Looking Back At Old Thoughts

It has been a while since I have posted, but life has turned a little hectic. However, as I was absently looking through my files (trying to shut my mind down so I could sleep) I came across this long musing I typed up while a Sophomore in college. That being said, please pardon the lack of professionalism and the format.

29 September 2009

Sin and Repentance

     In today’s American culture there is an extreme lack of morality. Homosexuality and sexual immorality runs rampant, infants are aborted, criminal activity is widespread, war is seemingly constant, the economy has been doing poorly, natural disasters seem to get worse and worse, and our politicians are becoming corrupt. What has happened? Three thousand years ago, the same thing was happening in Israel and Judah. Homosexuality and sexual immorality ran rampant, infants were sacrificed to a cult god Molech, criminal activity was out of control, war was seemingly constant, the economy fell repeatedly, natural disasters seemed to get worse and worse, and their politicians were horribly corrupt. What happened? Notice the similarity between the two symptoms. It is my firm belief that the causes are equally similar. Let us first look at what had happened in Israel and Judah and bring it into our time.

     After the death of King David, his son Solomon took over the kingdom of Israel. Like every other monarch of that day, Solomon married many foreign women to build diplomatic ties with his neighbors. Unfortunately, Solomon’s wives led him to worship their foreign gods, causing him to commit idolatry. Angry at Solomon’s breaking of His Law, God divided the kingdom and gave the northern tribes to one of Solomon’s generals in an effort to separate His people from the practice of idolatry or syncretism (which is the combining of two beliefs). However, the general, doubtful of God’s faithfulness, built altars with idols for his people to worship as opposed to going to Jerusalem (the capitol of the southern kingdom under the Davidic dynasty) and possibly being persuaded to return to the heirs of David. However, both kingdoms declined into sinfulness and corruption, only the southern kingdom enjoyed occasional revivals under Hezekiah and Josiah (it is worth noting that the revival of Josiah’s day delayed the exile until a few years after his death). The religious leaders mostly encouraged syncretism and idolatry. Thus, continued the downward spiral until both nations were driven from the land and into exile. Where did Israel’s fall begin? It began with the sin of syncretism starting with Solomon.

     I wish to submit that that which caused all of the pain and judgment in ancient Israel is the same thing that has caused the United States to fall into a similar predicament. I am not advocating however that the United States is God’s chosen nation and people, rather Christians are God’s people who share in the spiritual and eternal inheritance of the Israelites. However, similar to ancient Israel, we Christians have blended Christianity with the pursuit of happiness that has been abused in this country. We follow what has been called “vōx populī,” that is “voice of the people,” which is the selective reading of scripture to fill our own wants and desires. It has become popular belief that our purpose in life is to be blessed and to live a life of luxury and comfort with the blessing of God. We need not worry about sacrificing ourselves and our lives to the faithful obedience and following of God, for He is a god of love and will bless us no matter what. Little do people realize that the primary requirement to being a disciple of God and Jesus is self-denial and suffering.  We must also realize that we have begun to worship idols as well as God. Though we may not literally bow down and worship an idol or graven image, we certainly set our focuses, time, and priorities on other things such as convenience, wealth, pleasure, security, and even family and friends. Jesus said,

“He who loves his father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10. 37-39 New American Standard Bible).

Even what we do give to God is second best. If we find a few minutes in our day to read the Bible, we usually just skim it without taking the time to look at what God has to say; even if we do take time, we let our own agendas get in the way of objectively reading God’s word and letting the Bible speak for itself. God addresses this issue through the prophet Malachi. In Malachi 1: 6-14 and 3:8-15 God condemns the people for bringing unworthy sacrifices; while we do not have to offer the sacrifice of an animal, we are to sacrifice our very lives for God’s service and the carrying out of His will.

