, for presumption is same as idolatry:
1 Samuel 15:23 (ESV)
For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king."
God has not left anything to be guessed or presumed in any situation. We are not blindfolded men choosing randomly which way to go. God knows which way to go, and He has shown clearly in His bible which way we must walk and how His will must be carried out in every situation. We know especially that if a way is that which Christ walked, we must walk that way. If the way is suffering that leads to love for God and man, then we know that God wants us to walk that way. What is there to presume? It is Satan that makes us to refuse God's clear word and makes us to do guesswork. Eve guessed that the fruit was good for food, but how much did her guess prove disastrous, for she had forsaken the Word of God. When we reject God's word, we just choose to do whatever is right in our own eyes, like blind men fumbling our way in the dark. This is idolatry, it is witchcraft. This is the sin that Saul committed, by not listening to God's commandments, but doing what seemed right in his eyes:
1 Samuel 15:15 (ESV)
Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction."
Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. God had promised that He would send hornets before Israel to defeat the inhabitants of Canaan:
Exodus 23:28 (ESV)
And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you.
But now the Amorites come out to Israel like hornets to chase the Israelites away from their presence. Those who ignore God's word and presume and guess their own way shall be treated as one of God's enemies. God was not with Israel at this moment, but with the Amorites, for Israel was going against God's word. When we do not listen to God's voice, but listen to our own voice and follow our own hearts, God becomes our enemy, not friend. God will not bless our ministry which is ignorant of God's word. He would rather be with our enemies than to bless us in our blind charge.
He who does not listen to God's voice but the voice of the world is the world's friend. For whoever we listen to and obey is our friend:
John 15:14 (ESV)
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
James 4:4 (ESV)
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
When we do those things that the world dictates and command us to do, and we don't do what Christ tells us to do - and we can't do both, it's one or the other - we make ourselves the enemy of Christ. If we listen to the world and does what the world commands, Christ will be against us and He will treat us like He treats all His enemies. He will make no difference between us and the Amorites, for we don't make any difference between Christ and the world:
Revelation 2:16 (ESV)
Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.
Unless we want Christ to war against us, then we had better be His friend. Unless we want His sword of His word to devour us, we had better listen and do as He commands. Christ hates the world, and is preparing to invade the Earth. Some people are worried of alien invasion, but they realize not that it is GOD who is going to invade the kingdoms of men with the wrath of God. God loved the world, and sent His Son to die for the sinners in the world, but He, at the same time, despises the world, and is planning to destroy it for all its abominations. He likewise calls us to hate the world:
1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions-is not from the Father but is from the world. [17] And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
We must only love the world with the love of the Father. We must love them like the Father loved the world, by giving them Jesus Christ, that they may believe and have eternal life. Any other love we have for the world is hateful to the Father, for it is not true love. True love seeks the best for the other person, and Jesus Christ and the Gospel is anyone's best. Peter also gave the man outside the Beautiful Gate Jesus Christ, for he truly loved the man. Peter gave the best that he had, which was not money or food, but Jesus Christ His Lord:
Acts 3:6-8 (ESV)
But Peter said, "I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!" [7] And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. [8] And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
Evangelism is giving the best thing that we have to the other person. And the best thing that we have is the Name of Jesus Christ. What do we have that is better than Christ, better than the Gospel? We can give them food, but food will be eaten and it will disappear, we can give them clothes and they will fade, but if we give them the Treasure who is in heaven, Jesus Christ, who will never be corrupted, who is like the treasure whom moths and rust will not come and ruin, since corruption has no more hold on Him. Thus the greatest expression of love to another person is giving of Jesus Christ, because this what God did for us. Any love that falls short of this love is not worthy to be called love.
Beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. Seir is the mountain tract, and meaning that the Amorites chased Israel all the way down the tract to Hormah. This place was not called Hormah at the time when this happened, since Hormah means "devoted to destruction", and Israel had not yet devoted the land to destruction at this time. It was after the 40 year wandering in the wilderness, when the king of Arad came and attacked Israel. Then only did Israel call this region Hormah:
Numbers 21:1-3 (ESV)
When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. [2] And Israel vowed a vow to the LORD and said, "If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction." [3] And the LORD heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.
What could God mean here, by saying that Israel were defeated all the way to "Hormah"? Perhaps Moses meaning here that God was delivering Israel to near destruction, just as Israel had devoted the cities of Negeb to destruction. And God did deliver this generation to destruction, by making them all to perish in the wilderness. But by His grace God did not devote Israel to utter destruction, but saved the remnant of the second generation. As it is written:
Isaiah 1:9 (ESV)
If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.
God SHOULD have devoted this evil, unfaithful nation of Israel to utter destruction. And God almost did, if it wasn't for Moses' intercession. For why should God show them compassion? God had shown this people so many miracles and signs, yet they still did not believe in Him. Was it because Israel was more righteous than the nations of Canaan, that God does not utterly wipe them out, and shows them mercy? By no means, for in the wilderness they commit idolatry, fornication, blasphemy, breaking every law that God had given. There was nothing in them that caused God to forgive them, to remove their sin from them. It was because of Christ, who had taken their sin and laid them on His own body, that He may be crushed under the weight of God's wrath. This was the cause of God's mercy and His grace.
God should have destroyed the Jews when they disbelieved in Jesus, and even killed Him because of their unbelief. And God did destroy them, and scatter them from Jerusalem. But He did not destroy them completely, and left a remnant who believed in Christ:
Romans 11:3-5 (ESV)
"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life." [4] But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." [5] So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
And God promise is that the majority of this evil nation of Israel will one day be saved:
Romans 11:26-27 (ESV)
And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob"; [27] "and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins."
God's free and sovereign grace is what will keep Israel, and us believers in Christ, from utterly falling away. It is not because of any of our works, but of God's election. We should have been Hormah, but God always keeps in His people a stump, that they will not totally perish:
Daniel 4:23 (ESV)
And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ''Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven periods of time pass over him,''
God's grace is the root that holds us up, the foundation that keeps us standing, the net that catches us when we fall, the anchor that keeps us from swaying. No matter where we go, we will still be in God's hand of grace, and no thief will ever pluck us from His hand. God's grace remains in us as a holy seed, always keeping us sanctified, always making us to hate sin, and to love righteousness, that we never fall away fully into the abyss of sin:
1 John 3:9 (ESV)
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
It is grace that we look forward to at the end of the ages, when we shall be in the presence of Christ not by our works, but by His grace:
1 Peter 1:13 (ESV)
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Let us give praise for His grace that shall be revealed to us, for the grace that is now working in our lives, and the grace that chose us like a firebrand that He rescued from a burning rubble. Let us give thanks that He does not treat us like those who have not received mercy, but shows special care for us, not because of what we are, but because of His own free will. We shall forever praise Him for His glory in His election. Let us forever thank Him for making us vessels of grace and not of wrath. Amen.
So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the LORD and presumptuously went up into the hill country. [44] Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah.
So I spoke to you, and you would not listen. God spoke through Moses, and said "Do not go up", but Israel refused to listen, and went up to fight against the Amorites. As Christ said to Jews of His time, the Word of God had no place in their hearts:
John 8:37-38 (ESV)
I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. [38] I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."
The reason why we cannot listen to the words of God is that there is another voice in our hearts. As we see from Christ's words above, it is the voice of the devil. It is the voice that tells us to hate Christ. It is the voice that tells us to despise the Word of God:
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, ''You shall not eat of any tree in the garden''?"
When our mind is filled with the voices of Satan that tell us to mock, twist, doubt and reject God's Word, then there is no place for the Word to be heard and believed on in our heart. And when we don't listen to the word of God, we can only go by presumption. Israel guessed that it would be the right thing to go up and attack the Amorites. They didn't "really" think God would actually make them go back to the wilderness. They thought to themselves: 'God is loving and forgiving, and He can't possibly have been so offended'. So they simply guessed that God would be with them as they go up, even though Moses clearly told them God would not be with them.
The Jews, having refused to listen to the testimony of Christ, guessed and presumed that killing Christ was the right thing to do. They did not trust in God's words, and leaned on their understanding, thus by killing Christ they were doing God a service in killing a blasphemer:
Matthew 26:64-66 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, "You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven." [65] Then the high priest tore his robes and said, "He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. [66] What is your judgment?" They answered, "He deserves death."
But how so wrong was their judgment, because they presumed without hearing the word of God, and became the murderers of God in the flesh. What sin has been accounted to the Jews, the killing of the Beloved Son of God, because they refused to listen to God's word and listened more to their presumptions! How many those who have persecuted born again Christians thought they were doing great service to God, when in fact they were delivering God's children to death:
John 16:2-3 (ESV)
They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. [3] And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.
See what Christ says, though these people think they are offering service to God by killing these Christians, they will do this because they do not know God. They don't know God because they do not know His word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How scary is this idea then, of 'service to God' that springs not from faith in God's Word, especially the Gospel. It can lead to killing of Christ, and His dear people. Let us not presumptuously go up the hill, for presumption is same as idolatry:
1 Samuel 15:23 (ESV)
For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king."
God has not left anything to be guessed or presumed in any situation. We are not blindfolded men choosing randomly which way to go. God knows which way to go, and He has shown clearly in His bible which way we must walk and how His will must be carried out in every situation. We know especially that if a way is that which Christ walked, we must walk that way. If the way is suffering that leads to love for God and man, then we know that God wants us to walk that way. What is there to presume? It is Satan that makes us to refuse God's clear word and makes us to do guesswork. Eve guessed that the fruit was good for food, but how much did her guess prove disastrous, for she had forsaken the Word of God. When we reject God's word, we just choose to do whatever is right in our own eyes, like blind men fumbling our way in the dark. This is idolatry, it is witchcraft. This is the sin that Saul committed, by not listening to God's commandments, but doing what seemed right in his eyes:
1 Samuel 15:15 (ESV)
Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction."
Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. God had promised that He would send hornets before Israel to defeat the inhabitants of Canaan:
Exodus 23:28 (ESV)
And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you.
But now the Amorites come out to Israel like hornets to chase the Israelites away from their presence. Those who ignore God's word and presume and guess their own way shall be treated as one of God's enemies. God was not with Israel at this moment, but with the Amorites, for Israel was going against God's word. When we do not listen to God's voice, but listen to our own voice and follow our own hearts, God becomes our enemy, not friend. God will not bless our ministry which is ignorant of God's word. He would rather be with our enemies than to bless us in our blind charge.
He who does not listen to God's voice but the voice of the world is the world's friend. For whoever we listen to and obey is our friend:
John 15:14 (ESV)
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
James 4:4 (ESV)
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
When we do those things that the world dictates and command us to do, and we don't do what Christ tells us to do - and we can't do both, it's one or the other - we make ourselves the enemy of Christ. If we listen to the world and does what the world commands, Christ will be against us and He will treat us like He treats all His enemies. He will make no difference between us and the Amorites, for we don't make any difference between Christ and the world:
Revelation 2:16 (ESV)
Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.
Unless we want Christ to war against us, then we had better be His friend. Unless we want His sword of His word to devour us, we had better listen and do as He commands. Christ hates the world, and is preparing to invade the Earth. Some people are worried of alien invasion, but they realize not that it is GOD who is going to invade the kingdoms of men with the wrath of God. God loved the world, and sent His Son to die for the sinners in the world, but He, at the same time, despises the world, and is planning to destroy it for all its abominations. He likewise calls us to hate the world:
1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions-is not from the Father but is from the world. [17] And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
We must only love the world with the love of the Father. We must love them like the Father loved the world, by giving them Jesus Christ, that they may believe and have eternal life. Any other love we have for the world is hateful to the Father, for it is not true love. True love seeks the best for the other person, and Jesus Christ and the Gospel is anyone's best. Peter also gave the man outside the Beautiful Gate Jesus Christ, for he truly loved the man. Peter gave the best that he had, which was not money or food, but Jesus Christ His Lord:
Acts 3:6-8 (ESV)
But Peter said, "I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!" [7] And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. [8] And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
Evangelism is giving the best thing that we have to the other person. And the best thing that we have is the Name of Jesus Christ. What do we have that is better than Christ, better than the Gospel? We can give them food, but food will be eaten and it will disappear, we can give them clothes and they will fade, but if we give them the Treasure who is in heaven, Jesus Christ, who will never be corrupted, who is like the treasure whom moths and rust will not come and ruin, since corruption has no more hold on Him. Thus the greatest expression of love to another person is giving of Jesus Christ, because this what God did for us. Any love that falls short of this love is not worthy to be called love.
Beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. Seir is the mountain tract, and meaning that the Amorites chased Israel all the way down the tract to Hormah. This place was not called Hormah at the time when this happened, since Hormah means "devoted to destruction", and Israel had not yet devoted the land to destruction at this time. It was after the 40 year wandering in the wilderness, when the king of Arad came and attacked Israel. Then only did Israel call this region Hormah:
Numbers 21:1-3 (ESV)
When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. [2] And Israel vowed a vow to the LORD and said, "If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction." [3] And the LORD heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.
What could God mean here, by saying that Israel were defeated all the way to "Hormah"? Perhaps Moses meaning here that God was delivering Israel to near destruction, just as Israel had devoted the cities of Negeb to destruction. And God did deliver this generation to destruction, by making them all to perish in the wilderness. But by His grace God did not devote Israel to utter destruction, but saved the remnant of the second generation. As it is written:
Isaiah 1:9 (ESV)
If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.
God SHOULD have devoted this evil, unfaithful nation of Israel to utter destruction. And God almost did, if it wasn't for Moses' intercession. For why should God show them compassion? God had shown this people so many miracles and signs, yet they still did not believe in Him. Was it because Israel was more righteous than the nations of Canaan, that God does not utterly wipe them out, and shows them mercy? By no means, for in the wilderness they commit idolatry, fornication, blasphemy, breaking every law that God had given. There was nothing in them that caused God to forgive them, to remove their sin from them. It was because of Christ, who had taken their sin and laid them on His own body, that He may be crushed under the weight of God's wrath. This was the cause of God's mercy and His grace.
God should have destroyed the Jews when they disbelieved in Jesus, and even killed Him because of their unbelief. And God did destroy them, and scatter them from Jerusalem. But He did not destroy them completely, and left a remnant who believed in Christ:
Romans 11:3-5 (ESV)
"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life." [4] But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." [5] So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
And God promise is that the majority of this evil nation of Israel will one day be saved:
Romans 11:26-27 (ESV)
And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob"; [27] "and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins."
God's free and sovereign grace is what will keep Israel, and us believers in Christ, from utterly falling away. It is not because of any of our works, but of God's election. We should have been Hormah, but God always keeps in His people a stump, that they will not totally perish:
Daniel 4:23 (ESV)
And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ''Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven periods of time pass over him,''
God's grace is the root that holds us up, the foundation that keeps us standing, the net that catches us when we fall, the anchor that keeps us from swaying. No matter where we go, we will still be in God's hand of grace, and no thief will ever pluck us from His hand. God's grace remains in us as a holy seed, always keeping us sanctified, always making us to hate sin, and to love righteousness, that we never fall away fully into the abyss of sin:
1 John 3:9 (ESV)
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
It is grace that we look forward to at the end of the ages, when we shall be in the presence of Christ not by our works, but by His grace:
1 Peter 1:13 (ESV)
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Let us give praise for His grace that shall be revealed to us, for the grace that is now working in our lives, and the grace that chose us like a firebrand that He rescued from a burning rubble. Let us give thanks that He does not treat us like those who have not received mercy, but shows special care for us, not because of what we are, but because of His own free will. We shall forever praise Him for His glory in His election. Let us forever thank Him for making us vessels of grace and not of wrath. Amen.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Doing God's will must be our ministry
Deuteronomy 1:41-42 (ESV)
"Then you answered me, ''We have sinned against the LORD. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.'' And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. [42] And the LORD said to me, ''Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.''
We have sinned against the LORD. Confession of sin must be followed by turning away from that sin, otherwise it was not a genuine repentance, but only of the mouth. The best that we can do when we are chastised by the Lord is to turn and be submissive to the chastisement that He is giving us. But look what this people say: "We ourselves will go up and fight", as though they had any chance of defeating these giants by their own strength. Before they were afraid because they did not trust in the strength of God, but now they are confident because they trust in their own strength and not in God's. Both are unbelief in the strength of God. Whatever they do, they don't want to trust in the arm of God, nor want to be where He is.
Just as the LORD has commanded us. Here we learn something: just because God has commanded us to do something, if the Lord is not with us in that thing, we will not be able to fulfill it. We must do what God commands, with God. We must obey God's words with the strength that He supplies. We cannot obey the commandments of God without His strength. Unless God is with us, and unless He gives us the grace to obey, we cannot obey any of His commandments.
And moreover, to these people God had already commanded them to turn around back into the wilderness. This command had overrode the commandment to go and possess the land. But they are now saying "we will obey", using 'obedience' as a cover for their disobedience. God tells them to turn right, they turn left; He turns them to turn left, they turn right. What is this picture? It is showing that they cannot submit to the Law of God, because their minds are hostile to God.
Surely all mankind's minds are hostile to God. When God tells us to do something, we do the exact opposite thing, because our hearts are evil and God-hating. How can such a dead heart be revived? By listening to a lot of "Thou Shalt not" commandments? No, because the more we hear God saying, "Thou Shalt not", the more we DO that exact thing:
Romans 7:7-11 (ESV)
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." [8] But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. [9] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. [10] The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. [11] For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
The worst thing you can tell a unregenerate person who is overcome by lustful thoughts is to say to that person, "God says you must not think lustfully". Because of the sinfulness of the person's heart, the person will actually become more sinful because of that commandment, because his heart desires to do the very thing that God hates. What we must tell the person is not what he must do, but what Jesus Christ has DONE in the Gospel. We must tell him: Christ came from heaven to earth, He lived a sinless life, never once did He have a lustful thought. He was the spotless Son of God. But God had laid on Him all the guilt of our lust, and crucified Him on the hill of Calvary as punishment justly due for lust. Then He rose again from the dead, and is ready to come back and judge all those who have thought and done lustful things, but to save those who have put their trust in Him. This is the way we get a person to stop sinning. The Gospel is the truth that sets people free from sin, and rebellion.
Moses had clearly told this generation that "God Himself will fight for you", in verse 30. But hear what this people say: "we ourselves will go and fight". It is God who was going to do all the fighting. The conquest of Canaan wasn't going to be some 'joint operation' between God and Israel. By no means! It would ALL be God. Israel were simply the weak and pathetic rod that He had desired to use. And that Israel were defeated in the following verses show how weak indeed this weapon was. Israel did not realize just how weak they really were. They should have been like the crippled Mephibosheth, who described himself as nothing but a dead dog to David:
2 Samuel 9:8 (ESV)
And he paid homage and said, "What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?"
By saying "we ourselves will go and fight", this people were not even saying that the battle will be a joint operation with God. They are saying it will ALL be them, and God can stay behind. What perverted view did they have of their own ability, and how little did they view God? They perhaps thought all the victories that were won from Egypt and so far in the journey had all been won by their own strength. How far could they be from the truth! Their salvation was all the work of God, and none of man was mixed in it. It is as it is written:
Ephesians 2:8-10 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. See how Israel trusted in their weapons of war more than God, fastening each of them to their sides, as though they were what would protect them. They were not realizing that they themselves were like those weapons, to be held by the hands of God for His own battle against the inhabitants of the land. They did not realize that they should have been fastened to God's side, by clinging on to Him, in order that God may use them to bring victory to Himself. This was God's own battle against His enemies. Israel were simply the instruments to His war. Yet they did not understand, and thought to win God's war by themselves, only to miserable failure to themselves.
We learn here that we must trust in the living God, and not the dead idols that we so easily cling to. These weak things we have made with our hands can never compare with the living Creator who made us and who sustains the universe by His everlasting word. Think of it, how can the things made by men, compare with our Maker who is the Sovereign Ruler of all? Yet we so easily put our trust in the works of our hands, giving glory to them, to bring our Maker reproach, by effectively declaring and alluding that the Creator must bow down, worship and trust in the creation, that the creation is higher and more worthy than the Creator. This is the perversion and the betrayal of the ages. Thus all people who trust in idols - whether it be money, or weapons or possessions, career, house, car, technology - bring dishonor to their own Creator, by loving and serving these things more than God. It is the abomination of the highest order.
Israel "thought it easy to go up the hill". The thing about the conquest of Canaan was not that it was just 'difficult'. The conquest of Canaan was impossible. It was not possible that a group of shepherds who had been slaves for four hundred years in Egypt could possibly go and conquer a land of giants who live in high walled fortresses. Was this possible? By no means. But because God, the Lord of the Universe, was going to do it, it was going to be possible. But see how easy they thought it would be to go and conquer the Amorites, and how they fell, as a man falls off a building according to the law of gravity! These weak people could not possibly defeat them. It had to be God, otherwise it would be utterly impossible.
Likewise our salvation was not only a difficult thing, like climbing Mount Everest, that only needed a lot of effort to achieve. Israel had more luck conquering the hill of the Amorites with no weapons, than us wicked sinners ascending into God's holy hill by our own strength:
Psalm 15:1-5 (ESV)
O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? [2] He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; [3] who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; [4] in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD;who swears to his own hurt and does not change; [5] who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.He who does these things shall never be moved.
Have a look at above high hill of God's salvation. But there are many in the world who attempts to climb this Mountain, which is the one above every mountain, by themselves, thinking it easy to climb the steep hill called God's righteousness. They trust in their own selves, their own idols which they have made, as though that can make them right before God, through external rituals and burdening of the flesh. They realize not that it is their spirits that are imprisoned by sin, and that only Christ has the power to set them free from this spiritual bondage of the heart. They don't realize that if they have fallen short of even one of the above standards, they are fallen even before they can touch the foot of the Mountain. This Mountain is the Perfect Righteousness of God, which no man has even closely attained, not even the holiest saints in the scriptures. Sinai is the perfect picture of the Mountain of God's righteousness:
Exodus 19:12-13 (ESV)
And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ''Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.
But who is the one Man who has ascended, not into Sinai, but to Heaven, the Holy Hill of God, by His own strength, by His own righteousness? It is Christ, the King of Glory:
Psalm 24:7 (ESV)
Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
By living the righteous life we could not life, and dying the righteous death we deserved to die, and rising again from the dead, Christ has conquered to climb this impossible hill of the Righteousness of God, so that all who trust in Him will be reckoned to have climbed that Hill in Him. How glorious is the Gospel of God. In Christ we are considered having perfectly fulfilled all the requirements of righteousness. Thus the impossible God has made possible, all by His own strength. None of man is mixed in this salvation, He has conquered and subdued the enemies of our souls, and carried us in Him to the promised land. As it is written:
Psalm 118:23 (ESV)
This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies. God tells Israel that they do not go and fight, why? Because they have not enough weapons or manpower? Because they are shorter, and their enemies taller? No. He says, because He is not in their midst. All of our best works will eventually come to nothing if Christ is not in it. And mainly, Christ is not in anything that He did not command:
Matthew 7:25-27 (ESV)
And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. [26] And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. [27] And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
What Christ has not commanded, however great that the work may be, however pious or godly-looking it may be, will be burnt up like stubble in the day of judgment. It will be worth nothing in light of eternity, for God was not the author of it:
1 Corinthians 3:13 (ESV)
each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
Remember that many professing Christians will say to Christ in that Day:
Matthew 7:22 (ESV)
On that day many will say to me, ''Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?''
