WHERE DO YOU TURN?

Psalm 18:1-6

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
² The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
³ I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.
⁴ The cords of death encompassed me;
the torrents of destruction assailed me;
⁵ the cords of Sheol entangled me;
the snares of death confronted me.
⁶ In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.

Where do you turn?  Where do you turn when you feel like you are under spiritual attack and everything is weighing you down so much that you can’t keep your head up?  Where do you turn when the problems of life surround you and you are feeling beaten down?  Where do you turn when you face matters of life and death and the fear and panic start to creep in? 

I am so grateful that David wrote this psalm and others like it.  It is an encouragement to know that the great men of the Bible had to deal with the same things I have to deal with.  Notice the words he uses.  He felt encompassed by death; assailed by destruction; entangled by Sheol; and confronted by death.  Then, he says, he called upon the LORD.

Look at the way David describes the ministry of God in his life.  God is his strength, his rock, his fortress, his deliverer.  God proved to be his shield, his salvation and his stronghold.  God saved him from his enemies.  As David slipped down and down he cried out to God and God came to his rescue.  Doesn’t it sound like Peter who was walking on water one moment and then was terrified by the wind and the waves and began to sink?  He cried out to Jesus and the Lord reached down and pulled him up.

I have a dear friend who has really been going through the battles for the last several months.  She’s had to be away from her husband while taking care of her mother who was in hospice care.  I’ve had the privilege of receiving reports and prayer requests from her and I’ve heard the weariness and anxiousness in her tone.  But you know what?  Every time she writes she makes it clear that she’s looking to the Lord as her refuge, her rock, and her fortress.  Even though her mom has passed away she continues to say how God is holding her up in her time of need.

Do you ever pray the Psalms back to God in your times of devotion?  If not, this psalm is a great one to use as you learn to pray scripture.  We just read the psalm and either thank God for being our strength or tell him that we need his strength for the day.  We do the same with the rest of the psalm.  “Lord, you are my rock when everything at work is in an uproar and we don’t know how things are going to turn out.  Give me a strong place to stand in the middle of the blaming and arguing.”  “Lord, thank you for being my fortress, my safe place, my protection.  When other students at school attack me for my faith and for my standards I am not hurt because you keep me safe.”  We can use God’s own word to pray back to him.  Not only does it provide us a guide for devotion but it honors and glorifies God himself!

SPIRIT VERSUS FLESH

Romans 7:14-25

            I’m concerned that Christians are getting sloppy when it comes to their view of man’s lost condition.  I’ve been in ministry since 1974 so I’ve had 39 years of watching the American church handle the gospel message.  There has been a lot of change!  One of the biggest changes has been the way we look at sin.  It seems to me that sin has become a “weakness.”  It has become a “failing.”  It has become something that we have to be concerned about because it messes up our lives and makes us “unhappy.”  It appears to me that we have once again made it all about us.  If I were to depend on television ministries and popular Christian books for an understanding of sin and man’s lost condition I would have to come to the conclusion that Christians want to deal with human “shortcomings” and “mistakes” because their lives would be happier and easier.  There seem to be many people who offer the gospel of Jesus like some 12 Step Program that will make their lives better.  This is the problem that comes to mind when I read Romans 7.  Paul succinctly addresses the human condition and the human problem.

            Adam and Eve must have been amazing people in their pre-sin condition.  God created them as spiritual beings encased in flesh.  They had the ability to share fellowship with God who is Spirit even while they walked around the Garden in their human bodies.  They were spirit and flesh in perfect harmony.  There was no conflict between their spirits and their bodies.  But they sinned against the command of God and there was a radical change.  Their spirits continued to exist but their spirits’ ability to commune with God died.  Also, their bodies began to die.  They had sinful spirits and dying flesh.  This condition was passed on to all men throughout the ages.

