One of the failings of humans is that we get so comfortable in hiding things from others. We do so for a number of reasons. Perhaps we don’t want other people to know our deep dark secrets; or maybe it’s because we feel a sense of entitlement to do what we want to do without dealing with a judgmental attitude.
When we do what we know is wrong, we want to do it in secret. And sometimes, we just like our privacy because there is no responsibility to others if no one knows what we are doing. For whatever the reason, good or bad, we all can get really good at hiding things from others.
The truth is that many times we get away with hiding things from others. Some people go years with a secret before anyone ever finds out. And the longer we get by with hiding things from others, the more confident we get in believing we can get away with hiding forever.
This is bad enough when we do this with each other. Lives or trusts can be destroyed when we hide things we should not be hiding. Perhaps we are involved in a secret sexual sin or a substance abuse habit. Maybe we are gaining our livelihood in an ill-begotten manner or we are skating through school on the work of others. Maybe we’re cheating the government on our taxes or misrepresenting the work we’re doing to our employers.
Whatever the secret sin is, it may often start out small enough, but these sins have a way of ballooning up on us. And before we know it, we find ourselves embroiled in things we would have never had thought we’d be involved in. This is why secret sins can be so cancerous.
“It started out so small… I don’t know how it grew to be this bad” is the refrain we can often hear when we start down the path of secret sins. And when we begin to test the secret waters with God, our destruction is close at hand.
“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” (Ecclesiastes 8:11 ESV).
When we first sin against God, we are often covered with guilt. But the more we do it, the harder our hearts become and the more comfortable we feel that our secret sin is hidden from even God. We feel that way in our heart even when we know in our intellect that this is not true.
But the more time that passes, the less our secret sins bother us. We need to always remember that God is not man. We may be successful at hiding things from our spouse, our boss, and even the government. But there is zero chance of God not seeing all that we do in secret.
“But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23 ESV).
Our sins will find us out. That should be a sobering thought. Adam and Eve tried to hide from God, but He saw them. Achan tried to hide his sin from God, but God called him out. And the same is true for every sin we try to hide from God. It’s not that He will eventually find it out, but God sees it all along as we engage in the secret sin.
In Numbers 12, Moses’ siblings, Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses and elevated themselves equal to him in the eyes of God. This was brought about by a beef they had with their brother’s choice of a wife.
“Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.” (Numbers 12:1 ESV).
Having this against Moses, they tried to lower his esteem in the eyes of the people.
“And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it.” (Numbers 12:2 ESV).
What a chilling end to verse 2. “And the LORD heard it.”
As we struggle with secret sins or try to hide things from others, let us remember that nothing is ever really hidden.
God knows all.
God sees all.
God hears all.
If we can truly keep this in our minds at all times, then it will help us make better choices when Satan whispers in our ears, “Go ahead, no one will ever know…” This is perhaps the most destructive advice we can follow. Because even if we can pull the wool over each other's eyes, we cannot pull the wool over God’s eyes.
Secret sins are only secret to mere mortal men. They are never secret to God. And the sooner we learn this and live by it, the better off we will be. When David committed his secret sin with Bathsheba, many people ended up dying as a result of his sins- Bathsheba’s husband, their son, and all the men who died in his family because the sword would never depart from his house on account of this sin.
Yet there is always a way out. Nothing is ever too far gone that God is not strong enough to help- if we but seek His help. Read Psalm 51. It is written by a man who was given to secret sin but reached out to the Lord for help. It is in this passage that we find the beloved verse:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10 ESV).
Cleansing can be ours as soon as we come to fully understand that when we even speak things in secret, we remember…
“And the LORD heard it.”
“I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, 'I will not listen.' This has been your way from your youth, that you have not obeyed my voice.” (Jeremiah 22:21 ESV).
I fear that the wisdom of the age has settled into the hearts of many so firmly that we kick against the council of the Lord.
My life
My rights
My pleasures
My decisions
I fear that we have forgotten:
What it is to wholly submit
What it is to lose self
What it is to obey
What it is to fully trust and depend
I fear that many will only submit under our conditions
I fear that we will submit to the Lord only in the way that seems right to us as we disdain the notion that we lose our will to another’s.
I fear, because I know what the Lord says about His great Day of Judgment.
Will it be the day we expect in our heart?
I fear not...