But Christ will say to them "Depart from Me". Why? Because they did whatever they wanted, whatever they desired, and did not do the will of the Father, that is, they did not obey what Christ said:
Matthew 7:21 (ESV)
"Not everyone who says to me, ''Lord, Lord,'' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Whatever thing that we do that appears godly, but that which was not the will of the Father, nor what Christ commanded, nor what God had in mind, nor done without God is nothing but LAWLESSNESS:
Matthew 7:23 (ESV)
And then will I declare to them, ''I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.''
Likewise did this Israelites thought they were 'obeying the Lord', but in fact to God it was nothing but lawlessness. God is not with that which is not His will, nor that which is against His commandments. Though it may appear that He is with those who do such things, the Day will reveal whether it was done with God, or presumptuously.
We must strive to seek God's will in all that we do, for by doing God's will, He is in our midst, for we are being where He is. Instead of asking God to be with where we are, it is much better to go to where He is, by willing to do His will. And we must be very suspicious of our ministry, knowing that doing God's will, that is His revealed will through His word, lot of times has nothing to do with 'ministry' as we know it. Our main ministry should be being like Jesus Christ, who obeyed all God's will, even the death of the Cross. When we do those little things that are His will, such as loving our neighbours, doing our best at work, loving our spouses, forgiving enemies, then God will be in us and in the midst of us, and then we shall be properly enabled to do those smaller ministries. Doing God's will must be our main ministry. Let us serve Him, not by doing millions of ministries, but rather by obeying Christ and following God's commandments. Then God will be with us, enabling us to defeat all our enemies. Amen.
"Then you answered me, ''We have sinned against the LORD. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.'' And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. [42] And the LORD said to me, ''Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.''
We have sinned against the LORD. Confession of sin must be followed by turning away from that sin, otherwise it was not a genuine repentance, but only of the mouth. The best that we can do when we are chastised by the Lord is to turn and be submissive to the chastisement that He is giving us. But look what this people say: "We ourselves will go up and fight", as though they had any chance of defeating these giants by their own strength. Before they were afraid because they did not trust in the strength of God, but now they are confident because they trust in their own strength and not in God's. Both are unbelief in the strength of God. Whatever they do, they don't want to trust in the arm of God, nor want to be where He is.
Just as the LORD has commanded us. Here we learn something: just because God has commanded us to do something, if the Lord is not with us in that thing, we will not be able to fulfill it. We must do what God commands, with God. We must obey God's words with the strength that He supplies. We cannot obey the commandments of God without His strength. Unless God is with us, and unless He gives us the grace to obey, we cannot obey any of His commandments.
And moreover, to these people God had already commanded them to turn around back into the wilderness. This command had overrode the commandment to go and possess the land. But they are now saying "we will obey", using 'obedience' as a cover for their disobedience. God tells them to turn right, they turn left; He turns them to turn left, they turn right. What is this picture? It is showing that they cannot submit to the Law of God, because their minds are hostile to God.
Surely all mankind's minds are hostile to God. When God tells us to do something, we do the exact opposite thing, because our hearts are evil and God-hating. How can such a dead heart be revived? By listening to a lot of "Thou Shalt not" commandments? No, because the more we hear God saying, "Thou Shalt not", the more we DO that exact thing:
Romans 7:7-11 (ESV)
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." [8] But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. [9] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. [10] The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. [11] For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
The worst thing you can tell a unregenerate person who is overcome by lustful thoughts is to say to that person, "God says you must not think lustfully". Because of the sinfulness of the person's heart, the person will actually become more sinful because of that commandment, because his heart desires to do the very thing that God hates. What we must tell the person is not what he must do, but what Jesus Christ has DONE in the Gospel. We must tell him: Christ came from heaven to earth, He lived a sinless life, never once did He have a lustful thought. He was the spotless Son of God. But God had laid on Him all the guilt of our lust, and crucified Him on the hill of Calvary as punishment justly due for lust. Then He rose again from the dead, and is ready to come back and judge all those who have thought and done lustful things, but to save those who have put their trust in Him. This is the way we get a person to stop sinning. The Gospel is the truth that sets people free from sin, and rebellion.
Moses had clearly told this generation that "God Himself will fight for you", in verse 30. But hear what this people say: "we ourselves will go and fight". It is God who was going to do all the fighting. The conquest of Canaan wasn't going to be some 'joint operation' between God and Israel. By no means! It would ALL be God. Israel were simply the weak and pathetic rod that He had desired to use. And that Israel were defeated in the following verses show how weak indeed this weapon was. Israel did not realize just how weak they really were. They should have been like the crippled Mephibosheth, who described himself as nothing but a dead dog to David:
2 Samuel 9:8 (ESV)
And he paid homage and said, "What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?"
By saying "we ourselves will go and fight", this people were not even saying that the battle will be a joint operation with God. They are saying it will ALL be them, and God can stay behind. What perverted view did they have of their own ability, and how little did they view God? They perhaps thought all the victories that were won from Egypt and so far in the journey had all been won by their own strength. How far could they be from the truth! Their salvation was all the work of God, and none of man was mixed in it. It is as it is written:
Ephesians 2:8-10 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. See how Israel trusted in their weapons of war more than God, fastening each of them to their sides, as though they were what would protect them. They were not realizing that they themselves were like those weapons, to be held by the hands of God for His own battle against the inhabitants of the land. They did not realize that they should have been fastened to God's side, by clinging on to Him, in order that God may use them to bring victory to Himself. This was God's own battle against His enemies. Israel were simply the instruments to His war. Yet they did not understand, and thought to win God's war by themselves, only to miserable failure to themselves.
We learn here that we must trust in the living God, and not the dead idols that we so easily cling to. These weak things we have made with our hands can never compare with the living Creator who made us and who sustains the universe by His everlasting word. Think of it, how can the things made by men, compare with our Maker who is the Sovereign Ruler of all? Yet we so easily put our trust in the works of our hands, giving glory to them, to bring our Maker reproach, by effectively declaring and alluding that the Creator must bow down, worship and trust in the creation, that the creation is higher and more worthy than the Creator. This is the perversion and the betrayal of the ages. Thus all people who trust in idols - whether it be money, or weapons or possessions, career, house, car, technology - bring dishonor to their own Creator, by loving and serving these things more than God. It is the abomination of the highest order.
Israel "thought it easy to go up the hill". The thing about the conquest of Canaan was not that it was just 'difficult'. The conquest of Canaan was impossible. It was not possible that a group of shepherds who had been slaves for four hundred years in Egypt could possibly go and conquer a land of giants who live in high walled fortresses. Was this possible? By no means. But because God, the Lord of the Universe, was going to do it, it was going to be possible. But see how easy they thought it would be to go and conquer the Amorites, and how they fell, as a man falls off a building according to the law of gravity! These weak people could not possibly defeat them. It had to be God, otherwise it would be utterly impossible.
Likewise our salvation was not only a difficult thing, like climbing Mount Everest, that only needed a lot of effort to achieve. Israel had more luck conquering the hill of the Amorites with no weapons, than us wicked sinners ascending into God's holy hill by our own strength:
Psalm 15:1-5 (ESV)
O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? [2] He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; [3] who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; [4] in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD;who swears to his own hurt and does not change; [5] who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.He who does these things shall never be moved.
Have a look at above high hill of God's salvation. But there are many in the world who attempts to climb this Mountain, which is the one above every mountain, by themselves, thinking it easy to climb the steep hill called God's righteousness. They trust in their own selves, their own idols which they have made, as though that can make them right before God, through external rituals and burdening of the flesh. They realize not that it is their spirits that are imprisoned by sin, and that only Christ has the power to set them free from this spiritual bondage of the heart. They don't realize that if they have fallen short of even one of the above standards, they are fallen even before they can touch the foot of the Mountain. This Mountain is the Perfect Righteousness of God, which no man has even closely attained, not even the holiest saints in the scriptures. Sinai is the perfect picture of the Mountain of God's righteousness:
Exodus 19:12-13 (ESV)
And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ''Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.
But who is the one Man who has ascended, not into Sinai, but to Heaven, the Holy Hill of God, by His own strength, by His own righteousness? It is Christ, the King of Glory:
Psalm 24:7 (ESV)
Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
By living the righteous life we could not life, and dying the righteous death we deserved to die, and rising again from the dead, Christ has conquered to climb this impossible hill of the Righteousness of God, so that all who trust in Him will be reckoned to have climbed that Hill in Him. How glorious is the Gospel of God. In Christ we are considered having perfectly fulfilled all the requirements of righteousness. Thus the impossible God has made possible, all by His own strength. None of man is mixed in this salvation, He has conquered and subdued the enemies of our souls, and carried us in Him to the promised land. As it is written:
Psalm 118:23 (ESV)
This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies. God tells Israel that they do not go and fight, why? Because they have not enough weapons or manpower? Because they are shorter, and their enemies taller? No. He says, because He is not in their midst. All of our best works will eventually come to nothing if Christ is not in it. And mainly, Christ is not in anything that He did not command:
Matthew 7:25-27 (ESV)
And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. [26] And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. [27] And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
What Christ has not commanded, however great that the work may be, however pious or godly-looking it may be, will be burnt up like stubble in the day of judgment. It will be worth nothing in light of eternity, for God was not the author of it:
1 Corinthians 3:13 (ESV)
each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
Remember that many professing Christians will say to Christ in that Day:
Matthew 7:22 (ESV)
On that day many will say to me, ''Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?''
But Christ will say to them "Depart from Me". Why? Because they did whatever they wanted, whatever they desired, and did not do the will of the Father, that is, they did not obey what Christ said:
Matthew 7:21 (ESV)
"Not everyone who says to me, ''Lord, Lord,'' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Whatever thing that we do that appears godly, but that which was not the will of the Father, nor what Christ commanded, nor what God had in mind, nor done without God is nothing but LAWLESSNESS:
Matthew 7:23 (ESV)
And then will I declare to them, ''I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.''
Likewise did this Israelites thought they were 'obeying the Lord', but in fact to God it was nothing but lawlessness. God is not with that which is not His will, nor that which is against His commandments. Though it may appear that He is with those who do such things, the Day will reveal whether it was done with God, or presumptuously.
We must strive to seek God's will in all that we do, for by doing God's will, He is in our midst, for we are being where He is. Instead of asking God to be with where we are, it is much better to go to where He is, by willing to do His will. And we must be very suspicious of our ministry, knowing that doing God's will, that is His revealed will through His word, lot of times has nothing to do with 'ministry' as we know it. Our main ministry should be being like Jesus Christ, who obeyed all God's will, even the death of the Cross. When we do those little things that are His will, such as loving our neighbours, doing our best at work, loving our spouses, forgiving enemies, then God will be in us and in the midst of us, and then we shall be properly enabled to do those smaller ministries. Doing God's will must be our main ministry. Let us serve Him, not by doing millions of ministries, but rather by obeying Christ and following God's commandments. Then God will be with us, enabling us to defeat all our enemies. Amen.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
If we love them, we trust them unto God
Deuteronomy 1:39-40 (ESV)
And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. [40] But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.''
Who you said would become a prey. God is talking about this comment that they had made:
Numbers 14:3 (ESV)
Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?"
These people thought that God was bringing them into the land only to kill them. They had thought that God wanted evil for them, though God wanted and promised them nothing but good to them. They thought that God wanted the worst for their children, to make them fall by the hands of the Amorites. They believed that it was for destruction that God had saved them from the land of Egypt.
Their problem was that they didn't know the heart of God. They did not understand the love of God. Only if they knew and understood the plan of the Gospel of God! Only if they knew that it was through them, through the nation of Israel that the Saviour of the world would be born who would bless the world with the Spirit of God! And they also didn't know and believe who they were, that is, the offspring of Abraham. For if they would have believed who they were, they would have believed that God had promised the good land for them. But that they do not believe, clearly showing that they were not the children of Abraham by spirit, only of the flesh. As John the Baptist said:
Luke 3:8 (ESV)
Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ''We have Abraham as our father.'' For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
They ought to have circumcised the foreskin of their hearts by faith and became the true children of Abraham in their hearts. Then they would have been worthy to be called children of Israel, that they may have the faith to inherit the promised land. But they did not, showing that they were never Abraham's children.