     We also fail to truly obey God out of a pure heart. If we give our tithes it usually is with a sense of pride, though it may be quiet and subtle it is there patting us on the back, telling us how good of Christians we are for doing something good (i.e. tithing). We have substituted the revelation for God, where He gives us a command and we obey Him, for religion, where we obey selected parts of scripture and tell God that He owes us for doing good deeds. Never tell God that he owes you. Once this has been done, God has been removed from His rightful place in our lives and we are put in His place.

     We have also fallen into the sin of compromising the Truth of Scripture for the sake of acceptability and inoffensiveness; this too is covered by God in Malachi 2:17. God’s truth is non-negotiable and should never be compromised for the sake of making people feel good. Because once we twist God’s word, we put ourselves in the place of God by making our own rules.

     All of these areas of short-coming stem from one major heart issue, the lack of sincerity in one’s faith. If we are sincere in our faith we should be living a distinctly different life. Divorce rates among Christians are the same as divorce rates among non-Christians, a fact that should cause us to cry out in shame. Jesus repeatedly gives a list of attributes for those who follow and love Him, most importantly, He says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14. 15). It is also advisable and very worthwhile to look at John 15. Many people are aware of the first and greatest commandment that is “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength” but many people also ask “How do I do that?” One very simple answer comes from Micah 6:8, which states, “He (God) has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

     In conclusion, this is what I have been called to preach, it is the same message as that of the prophets, John the baptizer, the disciples, and of Jesus Christ Himself, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand!” Let us lay aside the hypocrisy that makes us as white-washed tombs, beautiful on the outside but containing rotted corpses within (Matthew 23:25-28). Let us today make a commitment to follow God with all that we have and to offer ourselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2).

Works Cited

Wide Margin Bible: New American Standard Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.

A Cry From the Heart for the Western Church

Woe! Woe to what is fallen!

The Church, the Elect of God in the West lie in the dust!

Woe to us who have played the harlot and have known all except our one God and Lover.

We have laid out our bed to be rich, yet are destitute;

We have stripped naked for the spiritist and deceiver;

We entice the daughter of perversion 

And tainted the bride of Christ with the lust of the woman of immorality;

We sell ourselves to lives of pleasure and ease and comfort and acceptance,

All the while being estranged from the Author of pleasure, the Comforter, and our Deliverer from death.

Answer Church, speak ones who call themselves God's children.

Shall not a wife be faithful to her loving and self-sacrificing husband?

Shall not the bride of such a man seek to please and respect him?

Why then do you run from such a husband and chase after men that abuse you?

What will the loving father of such a promiscuious daughter do?

Shall he support her and shield her and bless her as she continues in her lustful and adulterous ways?

No! But He shall let her taste the bitterness of her rebellion, 

Where she shall suffer at the hands of her many lovers.

Then, when she has been exposed and rejected,

He shall come to her and take her home,

Cleansing her filth and treating her wounds

O how they shall sting!

And He will teach her again the life of righteousness.

So you, bride of Christ and daughter of the Heavenly Father, have done,

Chasing after liars and deceivers, forsaking love for lust.

But the hour is not so late,

Nor are you so lost that you cannot avoid this coming horror.

Forsake your wealth,

Abandon your worldly beauty,

Turn from your sinful lovers,

And return to the Father.

Forsake the wisdom of mortal man,

And live off the very written word of the Immortal God.

Remember your first and only love,

The One that died for you,

The One that descended into Hades for a time and returned,

Just that you might be His.

Al-Shadday, God Almighty, Y--H Tsava, the LORD of armies and war,

Great is Your Name and just are Your ways.

We have sinned greatly before You so that we are an abomination in Your sight.

Our wickedness and rebellion rises as a foul stench,

Though we perceive only our good deeds and good intentions.

You are just to afflict us and to prepare discipline for us,

Your rebellious children, deceived into thinking that we are following You.

May You yet have mercy on us, 

Allowing us to see our wretched state;

In Your loving-kindness draw us back into Your presence

That we may not be a reproach among the people

And further disgrace Your Name.

