Number Two

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the father upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20: 4-6)

This is quite a curious commandment for current times. Some churches have dropped it completely from their Decalogue and others don’t see much application in their own existence. Most people don’t make idols for worship any more, do they? And what of the section that says “any likeness of any thing”; we make likenesses all the time. This is now especially proliferative with the introduction of the “selfie stick”. The command begins “Thou shalt not make”. Does this prohibit artistic sculptures, painting, photography, videography, and other forms of art?

Let’s think back to an event recorded in the Bible. The children of Israel were on their sojourn through the desert and they began complaining against God and Moses about not having bread and water. As punishment God sent fiery serpents among them that bit them and killed many. The people realizing their sin came to Moses begging for God’s forgiveness and interception. Moses went to God with the people’s request and God instructed Moses to make a graven image of a serpent and place it on a pole. When the people looked at the image of the serpent they would live (Numbers 21:5-9). Now did God instruct Moses to break His commandment in making this image of a serpent? James 1:13 reminds us that God cannot be tempted with evil and neither does He tempt us to do evil.

So how does this event jibe with the Law? When reading this command, we realize that the issue is worship: ‘bowing down and serving’. God did not instruct the people to worship the serpent, only to look at it (as an act of faith in God’s healing power). Earlier in the Israelite’s journey through the desert they made a golden calf and were bowing down to it and worshiping it and engaging in all manner of degradation and evil in service to the calf. This ignited God’s anger resulting in severe punishment (Exodus 32:1-8). And what of the brass serpent Moses made? Well, as is human nature we like tangible things and over the years the people began to worship the serpent. So during one of Judah’s times of reformation king Hezekiah destroyed the serpent (2 Kings 18: 1-4). God made a point of not showing any likeness of anything when He delivered the commandments, orally, so as to ensure no one would make the mistake of creating any thing to worship as Him (Deuteronomy 4:14-24).

In our lives we prostrate ourselves and live is service to various things: blocking out hours of our lives for TV programmes, movies and other forms of amusement, spending exorbitant amounts of money on art, music, entertainment, fashion, etc., we worship at the shrines of knowledge, power and influence. Our self-manufactured achievements have become our graven images. The primary focus of our time, finances and physical strength are the ways most of us ‘bow down to and serve’ likenesses of things in our world we’ve created for ourselves.

In this commandment we learn something about the nature of God. He identifies Himself as being jealous. Typically, we identify jealousy as a negative emotion, mostly because we confuse it with envy. Envy is wanting something that belongs to someone else. Jealousy is desiring something that is your own. God created us for the explicit purpose of worshiping Him. All worship belongs to Him because he is the I AM – The self-existent One, He has all power, knowledge, wisdom and is all things to all people all the time. As a result, this is a particularly serious commandment due to the consequences directly associated with it. The consequences transcend generations. That alone ought to inform our choices but along with the consequences there is hope. God always gives us hope. If we choose to obey Him, no matter what happened in the past and what our inherited tendencies are, He will show us mercy.

In Love

Number One

“I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:2, 3)

When the average person thinks about the first commandment we automatically go straight to the, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”, leaving out the why. However, I have found the ‘why’ to be the anchor of this command. God has asked us to obey His commands and understanding that He made us to be logical creatures, He knows that in order to obey we need a motive. The purpose for ancient Israel to have only one God is that this is the God who freed them from slavery. He heard their cry in Egypt, chose a messenger, performed great miracles on their behalf and set them free. (Exodus 1-14).

So the question now is, ‘why should I have only one God?’ This is the beauty and the genius of God; the answer remains the same: He is the God that has brought us out of bondage. To this you may ask ‘when was I in bondage? I’ve never been a slave to anyone’. Some of your ancestors may have been, but short of being a victim of modern day slavery (human trafficking) not many of us know what it is to physically be in bondage. However, God transcends the physical into the spiritual and the fact is we are all in spiritual bondage (Romans 6:20). After the fall of our first parents, every human being is under the chains of sin. We know that sin is the breaking of the Law (1 John 3:4) and the consequences for breaking the law is death (Genesis 2:17; Romans 6:23). We are, in ourselves, incapable of doing what is right (Psalms 51:5; Lamentations 5:7). If we of our own strength do something considered right, it remains inadequate (Isaiah 64:6).

But hope came in the form of Jesus Christ (Luke 2:10). God came to earth in human form and lived the perfect life as an example for us (John 15:10), then sacrificed Himself in our behalf (John 10:15-18) to free us from the desire to (Romans 6:18) and the condemnation of (Romans 6:23) sin. Thus, we can now live lives of joy, free from the bondage of being chained to sins that hurt and destroy and with the faith that our debts have been paid (Romans 8:1).