When we don't know God, nor have the assurance that we are God's children, our foundation is insecure, and we begin to worry. We have no root in ourselves, as Christ says:
Matthew 13:20-21 (ESV)
As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, [21] yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
These people were worried that their children would perish in the hands of the enemies, but God overthrows their worries, saying that the children whom they said would perish would inherit the land. God was showing these Israelites that He cares more about their children than they do. Here we learn something. Worrying about our family and friends is not loving them. We must TRUST them to God if we want to truly love them. Why? Because worrying about someone doesn't help them at all. It doesn't do anything:
Matthew 6:27 (ESV)
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Knowing that God cares more about our family and friends more than we do, we must entrust them to God. We must pray for them. Being anxious for them is a sign of our unbelief, and not of our love toward them. Let us love them though faith in God.
And your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. God is saying that only the children, who have not yet reached the age of discerning between good and evil, shall enter into the land. Here we learn something of God's election. God chooses this second generation to inherit the land of Canaan, even though they currently have no knowledge of what is good or evil, neither of faith or unbelief. As it is written:
Romans 9:10-13 (ESV)
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, [11] though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad-in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls- [12] she was told, "The older will serve the younger." [13] As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Though this second generation had no knowledge of good and evil, God elects them to possess the land of Egypt. We see here then that first generation were not chosen, nor given mercy, since they had no faith to inherit the land. The second generation, though they are weak and only children, them God gives the faith. Christians were likewise elected, from the foundation of the world, thousands of years even before they were created, that it may be of God's grace and not of any of the elects' works.
God has chosen the weak and the foolish of the world, that they may be the heirs of eternal life:
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (ESV)
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; [28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, [29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
God teaching here a parable that the generation that has received the Law, with whom God made the covenant of works, will not inherit the Kingdom of God, but those who have received election, with whom God has made the covenant of grace, will inherit the Kingdom of God. It is not because a person does anything good will receive the favour of God, not will anyone who does anything bad will be refused the grace to believe. Why? It is because it is solely due to God's election. It was not because this second generation was better than the first, but simply because God chose the second over the first. Likewise we ought to be thankful for God's grace that chose us, and made us worthy to inherit the Kingdom, not of anything we have done, but because of His calling. Let us thank God who chose us, whether we were evil or bad, so that God may get all the glory.
But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea. If we reject the new way that God has shows us to walk, the only way is to turn back to where we came from. God tells them to go back, all the way to the beginning, the Red Sea. When we are not obedient to God, nor believe in Him, we will never go to the new places that God has prepared for us. It will always be the same old routine and drudge, as dry and dead as the wilderness. We will always be hearing, but never understanding, seeing but never perceiving. We will always be just coming out of the Red Sea, never growing, never escaping the beginning, being an infant forever.
There are many Christians who rely on their reminiscences of the past walk with God as though that carries them into the Kingdom of God. But God is concerned about today, and now. God is concerned about our future and our growth, until the moment that we enter into glory with Christ. This first generation were going back to the wilderness, and they saw no more new things, only accept the new thing God showed in destroying the rebels in their midst:
Numbers 16:30 (ESV)
But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD."
When we do not trust God and are willing to walk with Him where He is, we will never see anything new and fresh from the Lord apart from new sins and new destructions. There are Christians whose growth stops after a certain age, and all they have is the miracles God has shown for them in the beginning of their salvation. This is not enough.
God will make us to walk the old ways until we come to the end of our selves, until the old man die, and the new man made in the likeness of Christ be clearly formed in us. Then we are ready for the new ways. God likewise subjected us under the Law, under the law of sin and death, until the knowledge of our condemnation killed us. Then God revived us with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only we were ready to accept the New Testament. As Christ said:
Luke 5:39 (ESV)
And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ''The old is good.''"
Until the man is sick to death of the old wine of Law, the man will never desire the new wine of Christ. God exercises our senses do that God gradually makes us to refuse the evil, and to embrace the good.
By saying "as for you", God was telling them that, just as the portion of their children shall be the promised land, the portion of this unbelieving generation will be the wilderness. Those who disobey God will inherit the desert, the land of serpents and thirst and of tribulation. Since they had so misunderstood God that He had brought them out of Egypt only to destroy them, destruction shall be their portion and lot. This was the new promise that God was making overriding the Gospel promise. When we reject the Gospel promise, then God will give the promise of destruction to those who not believe. Just as sure is the promise of Gospel for salvation, just as sure is the promise of God for damnation for those who scorns Christ:
John 8:24 (ESV)
I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins
And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. [40] But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.''
Who you said would become a prey. God is talking about this comment that they had made:
Numbers 14:3 (ESV)
Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?"
These people thought that God was bringing them into the land only to kill them. They had thought that God wanted evil for them, though God wanted and promised them nothing but good to them. They thought that God wanted the worst for their children, to make them fall by the hands of the Amorites. They believed that it was for destruction that God had saved them from the land of Egypt.
Their problem was that they didn't know the heart of God. They did not understand the love of God. Only if they knew and understood the plan of the Gospel of God! Only if they knew that it was through them, through the nation of Israel that the Saviour of the world would be born who would bless the world with the Spirit of God! And they also didn't know and believe who they were, that is, the offspring of Abraham. For if they would have believed who they were, they would have believed that God had promised the good land for them. But that they do not believe, clearly showing that they were not the children of Abraham by spirit, only of the flesh. As John the Baptist said:
Luke 3:8 (ESV)
Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ''We have Abraham as our father.'' For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
They ought to have circumcised the foreskin of their hearts by faith and became the true children of Abraham in their hearts. Then they would have been worthy to be called children of Israel, that they may have the faith to inherit the promised land. But they did not, showing that they were never Abraham's children.
When we don't know God, nor have the assurance that we are God's children, our foundation is insecure, and we begin to worry. We have no root in ourselves, as Christ says:
Matthew 13:20-21 (ESV)
As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, [21] yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
These people were worried that their children would perish in the hands of the enemies, but God overthrows their worries, saying that the children whom they said would perish would inherit the land. God was showing these Israelites that He cares more about their children than they do. Here we learn something. Worrying about our family and friends is not loving them. We must TRUST them to God if we want to truly love them. Why? Because worrying about someone doesn't help them at all. It doesn't do anything:
Matthew 6:27 (ESV)
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Knowing that God cares more about our family and friends more than we do, we must entrust them to God. We must pray for them. Being anxious for them is a sign of our unbelief, and not of our love toward them. Let us love them though faith in God.
And your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. God is saying that only the children, who have not yet reached the age of discerning between good and evil, shall enter into the land. Here we learn something of God's election. God chooses this second generation to inherit the land of Canaan, even though they currently have no knowledge of what is good or evil, neither of faith or unbelief. As it is written:
Romans 9:10-13 (ESV)
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, [11] though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad-in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls- [12] she was told, "The older will serve the younger." [13] As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Though this second generation had no knowledge of good and evil, God elects them to possess the land of Egypt. We see here then that first generation were not chosen, nor given mercy, since they had no faith to inherit the land. The second generation, though they are weak and only children, them God gives the faith. Christians were likewise elected, from the foundation of the world, thousands of years even before they were created, that it may be of God's grace and not of any of the elects' works.
God has chosen the weak and the foolish of the world, that they may be the heirs of eternal life:
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (ESV)
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; [28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, [29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
God teaching here a parable that the generation that has received the Law, with whom God made the covenant of works, will not inherit the Kingdom of God, but those who have received election, with whom God has made the covenant of grace, will inherit the Kingdom of God. It is not because a person does anything good will receive the favour of God, not will anyone who does anything bad will be refused the grace to believe. Why? It is because it is solely due to God's election. It was not because this second generation was better than the first, but simply because God chose the second over the first. Likewise we ought to be thankful for God's grace that chose us, and made us worthy to inherit the Kingdom, not of anything we have done, but because of His calling. Let us thank God who chose us, whether we were evil or bad, so that God may get all the glory.
But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea. If we reject the new way that God has shows us to walk, the only way is to turn back to where we came from. God tells them to go back, all the way to the beginning, the Red Sea. When we are not obedient to God, nor believe in Him, we will never go to the new places that God has prepared for us. It will always be the same old routine and drudge, as dry and dead as the wilderness. We will always be hearing, but never understanding, seeing but never perceiving. We will always be just coming out of the Red Sea, never growing, never escaping the beginning, being an infant forever.
There are many Christians who rely on their reminiscences of the past walk with God as though that carries them into the Kingdom of God. But God is concerned about today, and now. God is concerned about our future and our growth, until the moment that we enter into glory with Christ. This first generation were going back to the wilderness, and they saw no more new things, only accept the new thing God showed in destroying the rebels in their midst:
Numbers 16:30 (ESV)
But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD."
When we do not trust God and are willing to walk with Him where He is, we will never see anything new and fresh from the Lord apart from new sins and new destructions. There are Christians whose growth stops after a certain age, and all they have is the miracles God has shown for them in the beginning of their salvation. This is not enough.
God will make us to walk the old ways until we come to the end of our selves, until the old man die, and the new man made in the likeness of Christ be clearly formed in us. Then we are ready for the new ways. God likewise subjected us under the Law, under the law of sin and death, until the knowledge of our condemnation killed us. Then God revived us with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only we were ready to accept the New Testament. As Christ said:
Luke 5:39 (ESV)
And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ''The old is good.''"
Until the man is sick to death of the old wine of Law, the man will never desire the new wine of Christ. God exercises our senses do that God gradually makes us to refuse the evil, and to embrace the good.
By saying "as for you", God was telling them that, just as the portion of their children shall be the promised land, the portion of this unbelieving generation will be the wilderness. Those who disobey God will inherit the desert, the land of serpents and thirst and of tribulation. Since they had so misunderstood God that He had brought them out of Egypt only to destroy them, destruction shall be their portion and lot. This was the new promise that God was making overriding the Gospel promise. When we reject the Gospel promise, then God will give the promise of destruction to those who not believe. Just as sure is the promise of Gospel for salvation, just as sure is the promise of God for damnation for those who scorns Christ:
John 8:24 (ESV)
I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins
Monday, January 23, 2012
God was angry with Christ on our account
Deuteronomy 1:37-38 (ESV)
Even with me the LORD was angry on your account and said, ''You also shall not go in there. [38] Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.
Even with me the LORD was angry on your account. Moses was the leader of the people of Israel. Therefore though he himself was a faithful servant in all God 's house, he had to carry the sins of all his people. Though he himself had found grace in his sight, he would pay for the sins of his people, carrying the wrath that was for them. This is also what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Though He had not sinned Himself, God was angry with Him, not for His own sins, but on our account. He took the responsibility for the sins of His people, though He was faithful as a Son in God's house. Our sins was His sins on the cross, so that His righteousness could be our righteousness.
How much our Lord hated to carry the guilt of our sins! How much He hated to be separated from His Father even just for one day. It was pure Hell for a Holy God who has never experienced such things. He never committed sins, but He carried the consequence of isin for us. How much He did not like it, and cried to the Father for deliverance. But God did not give Him another choice:
Matthew 26:42 (ESV)
Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done."
Jesus drank down the cup of God's wrath that He had offered Him. God was angry at Christ on our account, not for anything He did, but because what we did. How much that wrath should have fallen upon us! But God gave not wrath but grace to us, that we may live. But it is only because Christ became us on the cross, that we become sons of God through faith in Christ.
You also shall not go in there. Just as Moses was refused entry to the good land, for a moment Christ was refused fellowship with God. The sky above Him became black with the clouds to show that His communion with God was temporarily stopped, so that God may begin His eternal communion with us. How can we know what this would have been like! This is only something we can imagine, and be in awe at God's marvellous works for us. How can we be thankless to Him, who took the punishment that we deserve. How can we live not for Jesus Christ, who loved us and have Himself for us?