Cleanse us that we may shine like the stars

And bring the adoration of our neighbors to You.

Hear the cry of Your bond-servant, Your slave,

As You heard the cry of the slave of Your servant Abraham, Hagar;

Incline Your ear to this son of Dirt and see us,

For You are Al-Roiy, the God who sees.

"If perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will." 

-2 Timothy 2:25b-26 (New American Standard Bible)

"No other gods before Me." Exodus 20:3

     The first of the ten commandments, also called the Decalogue, introduces the entirety of God's instructions to His unconditionally chosen people. I would venture to say that the command "you shall have no other gods before me" is the key to following the rest of God's instruction, as implied by it being the first commandment. However, rather than focus on the importance and position of this command, I wish to explore the significance of the phrase "before me".
     Frequently this passage is read as "God must be first in your life." The consequent application goes along these lines usually, "if God is not the center of your life and if He is not your top priority, then you need to re-prioritize and make changes in your schedule." This approach reads "before" in the ordinal sense, implying that loving God is a matter of ranking Him over other things and people. If this were the case one would expect to find in the Hebrew text prepositions like תחת (tachat; lit.: in place of) or נגד (neged; lit.: before, against) On the contrary, the word "before" is actually a prepositional phrase of two words in the Hebrew text, which reads, על-פני (al-panaya); this translates literally to a more spacial understanding of "before" as the phrase "in My face/presence"; unfortunately, only two main English translations (the Holman Christian Standard Bible and the Amplified Bible) have striven to reflect this in their wording. Consequent to this understanding of Exodus 20:3, God forbade His people to have any other gods in His presence. The Israelites understood that they were ever in God's presence through their journey from Egypt to Horeb (a.k.a. Sinai); and they would continue to learn that they were always in God's presence through the Tabernacle, journeying in the wilderness, the invasion of Canaan, even to David who wrote about God's omnipresence in the 139th Psalm. Therefore, in summary, Israel was never to have any god other than Adonai.
     In the same way, if not more so, Christians, God's unconditionally chosen people and adopted children, are not to have any god other than the Father. It is not a matter of God needing to be the center of your life, God needs to be your life. Work, study, recreation, money, friends, family, ministry, etc. are not things (gods) to be properly prioritized around God; they ought to merely be means/opportunities to reflect God and honor Him. He needs to be involved in and permeating every little task we perform. Instead of stressing over finances, seek to find the best way to honor God in your financial situation, in what you do and how you act. When worried about relationships that are wearing away, seek the way to reflect God in those relationships. Does Paul not say in Colossians 3:17, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father"? Always is Adonai to be our God alone, and never should anything distract our hearts from Him.








New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Col 3:17.

The Comfort of Confession

"con-fess 1: to tell or make known (as something wrong or damaging to oneself). . . to unburden one's sins or the state of one's conscience to God."1

There are two messages this post does not intend to convey:
1) Confessions should be painless and /or easy
2) People should confess for the sake of comfort or peace

What does it mean to confess something? Aside from the above dictionary definitions, and in the context of Christianity, to confess something is to take ownership of and/or admit to something (typically to a faith or belief or to a sin).

In this post, I would like to focus on the confession of sin. As stated above, to confess sin is to take ownership of one's rebellion against God and then give it over to Him (the unburdening of one's sin). the sin does not need to be "great" (i.e. murder, lust, lying, stealing, etc.) for there to be a need to confess it. Even something as small as not being focused on following God needs to be confessed, for if God is not the center and a part of everything done, something else is, which is idolatry or syncretism.  Implied in the "unburdening" is a sense of turning from the sin(s) or a longing to be free of it (them). This act of confession also implies a vulnerability, it is the admission of one's own failure or inadequacy; this can be very difficult and painful for those of us who are perfectionists and try to be and appear our best, especially when we have a sense of self-sufficiency. This brings us to the following on confession: Confession comes after conviction. In order for one to take ownership of and seek to turn from one's sin, one must first be made aware of that sin. Conviction by nature involves a painful heaviness that comes upon the offender, which reinforces that true confessions are not painless and easy.

