"God, You Just Don't Understand"

             


Hebrews 2:14-18

Have you ever spoken these words; or at least thought them to yourself; "God, You just don't understand what I am going through?"

Come on, be honest with yourself and think about it. Remember that time when you were completely filled with anger; or that time you were really disappointed as to how things turned out; or that time you were hurt so badly by someone close in your life; or when your heart was filled with grief and sorrow over the loss of someone you loved.

We have all been told to "trust God" and He will take care of us. But don't we sometimes wonder and doubt that He can really understand what we are going through?

How can God, Who is Almighty, All Powerful, All Wise, how can HE possibly know what I, as a human being, am feeling as I go through this? How can an all righteous and holy God possibly know the struggle that I have with temptation? Does God really understand?

May we not forget that His Holy Word speaks concerning these questions and difficult times in our lives. Remember, we have a High Priest that was both God and man.
He came to this earth and lived in every way as a man, in the flesh, yet still God. 

Notice in Hebrews 2:14-18:
"Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham's descendants. 17 For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted."

Consider with me for the next few moments how He meets our needs. Do you have money problems? Jesus was without a place to call home. He said the foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but He didn't even have a place to lay His head. (Matthew 8:20) He trusted God daily.

Do you have problems being misunderstood and mistreated? Jesus was constantly being hounded, tested and badgered by the religious leaders of His day, and in front of other people. He trusted God Whom He served.

Have you been betrayed by a friend? One of His closest friends betrayed Him for a few pennies in order to put Him to death, while another denied that he even knew Him. We know as well that they all ran away when He was in trouble. He trusted God in spite of what man could do.

How did Jesus deal with these? When He dealt with grief? They told Him that John the Baptist had been murdered by Herod, He went off by himself to pray.

When Lazarus, whom He loved, died from illness, Jesus wept. When He was tempted by the devil, He quoted scripture. When He knew Peter was going to deny Him, He prayed for Peter. 

While He was being murdered for things He did not do, He prayed that God forgive those who were doing it because they just did not really understand. 

When He saw His mother standing there at His cross grieving, He told His friend and cousin John to take care of her. 

What I want you to see is that God does understand because He has been where we are today; and in every way where we will be tomorrow. 

Jesus knows what you are facing today. He not only knows but He really does understand just how you feel and the struggle that you have in your heart. And, do not forget, He cares. As our High Priest, He is telling His Father, our God, about your need, and mine and explaining what we are really going through.

Hebrews 5:7: "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to The One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission."

May we all rejoice and praise The Lord that we have a God who does understand and Who does care about us and our problems and He is actually in the process of taking care of them for us as we work along side Him faithfully. May God shower His richest blessings on you today as you serve Him. Remember, He is faithful. His Word is True. 

God bless until our next time...

"Calling on the Name of the Lord"

In Romans 10:13 we read, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." In ACTS 2:21, as Peter quotes JOEL 2:32, he says, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  

Our thoughts today will focus on the question, "What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord?" 

Before we look at what it means, let's notice how some have grossly misinterpreted and misunderstood it's meaning.
Some have the idea that calling on the Lord is nothing more than crying, "Lord, Lord." 

However, Jesus asked in Luke 6:46, "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?"
Again He said in Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven."

Still others will tell alien sinners to simply kneel at an altar and pray to the Lord for salvation. 

They insist that this is how anyone calls on the name of the Lord. Prayer, as we see in scripture, is a privilege of God's children. 
Notice in Matthew 6:9, as Jesus was teaching His disciples to pray, He tells them: "In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name."
No unsaved person is ever saved by prayer. We are told in I Peter 3:12, "For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the LORD is against those who do evil."

Often in the course of a conversation of this subject, the matter of Cornelius, in Acts 10, will come up. 
It says of him in Acts 10:2, that he was 'A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always". 

Cornelius was not saved by his prayer. Cornelius was a man who reverently worshiped and served God to the best of the knowledge he had of Him.

The man described in Acts 10:2, in spite of his reverence, his sincerity and his good deeds, was lost. He was lost because his sins had not been washed away by the Savior's blood. 
God provided this devout man an opportunity to be instructed and taught the way of truth, just as He will anyone who desires to know HIS truth. 

Notice Acts 10:30-32, "So Cornelius said, 'Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing, 31 "and said, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your alms are remembered in the sight of God. 32 'Send therefore to Joppa and call Simon here, whose surname is Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea. When he comes, he will speak to you.'"

As Peter, the one who spoke to Cornelius and his household tells the account of this occasion, notice what he says in Acts 11:14, 'who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.'

Cornelius had to first hear words that would bring him to salvation. What was he told to do? Acts 10:48, "And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord."

Many today teach that a person calls on the name of the Lord when he simply believes. They teach, "All you have to do to be saved is just believe on the Lord." God's Word teaches more than this alone!

James wrote in James 2:17,26, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead"....
26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." 

Obedience to the command of repentance, confession and baptism does not conflict with inspired statements made by Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9,
"For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, Not of works, lest any man should boast." 

When an individual is baptized, immersed, into Christ, he/she has done nothing to earn or merit their salvation.  They have simply complied with God's commands in order to receive the spiritual blessings made available by God's grace.

Paul indicated that those who call on the Lord are the ones who hear the gospel, believe the gospel and obey the gospel. Notice Romans 10:14-17, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall thy believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who hath believed our report?' So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."

The term 'name of the Lord' means by HIS authority. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:17, "And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him."

His name is above all names and as we are told in Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." 