Because Christ was refused access to God, we now have access to God. Our Lord Jesus stands before God, showing His wounds, still appearing as the Lamb that was slain, so that we may forever have access to Him:
Revelation 5:6 (ESV)
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
We will enter into the Kingdom of God because of the Lamb that has been slain. His blood has opened the gate of heaven for us. His blood is what keeps the love of God, the Holy Spirit, flowing to us always. His death has given us life. The wrath that He received, gives us everlasting joy. Let us throw away our lives for Christ, who has done this thing for us, who is still interceding for us.
Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. Joshua represents the risen Christ, who, after having paid for the penalty of their sins, causes his people to inherit the Kingdom of God. Though Christ died, having been refused access to God, being cursed under the Law, when He rose again He entered boldly into the Kingdom, as Joshua entered into the land. And He is still living, enabling all His people to enter in also as He did.
Christ is the one living in all believers that causes them to inherit eternal life. He is the one who fights the flesh, the world and the Devil for us, living through us, that we may bear the fruits for eternal life. It is not ourselves does this Christian life for us. Christ is the cause of our Christian life, the origin, and He is also the means through which our live out life as believers. He will also accomplish this life for us, that we may be blameless before God on the Day of Judgment:
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (ESV)
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [24] He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Christ will make all His elect to inherit the Kingdom. He will lose none of them in the way, for they are in God's hand, which is His hand:
John 10:27-29 (ESV)
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. [28] I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. [29] My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
We believers can never slip away from the hand of God. Though it may appear we are slipping away, and even falling from Him, but even if we go as low as we can go we will still be in His hand. And no one can snatch us away from God's hand. Christ will not rest or relent until we all receive eternal life, and the sanctification that accompanies that life. Christ will never give up this mission, even though we may give up and throw in the towel. He will carry us over the Jordan of death, and plant us a trees near the river of life. The zeal of the Lord will save the remnant, that is the Church of Christ:
2 Kings 19:31 (ESV)
For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.
Encourage him. Though Joshua was to cause Israel to inherit the Kingdom, he was still a man, and he needed encouragement. He would be the one, and not Moses, doing the fighting with all the strong warriors of Canaan. But what would encourage him, more than anything?: "for he shall cause Israel to inherit it". It is God's promise that he would cause Israel to inherit it that would encourage him more than thousands of legions of armies. It is the belief in this promise that would give him the courage.
Likewise God's promise is our only true and lasting encouragement: Whoever believes in Christ will not perish but have everlasting life. He will keep us unto the end. He will be with us unto the end. He will wipe away all our tears. He will not give us temptation beyond what we can bear. He will hear all our prayers. He will glorify us and makes us like Christ. These promises are like gold and silver to us, and keeps us going in the midst of fear. What can give us more confidence, but that God has given us His promises and that we are in that promise?
It was this belief in the promise that helped Joshua to fulfill his mission as the leader of his people. He walked in the promise by faith and did not sway until the land was subdued before him. Let us hold on to the eternal promises that God has given us, and from there alone find the courage in the midst of fear. He will be with us, if we believe that He is indeed with us, and live by that truth. Blessed be our God. Amen.
Even with me the LORD was angry on your account and said, ''You also shall not go in there. [38] Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.
Even with me the LORD was angry on your account. Moses was the leader of the people of Israel. Therefore though he himself was a faithful servant in all God 's house, he had to carry the sins of all his people. Though he himself had found grace in his sight, he would pay for the sins of his people, carrying the wrath that was for them. This is also what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Though He had not sinned Himself, God was angry with Him, not for His own sins, but on our account. He took the responsibility for the sins of His people, though He was faithful as a Son in God's house. Our sins was His sins on the cross, so that His righteousness could be our righteousness.
How much our Lord hated to carry the guilt of our sins! How much He hated to be separated from His Father even just for one day. It was pure Hell for a Holy God who has never experienced such things. He never committed sins, but He carried the consequence of isin for us. How much He did not like it, and cried to the Father for deliverance. But God did not give Him another choice:
Matthew 26:42 (ESV)
Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done."
Jesus drank down the cup of God's wrath that He had offered Him. God was angry at Christ on our account, not for anything He did, but because what we did. How much that wrath should have fallen upon us! But God gave not wrath but grace to us, that we may live. But it is only because Christ became us on the cross, that we become sons of God through faith in Christ.
You also shall not go in there. Just as Moses was refused entry to the good land, for a moment Christ was refused fellowship with God. The sky above Him became black with the clouds to show that His communion with God was temporarily stopped, so that God may begin His eternal communion with us. How can we know what this would have been like! This is only something we can imagine, and be in awe at God's marvellous works for us. How can we be thankless to Him, who took the punishment that we deserve. How can we live not for Jesus Christ, who loved us and have Himself for us?
Because Christ was refused access to God, we now have access to God. Our Lord Jesus stands before God, showing His wounds, still appearing as the Lamb that was slain, so that we may forever have access to Him:
Revelation 5:6 (ESV)
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
We will enter into the Kingdom of God because of the Lamb that has been slain. His blood has opened the gate of heaven for us. His blood is what keeps the love of God, the Holy Spirit, flowing to us always. His death has given us life. The wrath that He received, gives us everlasting joy. Let us throw away our lives for Christ, who has done this thing for us, who is still interceding for us.
Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. Joshua represents the risen Christ, who, after having paid for the penalty of their sins, causes his people to inherit the Kingdom of God. Though Christ died, having been refused access to God, being cursed under the Law, when He rose again He entered boldly into the Kingdom, as Joshua entered into the land. And He is still living, enabling all His people to enter in also as He did.
Christ is the one living in all believers that causes them to inherit eternal life. He is the one who fights the flesh, the world and the Devil for us, living through us, that we may bear the fruits for eternal life. It is not ourselves does this Christian life for us. Christ is the cause of our Christian life, the origin, and He is also the means through which our live out life as believers. He will also accomplish this life for us, that we may be blameless before God on the Day of Judgment:
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (ESV)
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [24] He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Christ will make all His elect to inherit the Kingdom. He will lose none of them in the way, for they are in God's hand, which is His hand:
John 10:27-29 (ESV)
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. [28] I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. [29] My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
We believers can never slip away from the hand of God. Though it may appear we are slipping away, and even falling from Him, but even if we go as low as we can go we will still be in His hand. And no one can snatch us away from God's hand. Christ will not rest or relent until we all receive eternal life, and the sanctification that accompanies that life. Christ will never give up this mission, even though we may give up and throw in the towel. He will carry us over the Jordan of death, and plant us a trees near the river of life. The zeal of the Lord will save the remnant, that is the Church of Christ:
2 Kings 19:31 (ESV)
For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.
Encourage him. Though Joshua was to cause Israel to inherit the Kingdom, he was still a man, and he needed encouragement. He would be the one, and not Moses, doing the fighting with all the strong warriors of Canaan. But what would encourage him, more than anything?: "for he shall cause Israel to inherit it". It is God's promise that he would cause Israel to inherit it that would encourage him more than thousands of legions of armies. It is the belief in this promise that would give him the courage.
Likewise God's promise is our only true and lasting encouragement: Whoever believes in Christ will not perish but have everlasting life. He will keep us unto the end. He will be with us unto the end. He will wipe away all our tears. He will not give us temptation beyond what we can bear. He will hear all our prayers. He will glorify us and makes us like Christ. These promises are like gold and silver to us, and keeps us going in the midst of fear. What can give us more confidence, but that God has given us His promises and that we are in that promise?
It was this belief in the promise that helped Joshua to fulfill his mission as the leader of his people. He walked in the promise by faith and did not sway until the land was subdued before him. Let us hold on to the eternal promises that God has given us, and from there alone find the courage in the midst of fear. He will be with us, if we believe that He is indeed with us, and live by that truth. Blessed be our God. Amen.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Blessing of others comes through our cursing
Deuteronomy 1:34-36 (ESV)
"And the LORD heard your words and was angered, and he swore, [35] ''Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, [36] except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the LORD!''
And the LORD heard your words. As much as God hears our prayers, He also hears all our conversations and everything that we speak from our mouths. Therefore we ought to be careful what we ought to speak. When we speak, we must speak prayerfully, and as the Apostle says:
1 Peter 4:11 (ESV)
whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God
God hears and writes down all the words that we have spoken, and will enter into judgment with all of them. We have this notion that God only hears us when we speak to Him in prayer, and is deaf in other times. God is hearing all our complaining, all our unbelief, all our exclamations, all our filthy language, all our whispering, gossiping, slandering, all our planning and discussions in closed doors. As there is nothing hidden from His eyes, there are no words hidden from His ears. These people thought they were speaking in the safety from their tents, but God was even with them in their tents to hear all their grumblings. There is no space in the universe where we can hide to speak in secret. It is no wonder that the Holy Spirit heard the Jews speaking against Christ behind closed doors:
John 11:47-48 (ESV)
So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. [48] If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."
Our words show us who we are. Jesus Christ was God's Word, and He showed us God's love, grace, truth, righteousness and power. This generation's words were full of unbelief, fear and hatred. Therefore God's assessment of them was that they were an "evil generation", for their words showed their hearts were nothing but evil. It is as Christ said:
Matthew 12:34-35 (ESV)
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. [35] The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
A good person will speak good things. A man's speech shows plainly the person's condition of the heart. A bitter heart will speak bitterly, a cold heart coldly, a lustful heart lustfully. If we want to change our evil speech, then we had better change our hearts with God's help. Then only we shall speak that which is good. We must treasure good things in our hearts, the Word of God and the Gospel, that our speech may be naturally be good.
So clearly does our speech show the contents of our heart, that it will be by which Christ will justify and condemn us on Judgment Day. By our words Christ will judge whether we have treasured Jesus Christ in our heart, or if we have treasured our sins. By our words He will see whether we really believed in our hearts the Lord Jesus, or whether we did not believe:
Matthew 12:37 (ESV)
for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
2 Corinthians 4:13 (ESV)
Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak,
Romans 10:10 (ESV)
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Our words show especially the state of our faith or disbelief in God. When we speak words of worry, we plainly show that we don't believe in God in that regard. These Israelites did not believe in God, and consequently their words showed their unfaithfulness. But God has His ears out for words of faith, and commends such words:
Luke 7:9 (ESV)
When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."
Let us work to make Christ marvel with words faith. Let us pray for a heart of faith, that will be pleasing to God as a sweet aroma unto Him.
And was angered. God loves words of faith, but nothing angers God more than words of unbelief. Unbelief in the truth is the beginning of all sin, and is the cause of God's wrath:
Romans 1:18 (ESV)
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
What makes a God of love be filled with wrath and fury? It is unbelief: the suppressing of the truth about God. This was the reason that Hell was made. This was the reason why Christ died on the Cross for us, bearing the wrath of God against our unbelief.
Unbelief is the gate that opens itself to all ungodliness and unrighteousness. Once the truth about God is suppressed, then a man is free, in his own deluded mind, to commit as much sin as he wants. As Satan asked Eve, "Did God really say...?", Eve began to doubt, and her conscience was seared by unbelief, and she was enabled to boldly take of the fruit and sin against God. When we are tempted to sin, we are not to focus on that sin, but check the state of our faith in what God has said. If we believe in His words, we will not sin against Him:
Matthew 4:10 (ESV)
Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "''You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.''"