Why should we confess? Isaiah 59 says in the first two verses,
      Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short
      That it cannot save;
      Nor is His ear so dull
      That it cannot hear.
      But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,
      And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.2


Our sins, both intentional and unintentional, inhibit our prayers and our ability to come before God. It is important to note that the above passage was written to God's unconditionally elect people, the descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Israel (Jacob). Yes, nothing can separate us from God's love (Rom 8) and no one (including ourselves) can take us from Meshshiah's (Christ's) hand (John 10:27-30), but does our rebellion against God not impede our journey through life to follow Him? However, just as Isaiah 59 was written to God's people, so was 1 John 1:9, which says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."3 In fact, the surrounding verses tell us that if we say we are without sin, we are still unsaved (see verses 8 and 10). therefore, we confess our sins, proving that we are God's children, in order to be able to fellowship with our Holiest Father in Heaven who cares for us. Consequently, the guilt is lifted, our broken relationship is restored, and God's will and Spirit can work freely through us, and that is very great comfort. Note that confessions preceded some of the greatest events in the Bible; Josiah confesses his sins as well as that of the nation leading to the delay of the exile and a great revival in Judah (2 Kings 22-23), Daniel's confession in Daniel 9 immediately precedes the vision of the seventy weeks, and Nehemiah's confession precedes his return to Jerusalem and the restoration of that city as well as a revival (Nehemiah 1ff).  However, one ought not confess merely to be free of guilt or merely to receive God's power in his/her life. To confess for any reason other than to restore the relationship is comparable to a boy telling his mother he loves her to get the freshly baked cookies or to get that gift he has always wanted for his birthday, or even saying "I'm sorry" just to get out of being disciplined. Is such a confession really a confession? I would say no, but call it an attempt at manipulating God (see Gal. 6:7-8).

Confess so that you may live life with God unhindered, which is a blessing and comfort in itself, and not for the comforts and you will find the comfort of confession.



I would like to hear your thoughts, even if you disagree. Please comment below if you have any input.


 
1Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1980), "confess"
2New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Is 59:1–2. 
3Ibid, 1 Jn 1:9.


Bibliography:

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995)

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1980) 

A Thought On Prayer

     While standing in for my father teaching Sunday School, studying God's work in the believer's life through the hard times, I was reminded of the words written by Joseph Scriven,

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! 
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! 
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, 
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.1
 
     To those reading this that do not know me or my family, it is not uncommon for me to end up standing in for my dad in Sunday School due to a complex back injury and other issues tied with and in addition to it (but I shall not go into detail here). In addition to this, a number of my friends and coworkers have been on my mind as of late, leaving me concerned for their well being. Leaving the realm of personal matters, the world is full of things to be concerned about: wide spread persecution, civil disorder in Egypt, recent legislation, etc.; there is a plethora of reasons to be weighed down with concern.
     However, it is of great comfort to me to know that all believers can come before God any time of day and give their concerns, fears, and burdens to Him, knowing that He is more than able to handle them and knows how to take care of their troubles better than anyone else. Even when you do not know what to say to God, His Holy Spirit within you speaks on your behalf (Romans 8:26-27).
     When I was born, I was put on the ECMO due to a lung collapse. Being only my parents second child, this time was very stressful and worrisome. However, my parents were given a card/bookmark with the following verse from Psalm 55:22,

      Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you;
      He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.2

Even after all of this time, and through the relatively little that I have experienced, I am continually learning the truth of this passage. God will uphold the righteous and care for them, we must merely give Him our fears and concerns and follow Him, humbly submitting to Him. So if I may offer a word of encouragement, cast your burdens upon the LORD, trust the all powerful and loving God with your problems, and obey His directions on how to live life.





1. Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996), 19. 

2. New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995)