Blessed are the people who know how to kneel
Blessed are the people who know how to submit
Blessed are the people who know how to learn and to obey
Blessed are the people who know how to wholly trust in the Lord and fully depend each day upon Him alone
Blessed are the people who know how to turn their heart away from the wisdom of this age and listen to the Word of the Lamb of God.
“I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, 'I will not listen.' This has been your way from your youth, that you have not obeyed my voice.” (Jeremiah 22:21 ESV).
I am in the book of Jeremiah in my daily Bible reading. This prophet had perhaps one of the toughest jobs of all the prophets. He was prophesying God’s judgment upon the king and on Judah as the judgment was happening.
This caused him to be beaten and imprisoned multiple times because the people did not like the words that he prophesied. False prophets were speaking peace and victory to counter the words of the Lord that came to Jeremiah.
Have you ever felt that way? You stand in the midst of a perverse and crooked generation as you speak the truths of Jesus only to listen to false teachers come behind you and preach a gospel of ease, prosperity and indulgence?
In Jeremiah's days, as the king listened to the words written by Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, he would cut the scroll up in pieces and throw them into the fire as though that would destroy what was written on them:
“As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot.
Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.” (Jeremiah 36:23-24 ESV).
Is that what is happening to people around you as you teach from your mouth God’s word? Are people cutting the words into pieces and throwing them into the fire as though that will destroy the message you are bringing?
Worse, do we read the words of our Lord and King Jesus and because we do not like what He says, do we cut up what we do not like and throw them into the fire so we do not have to listen to Him?
Have we become so hardened to the message of Jesus that we can cavalierly throw away His message to us, and do so without tearing our garments and without being afraid?
We can burn the message all we want, but that will never destroy the words of King Jesus.
Let us be the ones who revere King Jesus’ words and listen to His council in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Let them be healing to us and a light to our heart.
Let us endure the judgments of those who hear and revile us for speaking the truth. For in the end, His word will endure and shall never be destroyed by man, and His words that we speak and live by will judge all men on that great Day.
What does hope in Jesus look like?
How is His Way so different from anything that man can devise?
One way we can see a plan that could only come from the mind of Divinity is in these reunions:
The faithful spouse who dies with an unbelieving mate, but the unbelieving mate is later won over and in heaven, the reunion that only Jesus could make possible happens.
The evil man who lifts his hand against a child of God to murder him but later learns to fear God and when he is executed for his deeds embraces in the presence of Jesus the one whose life he had taken.
The parent who cries over the path that their child has taken and dies never seeing their beloved offspring submit to the Lord, but embracing their child in Paradise because their child later humbled himself to King Jesus.
I would love to have witnessed the reunion Paul had with Stephen, the martyr he had slain, when the executioner's ax ended Paul’s life.
What other teachings make reunions like these possible?
Where can man find hope like the hope found in Jesus?
Where else can man find redemption for the irredeemable?
No mortal man could think of such wonderful things as the Lord has thought for us.
In weakness, we serve in power, for it is in His power that the impossible reunions are made possible.
This is the power of the Word of the Living God and King we serve.
In Matthew 3, John the Baptist comes preparing the way for the Messiah. As he preaches a message of repentance and the Kingdom, the Pharisees and Sadducees come to be baptized by him. But he knows their true motives.
“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7 ESV).
These men were the elite of society. They were more concerned about being in the center of attention, and Jesus would soon condemn them by saying that these conceited men had the extent of their reward.
But John calls out their arrogance and lets them know that they were not as great as they thought they were in their own eyes. They felt smug in their ancestry:
“And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” (Matthew 3:9 ESV).
What a statement! I would have loved to see the look on their face when this country preacher refused to cater to their pride. But what he said wasn’t too far off. God really could raise from stones children of Abraham… How do I know?
Because He did something even greater. He raised up children of Abraham from Gentiles.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Galatians 3:28-29 ESV).
Isn’t that wonderful? We are legitimate children of Abraham because God raised us up in Christ to be so! That means that we are legitimate heirs according to the promise He made to Abraham, the promise that even predates the Law of Moses.
There is a powerful lesson we should learn from nature.
When the Creator came to earth to live among us, nature bowed to its Creator’s every command.
When He said, “Silence!”, The storms obeyed.
When He said, “Carry Me.”, the waters bore His weight as He walked upon it.
When He said, “Gather.”, the fish swam into the fishermen's’ nets.