How can this flame of God's wrath against our unbelief be cooled? It is by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ:
John 3:36 (ESV)
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
It is by believing in the truth about Jesus, and trusting in Jesus' person and works that we are saved from this wrath. But it is not as though our faith is the cause of God's removal of wrath, for even before we believed, Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, including unbelief. Then it is GOD who gave the faith to us, that we may no longer be the children of wrath, but children of God:
Ephesians 2:8 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
To be believers means that God's wrath has been removed from us. To be unbelieving, means that God's wrath is remaining on us. But no one can change oneself from being an unbeliever to a believer, without the power of the Spirit of God. It is the work of God alone. Jesus Christ is impossible to be believed on without God's help. How fearful then is the work of salvation! Man has no handle on this handiwork of God. As it is written, he that is in Christ is a "new CREATION". Whose creation? God's creation. A man cannot make himself a believer. A man cannot create faith in himself. God must create and give the faith to the man:
Hebrews 12:2 (ESV)
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Matthew 16:16-17 (ESV)
Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." [17] And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
True faith is not the work of flesh and blood. Therefore the removal of wrath against unbelief is impossible for a man. It is God who reveals truth to a man by the Spirit, and removes the cloud of unbelief, and hence removing the wrath that was upon the sinner. There is therefore nothing a man can do to be saved. He may make a false faith in his mind with the information gathered from flesh and blood, and say that he is a believer of Jesus, but God knows whether that faith is man-made or God-given:
John 2:23-24 (ESV)
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. [24] But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people
Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers. God swears an oath that this generation which do not believe in Him will not see the land, and will perish. This oath overrides the oath that God had made to their fathers regarding this land. This generation did not emulate the faith that was in Abraham, Issac and Jacob's hearts, and thus were not fit to be called their children. This agrees with Apostle Paul, who says that not all who are of Israel of the flesh are children of Israel, only the children of the same faith:
Romans 9:6-8 (ESV)
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, [7] and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." [8] This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Galatians 3:7 (ESV)
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
Since this generation chooses not to believe in the promise that God had made to Abraham, that is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they are not the children of Abraham. Thus the promise that God had made to Abraham have not failed:
Genesis 17:8 (ESV)
And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."
So we see how important faith is. It is what separates between the children of God and children of the devil, those who will inherit the Kingdom of God, and those who will inherit the wrath of God.
Let us behold also the antiquity of the Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel was not first preached when Christ came. It had been preached from Genesis, and throughout the wilderness that God walked with his people. Those who disbelieved, perished, and those who believed, inherited the good land. Let us also be diligent to believe in the Gospel again and again, until we are saved:
1 Peter 1:8-9 (ESV)
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, [9] obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
It is to be noted that God says "none of this EVIL generation shall see the GOOD land". The Good Land was to be inherited by good men. The land had thus far been trashed by evil, unbelieving, sinful men, and now was the time for them to be vomited out. Likewise it is with this world. When God created the world, it was Good in His eyes. But after the fall the good land had been inhabited by evil men. But the Kingdom of God will come upon the Earth, and His glory like the waters upon the sea. And His desire is to fill the earth with good inhabitants again. There will only be Christians on the earth, those justified saints who have been glorified and made like Christ. No evil person shall ever inherit the good Kingdom of God:
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (ESV)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [10] nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19-21 (ESV)
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, [21] envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Let no man who has not been born again to be a new creation in Jesus Christ expect ever to enter into heaven with the stains of sin. Nothing filthy, nor anything that defiles shall ever enter into the Kingdom of God. Its name is the Kingdom of GOD. Shall anyone who is not GODLY enter into the gates of it? By no means. As it is written:
Psalm 24:3-5 (ESV)
Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? [4] He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. [5] He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Surely none of us is good, and none of us godly enough to earn a place in heaven. But as it is written in verse 5, it is those who receive God's righteousness as a blessing that will ascend to that holy hill. It is those who are clothed with Jesus Christ alone who shall qualify for a place there. It is those who are risen with Christ that will ascend there with Christ.
And in fact, spiritually speaking, we believers are already in heaven, for Christ has ascended to heaven, and we are in Him:
Ephesians 2:6 (ESV)
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus
Our conversation is in heaven. The man whom God will take bodily to heaven, He makes him to live in this world as though he is already in heaven, pure and undefiled. But those who do not live a godly life cannot claim to have been risen with Christ, and cannot claim to be seated with Christ in heaven. Such a man cannot claim to be of God, but he is still of this world.
Let us then remember where we are already, and where we will be later, both spirit and body. Though we battle with sin here, we shall be purified as through fire, and then when we die, we shall be presented to God as gold. We are already seen as "good" in God's eyes by the robe of righteousness that He has put over us, because we are covered His blood, which is His life. But we shall one day be truly good, when we shall be changed as He is. Then shall we inherit that good land.
I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the LORD! This promise to Caleb is the same as one that God had made to Abraham after Lot had left him:
Genesis 13:17-18 (ESV)
Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you." [18] So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD.
It is interesting that Abraham, after hearing this promise, moved his tent and settled at the oaks of Mambre, which is the land of the Amorites, to Hebron, which was where Caleb and the spies were sent:
Numbers 13:22 (ESV)
They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. ( Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
What God is saying then is that the promise that He had made to Abraham will be fulfilled in Caleb, since Abraham had trodden the land, and God said He would give all the land that he would walk on. Abraham owned none of the land of Hebron, but it would be Caleb, Abraham's offspring by flesh and by faith, who would inherit that land. Therefore God's promise was fulfilled:
Joshua 14:13-14 (ESV)
Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. [14] Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel.
Thus promise that God had made to Abraham was fulfilled in not in Abraham, but in his children.
Likewise the promise of blessing was fulfilled not in Jesus but in His offspring, those who believe in Him. Christ was cursed for our sakes, so that we may receive the fullness of God's blessing. The promise that God had made to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed through his Seed, had to come through the cursing that the Seed had suffer for our sins:
Genesis 22:18 (ESV)
and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."
Galatians 3:13-14 (ESV)
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"- [14] so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
It is through our cursing that others are blessed:
Luke 6:28 (ESV)
bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
It is good then we are "cursed" with persecution, suffering, hardship and even death, if it is for the blessing and pleasing of others, especially for our future generation, our children. We have a tendency to think only for our own generation, but we don't realize that it will bring a curse upon our children's generation. Our sin, and desire for a 'blessed life now' brings about judgment upon our future generations:
Exodus 20:5-6 (ESV)
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
This first generation of Israel from Egypt cared nothing for their own children, and by their unbelief and rebellion against God made their children suffer forty years of vanity in the desert. If they were willing to carry the cross for their children, and were willing to die for the future of their children, then the children would have eaten the good crops of the land. But they refused to carry the burden for them, and were afraid for their own lives, and thus their children had to incur the judgement for their sins.
We must also live for our children's future, and not just live for our generation. Without bearing the cross and making the effort and being "cursed" for our children, they will never be blessed. They will live in a Sodom-like moral wasteland, because we refused to be hung on the cross for them. Let us then learn from Jesus Christ, and Abraham, and learn to forsake comfort for our future generation. If the fruit of our blood, sweat and tears means blessing for our children, then we must do so. This is our duty as a parent. Let us live for others, especially for the future generation yet not born. Let us not learn from this wicked world which cares nothing about their own children but only about their own bellies, and let us prepare a good land for our children. Lord, help us to do this thing, and to die for them. Amen.
"And the LORD heard your words and was angered, and he swore, [35] ''Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, [36] except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the LORD!''
And the LORD heard your words. As much as God hears our prayers, He also hears all our conversations and everything that we speak from our mouths. Therefore we ought to be careful what we ought to speak. When we speak, we must speak prayerfully, and as the Apostle says:
1 Peter 4:11 (ESV)
whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God
God hears and writes down all the words that we have spoken, and will enter into judgment with all of them. We have this notion that God only hears us when we speak to Him in prayer, and is deaf in other times. God is hearing all our complaining, all our unbelief, all our exclamations, all our filthy language, all our whispering, gossiping, slandering, all our planning and discussions in closed doors. As there is nothing hidden from His eyes, there are no words hidden from His ears. These people thought they were speaking in the safety from their tents, but God was even with them in their tents to hear all their grumblings. There is no space in the universe where we can hide to speak in secret. It is no wonder that the Holy Spirit heard the Jews speaking against Christ behind closed doors:
John 11:47-48 (ESV)
So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. [48] If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."
Our words show us who we are. Jesus Christ was God's Word, and He showed us God's love, grace, truth, righteousness and power. This generation's words were full of unbelief, fear and hatred. Therefore God's assessment of them was that they were an "evil generation", for their words showed their hearts were nothing but evil. It is as Christ said:
Matthew 12:34-35 (ESV)
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. [35] The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
A good person will speak good things. A man's speech shows plainly the person's condition of the heart. A bitter heart will speak bitterly, a cold heart coldly, a lustful heart lustfully. If we want to change our evil speech, then we had better change our hearts with God's help. Then only we shall speak that which is good. We must treasure good things in our hearts, the Word of God and the Gospel, that our speech may be naturally be good.
So clearly does our speech show the contents of our heart, that it will be by which Christ will justify and condemn us on Judgment Day. By our words Christ will judge whether we have treasured Jesus Christ in our heart, or if we have treasured our sins. By our words He will see whether we really believed in our hearts the Lord Jesus, or whether we did not believe:
Matthew 12:37 (ESV)
for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
2 Corinthians 4:13 (ESV)
Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak,
Romans 10:10 (ESV)
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Our words show especially the state of our faith or disbelief in God. When we speak words of worry, we plainly show that we don't believe in God in that regard. These Israelites did not believe in God, and consequently their words showed their unfaithfulness. But God has His ears out for words of faith, and commends such words:
Luke 7:9 (ESV)
When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."
Let us work to make Christ marvel with words faith. Let us pray for a heart of faith, that will be pleasing to God as a sweet aroma unto Him.
And was angered. God loves words of faith, but nothing angers God more than words of unbelief. Unbelief in the truth is the beginning of all sin, and is the cause of God's wrath:
Romans 1:18 (ESV)
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
What makes a God of love be filled with wrath and fury? It is unbelief: the suppressing of the truth about God. This was the reason that Hell was made. This was the reason why Christ died on the Cross for us, bearing the wrath of God against our unbelief.
Unbelief is the gate that opens itself to all ungodliness and unrighteousness. Once the truth about God is suppressed, then a man is free, in his own deluded mind, to commit as much sin as he wants. As Satan asked Eve, "Did God really say...?", Eve began to doubt, and her conscience was seared by unbelief, and she was enabled to boldly take of the fruit and sin against God. When we are tempted to sin, we are not to focus on that sin, but check the state of our faith in what God has said. If we believe in His words, we will not sin against Him:
Matthew 4:10 (ESV)
Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "''You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.''"
How can this flame of God's wrath against our unbelief be cooled? It is by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ:
John 3:36 (ESV)
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
It is by believing in the truth about Jesus, and trusting in Jesus' person and works that we are saved from this wrath. But it is not as though our faith is the cause of God's removal of wrath, for even before we believed, Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, including unbelief. Then it is GOD who gave the faith to us, that we may no longer be the children of wrath, but children of God:
Ephesians 2:8 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
To be believers means that God's wrath has been removed from us. To be unbelieving, means that God's wrath is remaining on us. But no one can change oneself from being an unbeliever to a believer, without the power of the Spirit of God. It is the work of God alone. Jesus Christ is impossible to be believed on without God's help. How fearful then is the work of salvation! Man has no handle on this handiwork of God. As it is written, he that is in Christ is a "new CREATION". Whose creation? God's creation. A man cannot make himself a believer. A man cannot create faith in himself. God must create and give the faith to the man:
Hebrews 12:2 (ESV)
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Matthew 16:16-17 (ESV)
Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." [17] And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
True faith is not the work of flesh and blood. Therefore the removal of wrath against unbelief is impossible for a man. It is God who reveals truth to a man by the Spirit, and removes the cloud of unbelief, and hence removing the wrath that was upon the sinner. There is therefore nothing a man can do to be saved. He may make a false faith in his mind with the information gathered from flesh and blood, and say that he is a believer of Jesus, but God knows whether that faith is man-made or God-given:
John 2:23-24 (ESV)
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. [24] But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people
Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers. God swears an oath that this generation which do not believe in Him will not see the land, and will perish. This oath overrides the oath that God had made to their fathers regarding this land. This generation did not emulate the faith that was in Abraham, Issac and Jacob's hearts, and thus were not fit to be called their children. This agrees with Apostle Paul, who says that not all who are of Israel of the flesh are children of Israel, only the children of the same faith:
Romans 9:6-8 (ESV)
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, [7] and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." [8] This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Galatians 3:7 (ESV)
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
Since this generation chooses not to believe in the promise that God had made to Abraham, that is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they are not the children of Abraham. Thus the promise that God had made to Abraham have not failed:
Genesis 17:8 (ESV)
And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."