As a result, we can personalize the first commandment to say ‘He is the Lord my God, who freed me from sin and saved me from eternal death, I will have no other gods before Him.’

With Love

The Ten

The Ten Commandments are a vital yet significantly misunderstood set of precepts spoken by the voice of God and written by His own Hand (Exodus 20:1-17; 31:18). Their adherence is emphasized continuously throughout the Bible. They are God’s standing principles that govern His universe. Yet the people on Earth professing to be His followers make a point of deemphasizing their importance. The implementation of these ten Laws are a manifestation of true Love (2 John 1:6). Christ did say, “If ye love Me keep My Commandments” (John 14:15). They are the definition of Love (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:36-40). We cannot keep them without Love (1 Corinthians 13:1-8) and we cannot Love without keeping them.

Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments as Love for God and Love for our fellow men. The fact is if we truly Love God we won’t put anyone or anything in His place. We won’t worship anything that we created. We won’t misuse His name. And we will spend the allotted time He designated with Him. If we love our parents, we’ll honour them in what we do. If we love our fellow men we won’t kill them, we won’t cheat on our spouses or break up a family, we won’t steal and we won’t lie or mislead. And if we genuinely love, envy of other’s successes will not exist in us.

People tend to look at these principles as burdensome, but if they are approached with the correct Spirit it is clear to see that their obedience is the only way to love and be fit for a perfect kingdom. Without them sin would not be a thing (1 John 3:4). If there was no sin, there would be no need for a Savior. Therefore, it behooves us to take a closer look at these Words from God and decipher how they apply to our lives. For the next few posts I’ll focus on each one, identifying some of the ways we drift from there adherence without even noticing.

I pray that the Holy Spirit guides my writing and your reading.

With Love

Grace

Many of us who grow up in the faith have a major struggle – accepting God’s grace. I was in a discussion today, in which I had to explain this mental dissonance. As a believer in the Bible I know that God’s grace is sufficient to justify and sanctify me (Acts 20:32; Romans 3:24; 2 Corinthians 12:9). However, the inability to accept this comes when the sins I have committed are classified as “small”. My sins have not been considered major errors to those around me and therefore the grace that is presented to justify me doesn’t seem relevant. My mind is filled with all this Biblical knowledge and I carry the burden of living up to this responsibility (Luke 12:48) without a tangible understanding of God’s grace to help me do so.

This is the conundrum that leads to legalism, a plague upon those of us raised on Biblical truth. It was the downfall of the Jewish nation (Matthew 23:24). This belief that my sins are not great enough to be covered by Christ’s justification, or that I am somehow unworthy because more is expected of me, skips a major step in the path to Glorification. It also adds the pressure of believing that I am expected to obey God’s commands in my own strength. As this is an impossibility a cycle of futility and frustration ensues. This has led to the disillusionment of many of my predecessors and contemporaries. I have heard the complaints but it never really sunk in until I had to vocalize it and I was told that I sound like pastors' children. There is a pressure for which the cure was not adequately emphasized.

This has also lead to another plague in the church “cheap grace”. This teaching promotes the idea that justification will cover all sins and we never have to change. This fallacy is leading many to destruction. Scripture clearly states that the law holds (Matthew 5:18). And that by grace through faith we can “establish the law” (Romans 3:31; 6:15; 7:7; Galatians 3:21).

Another symptom of not accepting Christ’s grace is pride. Pride, in the perception that we did not commit any sins great enough to require Christ’s justification. Pride in the knowledge we have acquired. Pride in the idea that my sins are not as bad as yours (2 Corinthians 10:12). The humility of accepting Christ’s justification is a requirement for His service. Only when we realize that ALL our sins, however small it may seem to us, placed Him on the cross, and that anything “righteous” that we do in our own strength is worthless (Isaiah 64:6) can we arrive at the level of humility necessary to serve.

This is why God sent Moses to be a shepherd for 40 years. Moses grew up knowing what his purpose was, and was ready to start a revolution in his own strength. So God sent him to Midian to learn from where the strength for his purpose would come (Exodus 2, 3). This is the pride that Jesus fought every day of His mission here on earth. Like Moses, Jesus knew who He was and what His purpose was. When Satan came to tempt Him in the wilderness Jesus gave him the answers we need to have – “It is written…”. When His disciples tried to make Him their earthly king He removed himself from the premises (John 6:15) and went to pray. He prayed constantly day and night because He knew that in His human form that was His only source of strength. The grace that forgives us is the grace that sustains us. Jesus never sinned but He knew that the only way to maintain sinlessness was grace from the Father.