When He said, “Leave.”, the viruses and bacteria fled the sick He healed.
When He said, “Open.”, the deaf ears heard and the blind eyes saw.
When He said, “Live.”, the dead bodies received back their spirits.
Nature, and all of creation bowed to every word of their Creator without fail.
All but one.
When Jesus says, “Come unto Me.”, we say, “No.”
When Jesus says, “Obey My Words.”, we say, “I will do what I want to do.”
We would do well by looking at the wisdom that all nature displays when in the presence of its Creator and learn to obey His words.
This morning, I will be reading during worship service. The passage assigned to me is Mark 2:3-12. This passage dovetails nicely with the Gospel meeting that brother Ralph Walker brought to us on Fellowship, or Koinonia.
Here is a passage where the venue that Jesus is teaching is so full that it could be considered “standing room only”. But four men had a paralyzed friend who desperately needed to see Jesus. So, they brought their friend to Him in a pallet.
Koinonia. Fellowship. They were sharing in their friends' suffering.
And when they ran into roadblocks, they didn’t give up on their friend. These friends would travel through every roadblock placed before them until travel became impossible and they exhausted every avenue for their friend.
So, they lifted their friend on the roof, cut a hole in it, and lowered him down to Jesus… right in the middle of His lesson! What wonderful koinonia! What wonderful fellowship! Sharing in the suffering of their friend and providing what they could for him.
We know the ending. Because of their koinonia, Jesus gave what they sought:
“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” (Mark 2:11 ESV).
When we have koinonia, we have something stronger than anything we could ever have alone.
To see the series on Ralph’s lessons on Fellowship, check out the Facebook page for the Campbell Road Church of Christ.
https://www.facebook.com/campbellroadcoc
“You give them something to eat.”
I love this statement of Jesus. You remember the time when the disciples were with the 5000 who were in the desolate place and hungry- the disciples told Jesus that it was about time to send them away so they could get something to eat before they became faint from hunger.
“Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” (Matthew 14:15 ESV).
And then He says it:
“But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” (Matthew 14:16 ESV).
We know the story. Jesus ends up taking a few fishes and loaves and creating a bounty that leaves everyone full. Now I know that this was a bonafide miracle, but I suspect that not many of us are expecting Jesus to do amazing things through us, are we?
Here’s my challenge for us today: The next time we see a need that looks impossible for us to fill, let’s remember the words of Jesus to the apostles in the feeding of the 5000. “You give them something to eat.”
Don’t focus on the enormity of the need or the impossibility of meeting it. Those are the situations where Jesus excels. These are the times when Jesus gets to amaze us.
When we see the need, let us pray, “Lord, here am I. Use me to glorify You if it is Your will.”
With all my heart, I believe that God can work through us today in ways that may amaze us if we are open to be used for His glory. With all my heart, I think Jesus can glorify His name by saying to us, “You feed them” and then provide the power to make it happen.
Let us wait on the Lord today to see if He wills to use us to glorify His name in ways we could never imagine. Let’s be open to the amazing ways that the Lord can use us today.
God
Man
Holy
Filthy rags
Truth
Lies
Selfless
Self-Centered
Light
Dark
CROSS
God
Jesus
Man
Holy
Jesus
Holy
Truth
Jesus
Truth
Selfless
Jesus
Selfless
Light
Jesus
Light
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).
How could a good God sentence someone to eternal punishment in hell for the decisions made in a relatively short period of time? This is a question that has dogged men for ages and has led many to conclude that this is impossible or that God is not good.
I wonder if our view of eternity, punishment, reward, God’s goodness and severity are lacking due to our inability to truly understand the reality that exists? Does God use things we understand to try to explain things that are well beyond our ability to understand?
I know and acknowledge that there is a risk of trying to explain what may be beyond our comprehension to fully understand. Still, I wonder if we may be missing the true bliss and horror of what it means to be in heaven or hell.
One way that God explains this eternal reality is by calling it a judgment, punishment and reward. Hell is described as a place of pain from fire that never quenches. An eternity of this kind of pain seems unbearable because we know the intense pain of burning. But does fire as we know it exists in the spiritual realm? Perhaps… perhaps not… we do not know. But if it doesn’t exist in the spiritual realm, then for something so painful that we understand to be used to describe something we may not be able to comprehend, tells us how bad it will be in hell.
Hell is also described as a place devoid of God’s presence. At the same time, heaven is described as a place in the perpetual presence of God.