            In the fullness of time the Father sent his only begotten Son, Jesus, to redeem, ransom, save, deliver his people from their spiritual and physical death.  He was the perfect sacrifice, capable of paying the penalty for sin and delivering a justified people to the Father.  All who receive Jesus, all who believe on his name and trust in his perfect sacrifice for salvation are “born again.”  They receive the Holy Spirit and their own spirits are given eternal life, life that is capable of sharing fellowship with God once again.

            So Christians are new spiritual creations who are still living in bodies that are under the curse of sin and dying.  This is the problem Paul addresses in Romans 7.  The renewed spirit and the dying flesh are in conflict.  The spirit wants to do what the Holy Spirit leads us to do while the flesh continues to pull us toward sin and death.  Paul writes, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:22, 23).  Then he cries the cry with which we are so familiar, “Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).

            Sin is sin.  It is not a mistake or a failing or a weakness.  It is death!  It cannot be dealt with gently or casually!  We have to call it what it is whether people find it offensive or not because it is a matter of life and death!  If Jesus died to destroy sin and death then it cannot be considered an inconvenience.  The gospel is not, “Jesus died to help you straighten your life out.”  The gospel is, “Jesus died to pay for your sin and to make you a new creation who brings glory to God by living a holy life.”

            It’s not about us.  It’s all about the glory of God!

THE FOOLISHNESS OF SOLOMON

2 Chronicles 7:17-22 (God speaking to Solomon)

¹⁷ And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, ¹⁸ then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’

¹⁹ “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, ²⁰ then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ²¹ And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ ²² Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”  (ESV)

1 Kings 11:1-13

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, ² from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. ³ He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. ⁴ For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. ⁵ For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ⁶ So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. ⁷ Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. ⁸ And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

⁹ And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice ¹⁰ and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. ¹¹ Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. ¹² Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. ¹³ However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.”

I know this is a lot of reading for one post but I had to put this all on here so you could see it for yourself without having to look up the passages.  I find these passages both heartbreaking and terrifying.  They are heartbreaking because Solomon, the wisest man on earth, was not wise enough to overcome temptation.  His love (lust?) for many beautiful foreign women led him to turn away from Jehovah, his God, and follow after the detestable gods his wives worshiped.  He may have been the wisest man on earth but he was not wise enough to detect the evil he had brought into his midst.  His sin cost the people of Israel dearly.  His sin cost the kingdom which his father, David, labored to build.  Eventually the people of Israel were carted off to exile in Babylon and the fabulous temple was completely destroyed.  Heartbreaking!

I am also terrified by these passages.  If the great and wise Solomon was foolish enough to be drawn into sin then I am not safe.  If even he was unable to detect Satan’s temptations then I am not safe!  If Solomon could break covenant with God then I am not safe!  I find this terrifying.

The lesson I am reminded of is that my only hope is in God!  If I let myself slip even a little bit then I will fall away.  If I give even a little room in my life to sin then I am swinging the door wide open to my own failure and destruction.  God is faithful.  God is just.  God will keep his covenant and his promises.  God warned Solomon what he would do if Solomon turned away.  There are severe consequences for sin.  I have been warned!

 

 

HEAR FROM HEAVEN AND FORGIVE

2 Chronicles 6

            For several days I have been reflecting on Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple.  There was something about it that stuck in my mind and I had to think about it for awhile before I realized what it was.  Then it hit me…

            Can you picture the situation?  How many people were there?  Thousands, I would suppose.  The temple was brand spanking new.  The massive altar stood there in the temple court.  Solomon had ordered a platform constructed from bronze.  It was over seven feet square and almost five feet high.  He climbed up onto this platform and knelt down in front of all the people of Israel.  In Hebrew fashion he spread out his hands, palms up toward heaven, and began to pray aloud.  He praised God for keeping his covenant with David, his father, and asked God to continue to be faithful to his promises.  Then he began to pray that God would always listen to his people when they prayed toward the temple which symbolized God’s presence with his people.

            In verse 21 we hit on a theme.  “Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place.  Hear from heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear forgive.”  That may not really strike us as significant until we continue reading the rest of the chapter. 

            “When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you and when the turn back and confess your name…then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people” (vs. 24, 25).

            “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin…forgive the sin of your servants…” (vs. 26, 27).

