Beware God's Honor!

Thesis:  God’s favor (honor) is not without its demands.

Setting:  Ancient Israel under leadership of prophets and chief priests, before institution of Monarchy.

Situation:  Eli is Chief Priest in Israel ministering with his sons Phinehas and Hophni.  The sons, as priests, are involved in sexual sins with the women of Israel at the very door of the Tabernacle.  Eli chided his sons for their actions but did not restrain them.

Warning:  An unnamed prophet appears on the scene, first telling of God’s grace in exalting Eli’s forefathers, principally Aaron, to exercise the functions of a priest before Him.  With this position came the right to partake of all the burnt offerings of the Children of Israel.  The prophet further spoke of the fact it was God’s intention this house should minister before the Lord forever.  Implicit is the understanding that Eli was accountable to both God and the people to restrain his sons, but would not. 

Because of such gross disobedience on the part of Eli and his sons, the unnamed prophet spoke this word from the Lord, “Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.  Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house (your lineage), so that there will not be an old man in your house” (I Samuel 2: 30b, 31).

Consequence:  Shortly afterward not only did Eli and his sons die as was prophesied, but the “Ark of the Covenant” was taken captive by the Philistines.

Ichabod:  As if to dramatize the terrible sequence of events above, Phinehas’ wife who had been pregnant delivered a son and called him “Ichabod”--“The glory of the Lord has departed from Israel.”

Commentary:  It is a fearful thing to know such anointing of God (honor) as to be “lifted up”.  From about 1948, corresponding with the declaration of Israel’s statehood, many healing and anointed ministries were lifted up.  Several of those remained faithful and became very notable:  Billy Graham, Derek Prince and Oral Roberts to name three.  It would serve no purpose to name others who fell by wayside, and for those who have any history in the Lord, you have known someone personally who “fell”.

God honors those who honor Him.  Don’t draw back from Him from fear of falling, rather acknowledge that, for the grace of God, you might also fall, but you do not have to.  One simply needs to be wise and keep pressing in to God.  The people need anointed leaders.  Will you not trust God to become one?

Forumla for Making Any Day Good

 

(These thoughts I harvested years ago from Norman Vincent Peale’s book, Enthusiasm Makes the Difference, p. 103.  Amidst so much “heavy stuff” these practical suggestions help us to guard our “back side”.)

1.       Think a good day.  To make a day good, first see it good in consciousness.  Do not allow any mental reservation that it will not be good.  Events are largely governed by creative thought, so a positive concept of the day will strongly tend to condition it to be as imaged.

 

2.       Thank a good day.  Give thanks in advance for the good day ahead.  Thank and affirm a good day.  This helps make it so.

 

3.       Plan a good day.  Specifically and definitely know what you propose to do with the day.  Plan your work and work your plan.

 

4.       Put good into the day.  Put bad thoughts, bad attitudes, bad actions into a day and it will take on bad characteristics.  Put good thoughts, good attitudes, good actions into a day and they will make the day good.

 

5.       Pray a good day.  Begin each day with that powerful affirmation from Psalm 118:24:  “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  Start the day with prayer and finish it the same way.  Then it is bound to be good even if it brings tough experiences.

 

6.       Fill the day with enthusiasm.  Give the day all you’ve got and it will give you all it’s got, which will be plenty.  Enthusiasm will make a big difference in any day and in any job.

JOSEPH--Obedience Before "The Law"

In Old Testament Joseph’s time, life was hard, slavery was rife and consequently life was cheap.  Joseph was approximately 17 years of age when he was sold into slavery by his brothers.  With this betrayal, outside of his brothers, to whom could Joseph appeal?  No one.  That is, unless you discount a sovereign God who was watching this whole treacherous transaction.  In Egypt Joseph would have been auctioned as an automobile might be auctioned today.  It was a transaction—period, but a sovereign God was watching, even superintending.

Sold to Potiphar, Joseph early distinguished himself so that Potiphar, in decent good time, elevated Joseph to the complete care of his household.  Where before, Joseph would have had only his physical appearance to commend himself to Potiphar’s wife, he now had a certain amount of stature that only enhanced his physical attractiveness.  From the Book of Genesis we gather she was the aggressor, and began a campaign to seduce Joseph.  Early on she let her seductive intentions toward him be known by direct statement, “Lie with me” (Genesis 39:7b).

 Joseph refused and countered by saying, “Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand.  There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife.  How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God (Genesis 39:8, 9)?”  [Such a high stance without the guidance of “The Law”, even ante-dating it 250 to 450 years.]