As we are expected to share faith in Christ’s grace with others we need to experience it in full for ourselves. We all have sinned. We all are justified by Christ’s grace. We will all experience sanctification through this same grace. To be successful in our task ahead we need to humble ourselves and accept God’s grace to sustain us. Then and only then will we be able to share it with others, because we have lived it.

Humbly

The Body

Many people over the years have questioned the justice of Israel loosing Ai when Achan stole the “Babylonish garment, the gold and the silver (Joshua 7). After all are we not all individually responsible for our own actions? (Deuteronomy 24:16, Revelation 22:12) Why would the sin of one man affect a whole nation of people? Well there are a number of Bible events that bare out the reason for this. The essence of it is that ‘we ARE our brother’s keeper’. The converse of Achan’s story can be seen in Genesis 18, when God informed Abraham that He would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded for them. And God said He would not destroy these cities if He could find as low as ten righteous individuals. Unfortunately for them there weren’t even five righteous in those two cities.

God is interested in the corporate as well as the individual and the individual’s actions towards the corporate is vital to the salvation of the individual (Hebrews 10:25). Daniel, of whom no sin was recorded in the Bible, prayed to God for the forgiveness of his own sins and the sins of all of Judah (Daniel 9:9-19). When Jesus returns He is coming back for a body of believers a church without “spot or wrinkle” (Ephesians 5:27). How is this meant to be achieved, verse 25 and 26 tells us that He gave Himself for the church that it might be sanctified.

So since Christ did what was necessary to produce a pure church what part do I have in this? God has given us a mandate to spread the Gospel, the good news of His sacrifice in our behalf (Matthew 28:19, 20). However, if the church is corrupted this mandate cannot be accomplished (James 1:8, Matthew 6:23, 1 Corinthians 5:6, Galatians 5:9). Before Pentecost Jesus instructed the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). In that time, they confessed and cleared up all sins among them brining themselves into “one accord” (Acts 1:14; 2:1). Only then could the Spirit of God be poured out, empowering them to fulfill Jesus’ commission to spread the Gospel to the whole world (Acts 1:8).

We as a body would like to accomplish this final work to bring sin to an end. This was the initial purpose of this movement – to gather the group prophesied to preach the three angel’s messages and complete Christ’s mission for us (Revelation 14:1-12). In neglecting this primary task of preparing ourselves (tarry till endued), and going off on our own to do as “the other nations”, and corrupting ourselves with selfishness and temporary living like Esau (Genesis 25:29-34), we are now wholly unprepared for the task at hand. As followers of Christ we need to share in His desires, we need to possess and practice His yearning for each other’s salvation.

As always, there is hope. When we trust and obey God there is always hope. He has promised to take full control of His final work. Painful, nerve-racking things will occur (Ezekiel 9) but Christ has promised that His church will be safe. His obedient followers will be protected and vindicated (Revelation 7). I urge us all to take heed, give an account for ourselves and each other in brotherly, Christian love. Be humble, take good Biblical, Christian, counsel from wherever it may be found (Isaiah 8:20). God has a way of sending us messages in unexpected ways.

Hopefully 

The Word

I was in a discussion last week in which the inspiration of the Bible was put into question. I stated, as I previously have in this blog, that prophecy is the external anchor on which we can hang the validity of the Bible. Power changes predicted centuries before they occurred in patterns that could not be intuitively foreseen is striking (Daniel 2, 7, 8; Revelation 12, 13, 17). However, beyond power transfers, the Bible offers practical advice on health, foods that are good to eat and those that are not (Leviticus 11), civil structures that are reasonable and efficient (Exodus 18:13-27; Acts 6:1-7; 1Timothy 3), life skills on how to respond to conflicts (Proverbs 15:1, 26:4, 5) to name a few. All externally demonstrated to be truth.

In the conversation I was asked if I believe that there are beings at a level higher than human beings but below God. I said “yes” with the scripture Psalms 8:4, 5 and Hebrews 6:6, 7. So the individual asked if the Bible could then have been inspired by one of these intermediary beings. I responded “No, because created beings can’t tell the future” supported with Deuteronomy 29: 29 and Revelation 19:10. The retort was ‘why not human beings make “good predictions” all the time. My response was “God doesn’t make ‘good predictions’ He says what He sees and no created being has this power” (Isaiah 46:10; Revelation 1:8, 22:13). At this point my interrogator admitted to not believing the Bible to be true, thereby rendering the conversation futile.