            “When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them…whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or pleas is made by any of your people Israel…then hear from heaven…Forgive” (vs. 28-31)

            (This next one is astonishing in its prophetic nature!)

            “When (not “if”) they sin against you…and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity…and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul…and pray toward the land you gave their fathers…and toward the temple I have built for your Name; then…hear their prayer and their pleas and uphold their cause.  And forgive your people, who have sinned against you” (vs. 36-39).

            I was amazed by the way Solomon saw Jehovah as a forgiving God!  Solomon had insight into the hearts of men and knew there would be many times the people would sin against God and he interceded for them.  He prayed that God would show mercy and forgive the sins of the people so the covenant would not be broken!

            As I reflected on this truth I realized that we, the church, the people of God, need to learn this same attribute of God.  Instead of being judgmental when people sin we need to learn to forgive.  Instead of shunning people in the name of church purity we need to hear the heartbroken cries of the repentant and show mercy and forgive!  We need to bring them back into the fold and show the love and forgiveness Solomon saw in the nature of a forgiving God!

HONOR THOSE WHO FEAR THE LORD

Psalm 15:1, 4

LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?  Who may live on your holy hill?
He who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the LORD…

True Story #1:  In a certain small town there are over twenty churches.  Many of the pastors of these churches meet together monthly to talk about what they can do together to promote the gospel and work together across denominational lines.  But there is one church, one pastor who faithfully declines any invitation to meet with the other pastors or to cooperate with other churches in any way.  All the other churches have some wrong doctrine or wrong practice and he won’t be associated with churches that are in error.

True Story #2:  In another small town a dissatisfied group left an evangelical church and moved a little way down the road and started their own church.  Even though there were quite a few other protestant churches in that town they felt the need to start their own.  They put an ad in the local paper advertising themselves as the “only Bible preaching church” in town.

True Story #3:  In yet a third small town the local Bible Church pastor was meeting with a pastor from one of the charismatic congregations in the area.  The first pastor was asking the charismatic pastor why he never came to any of the community worship services on Good Friday, Thanksgiving, or Christmas Eve.  The charismatic brother simply said, “I choose not to worship with people who are not Spirit-filled.”  The Bible church pastor was flummoxed and asked what he meant by that statement.  He was met with a question, “Well, have you ever spoken in tongues?”  The Bible church pastor responded negatively and the charismatic pastor said, “Then you don’t have the Holy Spirit.”

(Caveat: I have far more stories showing the prejudice against charismatic Christians than vice versa but #3 was pretty fresh in my mind!)

For many years I was a theologically arrogant, self-righteous, judgmental, separatistic and divisive snob.  Then the Holy Spirit started to point out passages of scripture that convicted me to the very heart of my being.  Psalm 15:4 is one of them.  The psalmist seeks the Lord’s face and asks who will be allowed in his presence in his kingdom.  The answer comes to him, “He who honors those who fear the LORD.”  The answer is not, “He who holds to the right doctrines like you do.”  It is not, “He who stands clear of those who have different views of baptism.”  It is not, “He who separates himself from those who have a wrong view of the end times.”  God blesses those who make a point of honoring everyone who fears the Lord!  If we read this passage negatively it would say, “Those who do not honor everyone who fears the Lord will not live on God’s holy hill!”

God changed my attitude about ten years ago.  I was minding my own business and reading my Bible when I came to John 17:20, 21.  Jesus is praying on the night he was arrested and he said, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”  I realized Jesus was praying for me and for all of my brothers and sisters around me!  He wanted us to be one!  He wanted us to live in unity “so that the world may believe!”  I was cut to the heart like those who heard Peter’s sermon at Pentecost!  God wanted me to devote myself to building bridges rather than doctrinal walls.  He wanted me to be a peacemaker rather than a judge and jury.

I want to honor those who fear the Lord!  I don’t care if they have different views of baptism, the end times, speaking in tongues, or church government.  All I need to know is that they fear the Lord!  May God help me to hold them in a place of honor!