She was relentless, even shameless in her pursuit of Joseph whose only defense was to keep from being alone with her in the household.  Then it happened—one day Joseph came to the house to do his work and no one else was there but Potiphar’s wife.  She struck and there was nothing left for Joseph to do but flee for his very life—but God was watching.

In this situation, to whom could Joseph have made appeal?  What would have been his defense to his master, Potiphar?  Joseph was a foreign slave, albeit a bright one, who had rapidly learned the language and customs of the people—but still, a slave.  Given this circumstance and probably any other slave, Potiphar would have had killed immediately, possibly by his own hand.

But Potiphar was no fool, he saw what a blessing Joseph had been to his household, he understood “. . . that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field” (Genesis 39:5b).  Deducing from this, there may well have been a little bit of godly fear upon Potiphar.

Everything that flowed to and from Joseph, Potiphar knew had to flow from Joseph’s God.  Though Joseph was without defense, he had every defense—because God was with him. Fearing God, “Then Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined.  And he was there in the prison” (Genesis 39:20).  And from that prison he stepped into history.

Do you despair in your present circumstance, don’t cast away your future by sin—God is watching.

Jehovah God Is Sovereign/The Crucifixion of Jesus

Jehovah God is Sovereign.  Because of the number of things seemingly under our control, we may question this assertion.

Let me take an event from the life of Christ and examine it with an eye to discovering the sovereignty of God—the Crucifixion.  I haven’t read Bill O’Reilly & Martin Dugard’s book, Killing Jesus, so a discussion or review of that book plays no part in my thoughts.  The question is:  Who killed Jesus?  Many have been assigned blame: the Romans, the Jewish leadership of the day, and the Devil.

This question needs to be asked:  “If Jesus was the sinless son of God, was it possible for any man to kill him?”  Speaking directly to this is the Arrest Scene in Gethsemane.  After Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss and the authorities with Judas seized Jesus, one of Jesus’ followers took his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant (details are in Matthew 26).  Immediately Jesus said to His sword-wielding follower, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?  How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen thus” (Matthew 26:52-54)?  Here Jesus was referring to Isaiah 50:6 and 53:2-11).

In another place Jesus gives a rationale for his death, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13).  This verse is immediately cross-referenced with another:  “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.  And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (I John 3:16).

From the movie adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s, Tales of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, from Aslan, the Lion, in laying down his life for another, one can get an apt picture of exactly what Jesus did.

What must be said is that nobody killed Jesus, to say otherwise is actually demeaning.  What’s more, He could have called twelve legions of angels to his defense.  (At one point in the Old Testament, 2 Kings 19:35, one angel is said to be responsible for the death of 185,000 men at one time—what of twelve legions of angels?)  No.  No one killed Jesus but let me tell you who is chiefly responsible for Jesus’ death—the Heavenly Father!  Hear this.

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. . . . Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise (crush) Him; He has put Him to grief.  He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.  By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:7, 10, 11).

There was a high degree of voluntarism in what Jesus did in laying down His life.  Given what Jesus has done for us should it not follow that “. . .we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”?

Praise Makes a Difference

SCRIPTURAL FOUNDATION FOR PRAISE

1)      “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you” (Deuteronomy 28:47, 48).

2)      “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Deuteronomy 20:3).

3)      “But you are holy, Who inhabit the praises of Israel [by extension the “praises of all your children”] (Psalm 22:3).

4)      “’But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!’  So the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.’  Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.. . . Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold to your integrity? Curse God and die!’ [Job replied] ‘Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept  adversity’” (Job 2:5-10)?

5)      “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

6)      “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).

COMMENTARY

1)      God is absolute Sovereign over all things.  This is graphically illustrated in Satan’s appearance before God to contend for the integrity of Job.  God granted Satan to touch Job’s body but spare his life.  In this God demonstrated that He had “Satan on a leash”.  Recognizing this, Job wisely said to his wife who would have him “curse God and die”, “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity” (Job 5:10)?  That reply set the standard for “believers” in every age.

2)      Since God is Sovereign with all things coming of His hand and we allow no other god to supersede Him, then praise to Him should be the first thing out of our mouths in every circumstance.

3)      When that praise is not forthcoming we cast ourselves into a prison of our own making.

SPECIFIC APPLICATION

1)      Your faith in God is only real to the depth of adversity in which you are willing to praise Him.