Heaven is a place where there will be zero pain, zero tears, and eternal joy and bliss. The presence of evil will be banished because we will be in the presence of God where evil cannot exist.
Can the presence or void of God be at the heart of the nature of heaven and hell? Can being in the presence of God be the fulfillment of everything that is pure, joy, and bliss because the Author of all good things is flowing His goodness unchecked?
Similarly, if we are shut off from the presence of all that is good and we are in a state where God’s presence is void, would there be nothing for us except what is wretched, what is painful, what is evil?
Could it be that what makes heaven, heaven is the fact that we are in the presence of God and what makes hell, hell is that God’s presence is not there? Even in our world where sin abounds, there is goodness because God still has a presence here. We receive good, even when we are evil, because God’s presence is still here to some degree. Even our very breath is made possible by the presence of God.
When we experience the evil and pain here on earth, we also experience the joy we can have because of God’s presence, and all blessings that flow from Him. It is in Him we live and move and have our very being, even in the presence of rebellion and evil.
I don’t understand all that there is regarding the afterlife, but if the pain and punishment of hell is tied to us not being in His presence, and therefore, never receiving anything that is good which flows from Him, then all you have left is wretchedness and pain. Man will descend into his vilest nature with no God to embrace.
Perhaps it is not an uncaring God Who punishes out of anger and sentences someone to an eternal hell. Perhaps it is a loving God who knows just how bad an existence will be for those who refuse to live in His presence. Perhaps He is trying to get us to understand how painful, how utterly miserable an existence away from His presence will be; a presence where there will never again be any good flowing to us because we will never again be in the presence of the Source of all good things.
Could it be that only those who fully submit to God and accept Him according to His word will be the ones who spend eternity in heaven? Or those who accept a relationship with Him that says, “Yes, I submit fully to You and want to live eternally in Your presence.”
Could it be that those who will be sentenced to hell will be those who say, “No, I will not have You rule over me. I will live my way.” Could it be that when judgment happens, those who reject God are given what they want in their hearts- independence from the sustaining God?
I don’t know how all this really works but if Jesus is sounding the alarm of choosing an existence without Him, perhaps communicating how horrible it will be must be defined in the harshest of terms- pain, burning, eternity of darkness. If we choose to not be with God, then we have the vilest existence awaiting us.
If the nature of heaven and hell are best defined as the consequences of our relationship with or without Him, then we can see why a good God stands at the door and knocks; why He is longsuffering; why He gives His grace to overcome. But in the end, if we say that we still do not want to live under His rule, then He will allow us to make our decision to choose an existence without Him. If we reject the things that bring ourselves into subjection to Him, so that we can overcome sin through Him, then He will judge us by those things and give us what we truly want- freedom from Him and all that comes from Him, for all eternity.
Freedom from the One who sustains and upholds all things may be the ultimate definition of hell and torment.
King Jesus, 33 A.D.:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:19 ESV).
Man, 2022 A.D.:
“He didn't mean that…”
I am in the book of Ezekiel in my daily Bible reading. In the passage I am in, Ezekiel is telling of the impending judgment upon the sinful people of God. Yet, the mercies of the Lord are still seen in that God implores the people to repent. Listen to the earnest pleas from God, Who is about to bring judgment upon these people:
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.” (Ezekiel 18:30 ESV).
Even in the pronounced judgment, God is still giving a way to life. This is God’s way. Today, we live under the promise of Judgment. Peter says that the Lord will return as a thief comes at night- with no warning. Any moment, the Lord may come for final judgment and King Jesus is imploring us to repent lest iniquity be our ruin.
“Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 18:31 ESV).
David prayed that God would create in him a clean heart. Here, Ezekiel instructs the Israelites who face this judgment to prepare by making themselves a new heart and a new spirit. Do you know what this tells me? That no one is so far gone, that the power of God’s Word cannot change them.
No one has a heart so hardened that he cannot turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh if that is what he desires. It is never, “I cannot change.” It is always, “I will not change.” The choice is always there and God always stands ready to help us change our hearts.
“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezekiel 18:32 ESV).
Lest anyone put blame on God when judgment comes, this is the eternal truth. God never wants to see anyone die. He will equip men with everything they need to live. If we die, it is our choice not to bring ourselves into submission to God.