So we see how important faith is. It is what separates between the children of God and children of the devil, those who will inherit the Kingdom of God, and those who will inherit the wrath of God.
Let us behold also the antiquity of the Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel was not first preached when Christ came. It had been preached from Genesis, and throughout the wilderness that God walked with his people. Those who disbelieved, perished, and those who believed, inherited the good land. Let us also be diligent to believe in the Gospel again and again, until we are saved:
1 Peter 1:8-9 (ESV)
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, [9] obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
It is to be noted that God says "none of this EVIL generation shall see the GOOD land". The Good Land was to be inherited by good men. The land had thus far been trashed by evil, unbelieving, sinful men, and now was the time for them to be vomited out. Likewise it is with this world. When God created the world, it was Good in His eyes. But after the fall the good land had been inhabited by evil men. But the Kingdom of God will come upon the Earth, and His glory like the waters upon the sea. And His desire is to fill the earth with good inhabitants again. There will only be Christians on the earth, those justified saints who have been glorified and made like Christ. No evil person shall ever inherit the good Kingdom of God:
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (ESV)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [10] nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19-21 (ESV)
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, [21] envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Let no man who has not been born again to be a new creation in Jesus Christ expect ever to enter into heaven with the stains of sin. Nothing filthy, nor anything that defiles shall ever enter into the Kingdom of God. Its name is the Kingdom of GOD. Shall anyone who is not GODLY enter into the gates of it? By no means. As it is written:
Psalm 24:3-5 (ESV)
Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? [4] He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. [5] He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Surely none of us is good, and none of us godly enough to earn a place in heaven. But as it is written in verse 5, it is those who receive God's righteousness as a blessing that will ascend to that holy hill. It is those who are clothed with Jesus Christ alone who shall qualify for a place there. It is those who are risen with Christ that will ascend there with Christ.
And in fact, spiritually speaking, we believers are already in heaven, for Christ has ascended to heaven, and we are in Him:
Ephesians 2:6 (ESV)
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus
Our conversation is in heaven. The man whom God will take bodily to heaven, He makes him to live in this world as though he is already in heaven, pure and undefiled. But those who do not live a godly life cannot claim to have been risen with Christ, and cannot claim to be seated with Christ in heaven. Such a man cannot claim to be of God, but he is still of this world.
Let us then remember where we are already, and where we will be later, both spirit and body. Though we battle with sin here, we shall be purified as through fire, and then when we die, we shall be presented to God as gold. We are already seen as "good" in God's eyes by the robe of righteousness that He has put over us, because we are covered His blood, which is His life. But we shall one day be truly good, when we shall be changed as He is. Then shall we inherit that good land.
I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the LORD! This promise to Caleb is the same as one that God had made to Abraham after Lot had left him:
Genesis 13:17-18 (ESV)
Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you." [18] So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD.
It is interesting that Abraham, after hearing this promise, moved his tent and settled at the oaks of Mambre, which is the land of the Amorites, to Hebron, which was where Caleb and the spies were sent:
Numbers 13:22 (ESV)
They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. ( Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
What God is saying then is that the promise that He had made to Abraham will be fulfilled in Caleb, since Abraham had trodden the land, and God said He would give all the land that he would walk on. Abraham owned none of the land of Hebron, but it would be Caleb, Abraham's offspring by flesh and by faith, who would inherit that land. Therefore God's promise was fulfilled:
Joshua 14:13-14 (ESV)
Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. [14] Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel.
Thus promise that God had made to Abraham was fulfilled in not in Abraham, but in his children.
Likewise the promise of blessing was fulfilled not in Jesus but in His offspring, those who believe in Him. Christ was cursed for our sakes, so that we may receive the fullness of God's blessing. The promise that God had made to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed through his Seed, had to come through the cursing that the Seed had suffer for our sins:
Genesis 22:18 (ESV)
and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."
Galatians 3:13-14 (ESV)
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"- [14] so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
It is through our cursing that others are blessed:
Luke 6:28 (ESV)
bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
It is good then we are "cursed" with persecution, suffering, hardship and even death, if it is for the blessing and pleasing of others, especially for our future generation, our children. We have a tendency to think only for our own generation, but we don't realize that it will bring a curse upon our children's generation. Our sin, and desire for a 'blessed life now' brings about judgment upon our future generations:
Exodus 20:5-6 (ESV)
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
This first generation of Israel from Egypt cared nothing for their own children, and by their unbelief and rebellion against God made their children suffer forty years of vanity in the desert. If they were willing to carry the cross for their children, and were willing to die for the future of their children, then the children would have eaten the good crops of the land. But they refused to carry the burden for them, and were afraid for their own lives, and thus their children had to incur the judgement for their sins.
We must also live for our children's future, and not just live for our generation. Without bearing the cross and making the effort and being "cursed" for our children, they will never be blessed. They will live in a Sodom-like moral wasteland, because we refused to be hung on the cross for them. Let us then learn from Jesus Christ, and Abraham, and learn to forsake comfort for our future generation. If the fruit of our blood, sweat and tears means blessing for our children, then we must do so. This is our duty as a parent. Let us live for others, especially for the future generation yet not born. Let us not learn from this wicked world which cares nothing about their own children but only about their own bellies, and let us prepare a good land for our children. Lord, help us to do this thing, and to die for them. Amen.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Christ the visible glory of the invisible God
Deuteronomy 1:32-33 (ESV)
Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God, [33] who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.
Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God. In spite of the multitude of arguments that Moses gave of why they ought not be afraid - that God was a God who goes before us, and fights for us, that He is the one who has taken care of us in the past, and that He is the one who cares for us as a Father unto the future - Israel chooses to disbelieve in God. They did not believe in God's promise that He will give the land to them. They did not believe in the promise that He made to Abraham 400 years ago. They did not believe in the good report of Joshua and Caleb. They did not believe that God was able to destroy the Amorites before them, thus esteeming them in their hearts stronger than God. They did not believe in God's provision that He had provide them before their eyes. They were plagued and totally blinded by unbelief.
Moses said all that he could say to the Israelites to convince them of God's faithfulness, but they still did not believe. Moses is reflecting on this event very bitterly. Moses had given them all the evidences and used all his strength in trying to persuade them. There were no more words to be said that which could be said to them. Is not this how God feels when people do not believe in Jesus Christ, who is God's final Word to mankind? Through His Son He spoke everything He can possibly speak of Himself to man, that they may believe and have eternal life:
John 5:24 (ESV)
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Hebrews 1:1-2 (ESV)
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
But when we disbelieve this final Word that God has spoken, there shall be no escape. Those who refuse the Gospel can NEVER enter into the Kingdom of God:
Hebrews 2:3-4 (ESV)
how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, [4] while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
When Christ came to the world, He declared to us this Salvation, which was none other than Himself. Jesus is our great Salvation. Thus Jesus declared Himself to us, and those who have heard from Christ, His apostles and His first disciples declared that same Christ, wrote their testimony in a book, the New Testament. By this we have believed that final Word from God, and became saved because of our faith, which God counted as our righteousness, through the redemption work of Christ Jesus on the Cross and the resurrection.
But how shall we escape, if we neglect this final Word from God and go on sinning? God has nothing to say to man than what He has already said. He became a Man and showed Himself to us and spoke us all things that we need to escape the wrath of God. He did all the miracles while He was here, and granted the same miracles to His disciples to prove that Christ is real and was true. But if we do not believe, how shall we escape the condemnation of God? If we don't believe in Jesus, then God cannot convince us even if He performs ten million miracles before our eyes, because we did not believe in the miracle of Jesus Christ Himself. Let us believe in Jesus Christ, and thus believe in God who sent Him. Let us not weary God, who has spoken every word from His mouth until there was nothing more He could add. Let's take His word to be truth and trust in Christ for salvation.
Thus we learn that there is no more word that can be added to God has spoken through Christ and His apostles. As John warns in Revelations, knowing that it would be the final book of Holy Scripture:
Revelation 22:18 (ESV)
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book
With His revelation to John, Christ said all that He could ever say to mankind. God has exhausted Himself of all warnings, exhortations and encouragements, and there are no more new things that a mortal man ever needs to hear and to believe, and thus be saved. The Holy Scripture is complete as it is, and it cannot be broken, nor can be modified or added to. What more can be said, but what God has said to us through His Cross and the resurrection? Christ died for His people's sins, showing His love, and also died for righteousness' sake, to show that everyone who does not trust in Christ will also likewise be killed. Christ rose again, showing that all mankind will also likewise rise again, that the righteous will rise unto life and glorification, and the wicked will rise to damnation and eternal shame. What more significant thing could God say than what He has already said through the Gospel?
Who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day. There was a visible glory of God that followed Israel in the desert, to be witness unto them of God's protection and care and provision. During the night, when it was pitch black, a pillar of fire led the way through the darkness, also keeping them warm when it became cold. During the day, a special cloud led the way to show them where they should go, keeping in pace with them, also covering them from the blazing sun of the wilderness and giving them shade from the heat. These works of God were visible. Therefore they had no excuse of their unbelief.
God is not visible, but His glory is always visible in us and around us. Through the Christian, God's glory is visible through our changed life from what we were before we were born-again. God's glorious presence is evident in our lives that are more Christ-like, not under the slavery of sin, and that which is filled with joy. Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit is the visible glory that accompanies the Christian wherever He goes.
God's creation declares God's glory for the unbeliever. All the created things: our bodies that are fearfully made, the Sun, the Moon and the stars, the mountains and the hills, the creatures that moves on earth and in the Sea. The clouds that cover the canvas of the blue sky. All creation visibly declares God's glory:
Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
The whole universe IS the glory of God, for it shows the invisible God's magnificence, His wisdom, His knowledge, His power, His Creator-ship:
Romans 1:20 (ESV)
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
No unbeliever can say on that Day of Judgment: 'But I have never seen the glory of God'. For he saw it, day by day, whenever he looked at nature and the things that God created in the world. He saw God's glory, every time He had any joy, enjoyment, any blessing, any good, any peace, anything beautiful. It was God displaying His glory to him, but he did not see His glory, because his mind he had closed. For though God is not visible, God's glory is visible to us, if we look with the eyes of faith:
Acts 7:55 (ESV)
But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Human beings were made to be a particular glory of God, because we were made in the image of God:
1 Corinthians 11:7 (ESV)
For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.
The human being was made to be the visible glory of the invisible God. Man was made to show who God is by living a life of righteousness, holiness and love, reflecting perfectly God's glory in every way. This is man's purpose in life, to show the invisible God. But instead of showing God, man began to show the Devil, by obeying him, and disobeying God. Because of this God delivered all mankind to be children of the devil, reflecting all the lying murderer that he is. Hence the first man born from Adam, Cain, was a murderer, to show that man had fallen far, far, far from being the glory of God. And since then, all human beings have failed to show the invisible God, and failed at reflecting His image. This is what SIN is:
Romans 3:23 (ESV)
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
This is why Jesus Christ became a Son of Man, in order that He may reclaim the glory that Adam has lost. Son of God came to the world, as a Man, fully shining the glory of God, always obeying and doing the will of the Father, never once failing at one point to perfectly reflect the image of God. He did what we could not do, that is, to show God. Jesus showed God to us, being the fully visible, perfect glory of the invisible God:
John 14:9 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ''Show us the Father''?
The cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night are symbols for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was the one who had covered them as they walked in the wilderness, being their refuge from the wrath of God, covering their sins, also protecting them from harm, and leading the way which they should go, filling their tabernacle with His visible presence whenever they settled. Jesus Christ was their pillar of fire in the night, during their dark times of distress and suffering, He was with them, to lead them through the darkness, and also giving them the warmth from the fire of His love when they needed it the most. Jesus Christ is the visible glory of the invisible God:
Colossians 1:15-19 (ESV)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
Just as Israel refused to believe in the visible glory of God, and did not go into the land of Canaan, those who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, the visible God, will never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. If God had manifested Himself with mere clouds and pillars and fire and so harshly punished those did not believe in that manifestation, how much more shall God punish those who did not believe in His manifestation of the flesh in Christ Jesus? Everlasting burnings is the only fitting punishment.
To show you by what way you should go. God was telling Israel by what way they must now go. He was telling them to go to the promised land and take over the land from the inhabitants. And they ought to have had the confidence, since the pillar of fire and the cloud told them God was with them. Just as God was with them in the desert, God would be with them in their battles with the Canaanites.
Here we learn that that wherever God tells us to go, God goes with us. So many times we are afraid to obey God when He tells us to do something because we think that we are sent alone. But God is always with those whom He sends. He said He would be with Moses:
Exodus 4:12 (ESV)
Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."
When God sent Jesus Christ to the world He was always with Christ, apart from when Christ was on the Cross:
John 8:29 (ESV)
And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him."
This is surely encouraging, to know that God is with whomever He sends, that they may not lose heart. So, we are encouraged when Christ sends us like sheep in the midst of wolves:
Matthew 10:16 (ESV)
"Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
We take heart, because we know that Christ the Shepherd is with us while we are in the midst of the wolves. Therefore we are not afraid:
Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
God showed Israel visibly the exact way on which they must walk in the wilderness by the cloud and the pillar of fire. We also know the exact Way on which we must walk:
John 14:4-6 (ESV)
And you know the way to where I am going." [5] Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" [6] Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
If the path is one that Christ walked on, we know for sure that it is definitely the way on which we must walk. If Christ forgave us, we also must forgive. If Christ spoke the truth, we also must speak the truth. If Christ healed the sick we must also heal the sick. If Christ prayed, we must also pray. If Christ died to sin and self and rose to God, we must do likewise. If Christ obeyed the Father, so must we. As it is written:
Psalm 119:105 (ESV)
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
John 1:14 (ESV)
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 8:12 (ESV)
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Let us walk the path that Christ walked, not being afraid, for Christ goes with us wherever we go. The way may be the way of suffering, but we know where we are heading to: the Father God. Let us trust in God to take us to where He is, knowing that Christ has prepared a place for us in the Father by dying on the Cross for us and rising again from the dead. Let us remember what it cost Christ to buy us a place in heaven and fellowship with God. We have God because of Christ's payment. Let us adore and worship Him. Amen.
Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God, [33] who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.
Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God. In spite of the multitude of arguments that Moses gave of why they ought not be afraid - that God was a God who goes before us, and fights for us, that He is the one who has taken care of us in the past, and that He is the one who cares for us as a Father unto the future - Israel chooses to disbelieve in God. They did not believe in God's promise that He will give the land to them. They did not believe in the promise that He made to Abraham 400 years ago. They did not believe in the good report of Joshua and Caleb. They did not believe that God was able to destroy the Amorites before them, thus esteeming them in their hearts stronger than God. They did not believe in God's provision that He had provide them before their eyes. They were plagued and totally blinded by unbelief.
Moses said all that he could say to the Israelites to convince them of God's faithfulness, but they still did not believe. Moses is reflecting on this event very bitterly. Moses had given them all the evidences and used all his strength in trying to persuade them. There were no more words to be said that which could be said to them. Is not this how God feels when people do not believe in Jesus Christ, who is God's final Word to mankind? Through His Son He spoke everything He can possibly speak of Himself to man, that they may believe and have eternal life:
John 5:24 (ESV)
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Hebrews 1:1-2 (ESV)
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
But when we disbelieve this final Word that God has spoken, there shall be no escape. Those who refuse the Gospel can NEVER enter into the Kingdom of God:
Hebrews 2:3-4 (ESV)
how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, [4] while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
When Christ came to the world, He declared to us this Salvation, which was none other than Himself. Jesus is our great Salvation. Thus Jesus declared Himself to us, and those who have heard from Christ, His apostles and His first disciples declared that same Christ, wrote their testimony in a book, the New Testament. By this we have believed that final Word from God, and became saved because of our faith, which God counted as our righteousness, through the redemption work of Christ Jesus on the Cross and the resurrection.
But how shall we escape, if we neglect this final Word from God and go on sinning? God has nothing to say to man than what He has already said. He became a Man and showed Himself to us and spoke us all things that we need to escape the wrath of God. He did all the miracles while He was here, and granted the same miracles to His disciples to prove that Christ is real and was true. But if we do not believe, how shall we escape the condemnation of God? If we don't believe in Jesus, then God cannot convince us even if He performs ten million miracles before our eyes, because we did not believe in the miracle of Jesus Christ Himself. Let us believe in Jesus Christ, and thus believe in God who sent Him. Let us not weary God, who has spoken every word from His mouth until there was nothing more He could add. Let's take His word to be truth and trust in Christ for salvation.
Thus we learn that there is no more word that can be added to God has spoken through Christ and His apostles. As John warns in Revelations, knowing that it would be the final book of Holy Scripture:
Revelation 22:18 (ESV)
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book
With His revelation to John, Christ said all that He could ever say to mankind. God has exhausted Himself of all warnings, exhortations and encouragements, and there are no more new things that a mortal man ever needs to hear and to believe, and thus be saved. The Holy Scripture is complete as it is, and it cannot be broken, nor can be modified or added to. What more can be said, but what God has said to us through His Cross and the resurrection? Christ died for His people's sins, showing His love, and also died for righteousness' sake, to show that everyone who does not trust in Christ will also likewise be killed. Christ rose again, showing that all mankind will also likewise rise again, that the righteous will rise unto life and glorification, and the wicked will rise to damnation and eternal shame. What more significant thing could God say than what He has already said through the Gospel?
Who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day. There was a visible glory of God that followed Israel in the desert, to be witness unto them of God's protection and care and provision. During the night, when it was pitch black, a pillar of fire led the way through the darkness, also keeping them warm when it became cold. During the day, a special cloud led the way to show them where they should go, keeping in pace with them, also covering them from the blazing sun of the wilderness and giving them shade from the heat. These works of God were visible. Therefore they had no excuse of their unbelief.
God is not visible, but His glory is always visible in us and around us. Through the Christian, God's glory is visible through our changed life from what we were before we were born-again. God's glorious presence is evident in our lives that are more Christ-like, not under the slavery of sin, and that which is filled with joy. Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit is the visible glory that accompanies the Christian wherever He goes.
God's creation declares God's glory for the unbeliever. All the created things: our bodies that are fearfully made, the Sun, the Moon and the stars, the mountains and the hills, the creatures that moves on earth and in the Sea. The clouds that cover the canvas of the blue sky. All creation visibly declares God's glory:
Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
The whole universe IS the glory of God, for it shows the invisible God's magnificence, His wisdom, His knowledge, His power, His Creator-ship:
Romans 1:20 (ESV)
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
No unbeliever can say on that Day of Judgment: 'But I have never seen the glory of God'. For he saw it, day by day, whenever he looked at nature and the things that God created in the world. He saw God's glory, every time He had any joy, enjoyment, any blessing, any good, any peace, anything beautiful. It was God displaying His glory to him, but he did not see His glory, because his mind he had closed. For though God is not visible, God's glory is visible to us, if we look with the eyes of faith:
Acts 7:55 (ESV)
But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Human beings were made to be a particular glory of God, because we were made in the image of God:
1 Corinthians 11:7 (ESV)
For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.
The human being was made to be the visible glory of the invisible God. Man was made to show who God is by living a life of righteousness, holiness and love, reflecting perfectly God's glory in every way. This is man's purpose in life, to show the invisible God. But instead of showing God, man began to show the Devil, by obeying him, and disobeying God. Because of this God delivered all mankind to be children of the devil, reflecting all the lying murderer that he is. Hence the first man born from Adam, Cain, was a murderer, to show that man had fallen far, far, far from being the glory of God. And since then, all human beings have failed to show the invisible God, and failed at reflecting His image. This is what SIN is:
Romans 3:23 (ESV)
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
This is why Jesus Christ became a Son of Man, in order that He may reclaim the glory that Adam has lost. Son of God came to the world, as a Man, fully shining the glory of God, always obeying and doing the will of the Father, never once failing at one point to perfectly reflect the image of God. He did what we could not do, that is, to show God. Jesus showed God to us, being the fully visible, perfect glory of the invisible God:
John 14:9 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ''Show us the Father''?
The cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night are symbols for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was the one who had covered them as they walked in the wilderness, being their refuge from the wrath of God, covering their sins, also protecting them from harm, and leading the way which they should go, filling their tabernacle with His visible presence whenever they settled. Jesus Christ was their pillar of fire in the night, during their dark times of distress and suffering, He was with them, to lead them through the darkness, and also giving them the warmth from the fire of His love when they needed it the most. Jesus Christ is the visible glory of the invisible God:
Colossians 1:15-19 (ESV)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
Just as Israel refused to believe in the visible glory of God, and did not go into the land of Canaan, those who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, the visible God, will never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. If God had manifested Himself with mere clouds and pillars and fire and so harshly punished those did not believe in that manifestation, how much more shall God punish those who did not believe in His manifestation of the flesh in Christ Jesus? Everlasting burnings is the only fitting punishment.
To show you by what way you should go. God was telling Israel by what way they must now go. He was telling them to go to the promised land and take over the land from the inhabitants. And they ought to have had the confidence, since the pillar of fire and the cloud told them God was with them. Just as God was with them in the desert, God would be with them in their battles with the Canaanites.
Here we learn that that wherever God tells us to go, God goes with us. So many times we are afraid to obey God when He tells us to do something because we think that we are sent alone. But God is always with those whom He sends. He said He would be with Moses:
Exodus 4:12 (ESV)
Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."
When God sent Jesus Christ to the world He was always with Christ, apart from when Christ was on the Cross:
John 8:29 (ESV)
And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him."
This is surely encouraging, to know that God is with whomever He sends, that they may not lose heart. So, we are encouraged when Christ sends us like sheep in the midst of wolves:
Matthew 10:16 (ESV)
"Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
We take heart, because we know that Christ the Shepherd is with us while we are in the midst of the wolves. Therefore we are not afraid:
Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
God showed Israel visibly the exact way on which they must walk in the wilderness by the cloud and the pillar of fire. We also know the exact Way on which we must walk:
John 14:4-6 (ESV)
And you know the way to where I am going." [5] Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" [6] Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
If the path is one that Christ walked on, we know for sure that it is definitely the way on which we must walk. If Christ forgave us, we also must forgive. If Christ spoke the truth, we also must speak the truth. If Christ healed the sick we must also heal the sick. If Christ prayed, we must also pray. If Christ died to sin and self and rose to God, we must do likewise. If Christ obeyed the Father, so must we. As it is written:
Psalm 119:105 (ESV)
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
John 1:14 (ESV)
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 8:12 (ESV)
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Let us walk the path that Christ walked, not being afraid, for Christ goes with us wherever we go. The way may be the way of suffering, but we know where we are heading to: the Father God. Let us trust in God to take us to where He is, knowing that Christ has prepared a place for us in the Father by dying on the Cross for us and rising again from the dead. Let us remember what it cost Christ to buy us a place in heaven and fellowship with God. We have God because of Christ's payment. Let us adore and worship Him. Amen.
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