2)      Your circumstance—don’t like it, don’t understand it, it hurts?   Praise God in the midst of it and you allow Him to work.  If you grumble and complain (which is praise to Satan), you limit God, practically requiring He take His hands off and let us try to solve our problems.  Which will it be?

Deep Calls Unto Deep

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and appear before God?  My tears have been my food day and night while they continually say to me, ‘Where is your God’’” (Psalm 42:1-3)?

Here the Psalmist continues, reflecting on better days, when the presence of God was so real in his life; then asks himself rhetorically, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me” (Psalm 43:5)?  When one is going through a “purging fire” with onlookers questioning our testimony and we remember those better days—it’s not difficult to become a little “down in the mouth”.  Accordingly we tell the Lord, “O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, and from the heights of Hermon, from the Hill Mizar (Psalm 42:6).

Dear reader there come to all of us those “dark nights of the soul” when nothing but the comforting presence of the Lord will suffice.  The succorance of family, friends and well-wishers is to be appreciated, but then you are still left with the loneliness of your soul.  Then it comes, “Deep calls unto deep” (Psalm 42:7a).  Here the psalmist knows he has touched the heart of God.

After once more recounting his difficulties, he concludes with this masterful conversation with his soul:  “Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me?  Hope in God: for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God” (Psalm 42:11).  With the praise faith rises up and victory follows.

 

Prepare Ye the Way!

There’s something to be said for those who prepare the way for the coming of the Lord.  John the Baptist singularly prepared the way for the Lord’s first coming.  Jesus quoted from Isaiah when He said, “This is he of whom it is written:  ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You’”. (And continued) ‘For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he’” (Luke 7:27, 28).

If it took the greatest of the prophets to usher in Jesus’ first coming, what does this say of the stature of those that will be required/qualified to usher in His 2^nd coming?  For starters they will partake of the same spirit as John the Baptist of whom it was said by the angel to John’s father Zacharias, “And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.  He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17).

Specifically, Malachi 4:5 & 6 speaks to this point:  “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.  And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

Elijah was spoken of as the “fiery” prophet both for his fiery contest with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel and the means of his exit from planet earth via a “chariot of fire”.  God’s end-time spokesmen will be mightily disciplined probably, in terms of clearly hearing the voice of the Lord, and even in terms of a restricted diet even as John the Baptist “came neither eating bread, nor drinking wine” (Luke 7:33).

These “fiery” prophets will turn many to righteousness and confront religious and political authorities along the way.  Healings will be commonplace and repentance will abound.  At the same time permissive thinking and living will be shown to be vain, being unceremoniously swept aside.  Prophets don’t stand on ceremony.

The purpose of this ministry is to prepare a people to receive the Lord upon His return.  Finally, there will be a glorious church many of whom will be required to lay down their lives before the “man of sin”, but those who remain—such a company, such a glorious company and it will be given to them to welcome back the Lord.  These, and all those who have yielded up their lives and all those faithful ones who have gone before, will constitute a Glorious Bride and the Son of Man will be smitten with her attractiveness.

The greatest glory of all the ages will be upon this people.  Begin to prepare yourself now to be a part of this glorious company by holy living.

Cooperating with God's Sovereignty

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (I John 5:11, 12). 

There is to be a close collaboration between our praying and the will of God.  It ought to be understood that no matter how passionately we desire a thing, if it’s not according to the will of God—we should not want it, even if there were the possibility of our receiving it.  Illustrative of desiring a thing contrary to the Lord’s will and receiving it is Psalm 106:15:  “And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.”  “Leanness” here meant a very great plague (See Numbers 11:31-34.)

So in our praying establishing the “will of God” is critical.  Next a matter of “Timing” is another “track” upon which the sovereignty of God (or “the will of God”) rides.  “And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  So he came by the Spirit into the temple.  And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:

‘Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel’” (Luke 2:25-32).

How sublime is this Temple scene (Simeon speaking to his own death and of the One bringing salvation to all peoples)—at the same time revealing another of God’s principles in which He seeks cooperation from us:  “Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).  From His servant, Simeon, God announces His redemptive plan.

Doubtless there are a number of reasons why God is pleased to enlist the aid (cooperation) of His servants the prophets in revealing a thing, but for me two immediately come to mind:  (1) to pray a thing into manifestation and (2) declare the reality of a given thing.

Consider this.  For 400 hundred years there had been no recorded “prophetic word” spoken in Israel.  Now, as it’s recorded in the first two chapters of Luke, there’s a sudden burst of prophetic activity, all having to do with the Christ child and releasing the purposes of God.

This, I believe, is a pattern for days yet to come.