We have a choice today: To live unto ourselves and be under condemnation of the coming judgment or submit to King Jesus and live. The new, clean heart can be ours if we want it or we can keep the heart of stone that follows after iniquity and self-centered living.
In the end, whether we receive judgment or deliverance, it will be because of the choice we make and the path we choose to follow. Choose wisely and live.
Sometimes I wish God would send an angel and tell me plainly what decisions He wants me to make.
Sometimes I wish that God would dump into my head a perfect understanding of every passage I read in His Word.
Sometimes I wish that God would cause me to find favor in the eyes of everyone I interact with.
Alas, if only I had these things….
Hmm….
I wonder if God sent me an angel, would the message be one of God's disappointments in me because I am not making the decisions that His Word is able to train me to make.
I wonder if God has been eagerly waiting for me to spend time in His Word so He can add to me wisdom and discernment.
I wonder if the favor I seek in others come from a life of selfless service and not in people bowing before me to service me the way I want favor to be presented to me?
Perhaps God is ready to fulfill all that I am seeking, but in His way, and not the way I am seeking it.
Perhaps it's time for me to reexamine what I want and learn to align it with what God wants for me.
It’s happening before our eyes. The utter disregard for God is becoming pervasive in our society. I fear that long gone are the days where we as a people have a respect and reverence for God in the public square.
I still believe that a large number of people have a healthy respect for God in that they will not deny He exists and will claim that He has an absolute right to rule over all. Am I being too optimistic? Perhaps. But something in me still believes that there are more who at least profess God than who deny Him.
But that number is quickly dwindling. Those who outright deny God are becoming more and more emboldened to speak out against Him and all who profess a faith in Him, and they do so with the cover of powerful institutions who once would have never had been part of this blasphemy.
And it is going beyond speaking out against God. The enemies of Jesus are now impugning the goodness and fidelity to society anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus, anyone who professes a faith in God. Guilt by association is becoming more common.
Now, it is merely an accusation where those who profess faith are verbally maligned. Where will it go tomorrow? I fear what our children will be forced to endure. Have we adequately prepared them for what they will face or have we grown up at ease by being around a vast majority who believed the way we believe? Have we assumed that our children, too, would be in the company of a majority who will give God His due in deference?
I fear we are a society in transition; not having totally abandoned a recognition of God, but raising up a generation who is more brazen in speaking out against Him and His existence. And as the old guard dies off, will this societal balance of respect for God lean heavily toward the ones who deny Him and His existence?
April 15, 2022, The New York Times published an essay by author Shalom Auslander titled, “In This Time of War, I Propose We Give Up God.” In this essay, the author said that it’s time that we pass over God, for He is an evil God who has been guilty of numerous atrocities, and thus, is not worthy of our emulation or obedience. The author claimed that if God was a mere mortal, He would be dragged before the Hague and convicted of war crimes against humanity.
And this essay was printed in one of the most venerated institutions in our country. In this post, it is not my intent to defend God against blasphemies like this. But I do want us to think about the fact that our world is changing. Lines are being redrawn. Long gone are the days where we could follow a laissez-faire approach to God and be carried along by the ebb-and-flow of society in our belief in God.
The days are here now where we will have to make a decision. Do we believe in a God who created everything or will we follow the ever-increasing chorus of voices in our society who say that God is dead, or that He deserves to be dead? Perhaps the time is here, or almost here, where we will have to start paying a personal price for our faith in God.
I don’t know how this will all play out for us, but I caution that we need to be prepared to take our stand for or against the God of heaven. If the angry mob in society continues to get their way, they will not be content to let us have our private freedom to choose our personal beliefs in a God. We will be urged, shamed, and even threatened to publicly renounce any ties with a God so evil that we would convict Him as a war criminal.
And there is the arrogance that I dread. When God no longer becomes the Judge in His perfect wisdom and justice; perfect grace and conviction. When we topple Him from His rightful place as Creator who is sovereign over all of His creation. When we outgrow our need for Him and evolve past Him.
Yes, our society has changed. But God has not. He is still sovereign and still able to accomplish all of His desires. And if history has taught us anything it is that God will turn man over to our desires when we no longer retain a knowledge of Him in our hearts. And that is when it gets scary for us. No matter how hard we try, we can never put God on trial. But He will put each of us on trial one day.
Let us be careful who we listen to as society seems to turn away from God. There will be a day of reckoning for them, and for us personally, for the choices we make.