A bit more was said beyond this but this summary of the conversation illustrates my point today. I was taught growing up that the word of God is our sword (Ephesians 6:17), specifically a “twoedged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). The word of God is listed as a part of our armour in defense against the “wiles of the devil (Ephesians 6: 11-20). If I was in this conversation a year ago my response would have been very different. My immediate response would have been to become defensive – this attitude is of no help to anyone. But as I study more and learn to yield more and more to the Lord I have come to realize, like Jahaziel said to Judah and Jehoshaphat, that ‘the battle isn’t mine, it is God’s’ (2 Chronicles 20:15). So in order to fight it His means of defense is required.

After Jesus fasted 40 days in the wilderness and Satan came to tempt Him at His weakest most vulnerable time His only defense was the word of God (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). He was tempted in all the areas we are tempted: Lust of the flesh, Lust of the eye, and the Pride of life (Hebrews 4:15; 1 John 2:16). That last area is particularly insidious because when we come to a point of knowledge or strength, pride can take over and we, like Samson, forget where our strength comes from. This is why daily devotion and prayer is vital to the survival of a Christian. Without our daily, hourly, constant connection with the Father (1 Thessalonians 5:17) we put ourselves in dangerous territory.

My petition is that we all study the word of God. To paraphrase a well-known preacher: ‘Know what it says, know what it means and know where it is found’. It is our only defense and source of hope in the times ahead. We all need to get to the place where our reflex response to any challenge is the word of God. It is the solid rock on which we will find our safety. (Psalms 89:26; John 1:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Peter 2:5-8)

Faithfully

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

I searched the definition of this proverb and found this meaning: “Extensive knowledge of or close association with someone or something leads to a loss of respect for them or it.” Anyone who has siblings, is married, have roommates or has worked in a dangerous industry such as a laboratory, construction or as an electrician can attest to this saying. There are thoughtless things that you would do to someone with whom you’re close that you would never do to a stranger or someone you’re just getting to know. Those with dangerous jobs, how many times have you eaten, put on lotion or worn sandals into your lab, or manipulated live wires without full protection or drivers using one hand on the steering wheel. It is human nature. We get comfortable with a situation and with that comfort we get careless.

This also happens in our spiritual lives. Some of us were born and raised hearing scripture, we know the dos and the don’ts, the rights and the wrongs backwards and forwards and sometimes we become careless. The account of Uzza in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13 illustrates this very well. Following various military incidents, the Ark of the Covenant was in the house of a man called Abinadab, who had two sons: Uzza and Ahio. Following a military victory King David decided that the Ark needed to be returned to the Sanctuary. He had a brand new cart built and placed the Ark in the cart and had a procession to bring the Ark back to the Sanctuary. The oxen that were pulling the cart had a misstep and Uzza put out his hand and touched the Ark to stop it from falling. This action angered God and Uzza died instantly.

There were multiple failings in this event, the means David set up to carry the Ark was improper – The priests were to carry the ark with the staves made specifically for it (Exodus 37:1-9). The other was Uzza’s action. The Ark was in his house for a long period of time. All that time he was aware that he should not touch it, God’s presence is in the Ark and sinful man was not to touch the Ark. Then in a moment of absentmindedness Uzza let his reflexes take control, over his understanding – resulting in his death.

We as Christians do the same thing all the time. We have all this knowledge and understanding and in a moment of inattentiveness we try to “help God” by disobeying His clear commands. We try to make the church services or activities better by doing things through human methods, somehow convincing ourselves that the ends will justify the means. Believing that, because God wants to save people and we know how to attract people, our methods will be acceptable. Abraham made the same mistake of “assisting God” – leaving the world in crisis. The early Christian church did the same thing “baptizing” pagan practices sinking the world into 1260 years of darkness – from which know we are barely recovering.

We are now living in a time that requires absolute vigilance (1 Peter 5:8). Our natural propensity for sin requires that we always be on guard, we cannot for one moment trust our reflex responses. God has given clear specific instructions on how His work is to be done and from this we cannot deviate. We cannot allow ourselves to be made complacent by the knowledge we have. That knowledge must be put into practice and must be our only guide. Our senses, feelings and reflexes cannot be trusted (Proverbs 16:25). Human senses will be flawed until we are caught up and transformed at Jesus’ second coming (1 Corinthians 15:50-54, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).

In Faith