There is no other authority by which we can be saved, but Jesus Christ Himself. When a penitent believer comes to Him in obedience to the Gospel, that is, to be buried with Him in baptism for the remission of sins as instructed in Acts 2:38, he/she is calling on the Lord's name, or the Lord's authority to save them.

Now go do THE RIGHT THING...Obey God!

"A WALK IN THE OLD PATH" #2

                      
Good day as we continue with our walk on 'The Old Path'.

We cannot walk in the old paths if we do not even know where they are. This is why we are instructed in II Timothy 2:15,
"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing THE WORD OF TRUTH."
Also we cannot teach what we do not know. Remember too the rebuke in Hebrews 5:12,

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food." (NKJV)
When we procrastinate and put off improving our spiritual depth in God's Word, this sort of delay becomes a tool of Satan in capturing our souls and leading us in the direction of bondage.
Far too many today would rather hear stories, be amused and entertained, rather than hear sermons and lessons from God's Word that rebuke, exhort or edify.

Paul tells us in II Timothy 4:3, "For the time will come when they will NOT ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE; but after their own desires will they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears."
Does this not sound like our religious world today?

Notice what is said about God's people in Jeremiah 5:31, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so:.."

One of the saddest scenes in Judah's doom is in Jeremiah 7:1-11 where the nation of God made their sanctuary their cemetery! Oh, believe it or not, they put too much emphasis on the temple itself and forgot to cleanse their own hearts by God's standard.

This is like so many today who refuse to walk in the old paths of personal devotion in God's Word while they foolishly center their religion around a building, a music program or entertainment of some sort. Where is the love and study for the personal letter God wrote for us?

When we try to guide ourselves, that which Jeremiah 10:23 says is not in us to do, "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps", we then lose contact with our Maker and the church crumbles. Paul brings to our attention that our sufficiency is not within ourselves.

In II Corinthians 3:5 he tells us, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God," (NKJV)

This sort of deterioration was carefully recorded  in Lamentations 4, where Jeremiah, weeping, reminded Judah of how the people who had been raised in scarlet now searched the garbage dumps looking for tiny reminders of, you guessed it, the 'old paths'.                    

Just as Judah mocked the prophets, some today ridicule and rebuke faithful proclaimers of the Gospel Truth. Walking in that broad path that leads to destruction of which Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7:13-14, will prove to be a course many will live to regret. Deceptive human pride gets in the way of heaven's plan and causes many to fall, even the most religious. Read Matthew 7:21f.

The wise man tells us in Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." 

God, through the prophet Jeremiah tried to impress on Judah that a person must seek the old paths, and not avoid them. This is key. When good and honest hearts desire to do right in the eyes of God and heed His Word as written, the problem will be quickly solved.

May God help us to point men in that direction, and may we also be sure that we also walk there, as well. God’s desire is that all men would be saved and live with Him eternally. 

God in His wisdom has laid out the path on which we must walk in order to live with humans. That Path has not changed since He set it in motion. Only those who seek that same old path and walk on it will be blessed with eternal life.

Too often we use the phrase, 'Get off the beaten path and try something new.' When it comes to God and His Word, His mind is set on 'THE OLD PATH'. 
God bless until our next time...

"A Walk On The Old Path"

                   

Jeremiah, called the weeping prophet, made it clear that refusing to walk in "the old paths" was a definite sign of apostasy on the part of Judah.

We read in Jeremiah 6:16, "Thus says the LORD: 'Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls.' But they said, 'We will not walk in it.' (NKJV)

Babylonian captivity was a difficult reality for thousands, because of rebellion and spiritual apathy in their lives! And today, we can see the same trend taking place in the Lord's church.

We can definitely notice a great disrespect for God's plan when it comes to the purity of the church as well as the sanctity of the home.                                                   

Following the standard set by God's Holy Word is more than some folk intend to do. When we read and compare the background of the problem in Jeremiah's day with the similar situation of today, we learn again the lesson that human nature has not changed in all these centuries.

A lack of concern for divine authority can be clearly detected by any honest student of the Scriptures.

What caused the apostasy in Jeremiah's time? Why is it that his own people rejected "the old paths"? And why are these the same problems in our present time?

As we study the Scriptures, we can find a minimum of eight areas that contributed to the sin of Judah in 600 B.C., and then see the sad application to the spiritual decline of many today.

If we can gain insight into human weakness and then correct our back-sliding ways, our study will be beneficial. If we do not care to have the knowledge and wisdom to change, then something even worse than Babylonian captivity is waiting.

The reasons God punished Israel and Judah can be found in Judges 2 and II Chronicles 36.

In a nutshell, those passages tell us that Jehovah God grew tired of their: 
(1)Idolatry, 
(2) Ingratitude, 
(3) Immorality, 
(4) Disobedience, 
(5) Stubborn will, 
(6) Rebellion, 
(7) Irreverent attitude toward worship, 
(8) Mocking of the prophets.

The form of idolatry that hinders many people today is the overwhelming sin of covetousness. Yes covetousness. Consider what Paul tells us in Colossians 3:5;

"Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." (NKJV)

Today the church has many who are obsessed with houses, lands, jewelry, automobiles, boats and other fancy "things" and material concerns that war against the simplicity of "the old paths".

Worldliness occupied the minds of Israel and Judah in the days of the prophets, and this fleshly thinking robs God of the full dedication and commitment from many professing Christians in our own day and time.

Too often the time that should be devoted to the worshiping and serving of God is devoted to the desire and concern of "things"; and, as we all know, things that do not last.

Rebellion toward the Word of God is graphically seen in the lack of Bible knowledge that is so evident among members of the body of Christ in our generation.

I will stop here for today and we will finish our study next time...God bless and Bless Him in your living.