Satan will do everything he can to distract us from staying focused on the Lord. And many things he uses are not evil things in and of themselves.
He may throw in a political victory or a political defeat to have us focus an inordinate amount of time cheering or worrying.
He may help us see other people, made in the image of our God, as our mortal enemies because they hold a different political view than we profess. Perhaps we even forget that Jesus died for them, too, because He loved these capitalists or socialists as much as he loved us.
Satan may take a sports team and cause us to dwell on the mistakes or shortcomings of players and coaches, forgetting that it’s just a game, and stir up anger or hatred in our hearts against men and women made in God’s image.
We witness violence and hate speech, either against us, or by people who believe the way we do against those to whom we disagree. It’s easy to have compassion for people who believe the way we believe and feel justified when people with whom we disagree suffer. But those with whom we agree and those with whom we disagree are all made in the image of God.
Satan is a master at helping us feel justified in our hate by getting us to vilify others and forget that we are all made in God’s image and that King Jesus loved them and died for them just as He died for us.
The next time someone does something reprehensible, hate what they are doing, but look at them as one of God’s created children that He loves. He has no pleasure in destroying them. He wants more than anything for the reprehensible to come to repentance.
If God is longing for evil men and women to come to repentance where He will graciously remember their evil acts no more, then shouldn’t we see the violent, the profane, the irreverent people in our society the same way?
We say, “Hate the sin and love the sinner”, but that is often easier said than done. However, that is exactly what Jesus did for you and me. He hated our sins, but He loved us. If we can see people who do and say things we detest, and still love them, it will open us to be the stewards that God wants us to be.
So, when we witness people doing and saying things we detest, let God work in our hearts to help us see them as He sees them, rather than bow before Satan to see them as the devil would have us see them.
“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23 ESV).
“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36 ESV).
I am finishing the book of Leviticus in my daily Bible reading. This is a book where God creates a religion for His people. The rules and rituals cover everything that the people and the priests must do in detail from the sacrifices to how they are to remain holy and clean.
The amazing thing about this book is that it taught people who didn’t know how to worship or act in a way pleasing to God. This detail of worship and ritual usually evolved over decades and centuries. But the Israelites didn’t develop this worship over time; God gave them the details from the beginning.
Sometimes our eyes glaze over these rules and rituals and we totally miss the awesome intervention of the Lord in which He delivered a complete way to worship to a people with no experience worshiping Him this way.
God taught the people how to worship, how to be holy, and how to revere Him. The next time you read this dry book of rules and regulations, remember that it was written to people who had no clue how to worship God until He revealed to them in detail what He wanted.
The book of Leviticus is tangible evidence of the love and providence of God.
I was reading the book of Numbers where God would lead the people in the wilderness by resting a cloud over the tabernacle. When the cloud rested, the people camped, but when the cloud lifted, it was counted as a command of the Lord to break camp and move.
“At the command of the LORD the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the LORD they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp.
Even when the cloud continued over the tabernacle many days, the people of Israel kept the charge of the LORD and did not set out.
Sometimes the cloud was a few days over the tabernacle, and according to the command of the LORD they remained in camp; then according to the command of the LORD they set out.
And sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning. And when the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out, or if it continued for a day and a night, when the cloud lifted they set out.” (Numbers 9:18-21 ESV).
For forty years, they camped when God said to camp and they moved when God said to move. Sometimes they were only a day at camp, sometimes they were there perhaps over a month.
I wonder if they got tired of moving and desired to put down roots and stay in a particular place? That’s the way we think, sometimes, isn’t it?
The Lord leads us through this world toward our heavenly home and often we long to set down roots here. But we need to have the mind of the Israelites in the wilderness. We move where the Lord leads. We don’t put down roots here, but we sojourn as a pilgrim until Jesus leads us home.
We need to enjoy the long periods of time where peace and rest are given by God, but when we find ourselves moving, we need to have faith in God that He will lead us to safety when He wants us to travel with Him.
Perhaps, we pick up and move from a job that is causing us to lose our focus that belongs on God. Perhaps we have to cut ties with our friends and companions who are poor influences in our lives. Perhaps we have to leave behind habits and ruts that have caused us to fall into complacency.
Following the Lord’s lead isn’t always about calling Mayflower, packing up our belongings, and moving to another location. It could be, but more often for us, it is moving away from the parts of our lives that put distance between us and the Lord.
So, as the cloud of the Lord starts to move us in another direction, we have the same choice that the Israelites had in Numbers. We can follow the Lord’s lead or we can stay behind and grow deeper roots. But the deeper roots we grow, the harder it will eventually be to follow the Lord’s lead.
Soon, we may find that the Lord has moved to safety without us while we have stayed behind with deep roots, satisfied with the life we have built without Him.
Here is another unedited excerpt from my upcoming book, The Sovereignty of God…
“Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”
“But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 2:9-10 ESV).
Satan must have been giddy with joy when Mrs. Job gave her husband this advice. The accuser of the brethren did know human nature well. I am too afraid to think of how I would have reacted if I was in Job’s situation, because to my shame, I have said a lot worse when faced with a lot less. And though Mrs. Job was wrong and sinful in urging her husband to curse God and die, I understand why she did it. That doesn’t mean that she was justified or that her sinful comment should be overlooked. But you can understand when a grief-stricken mother of ten who lost her children, lost her means of livelihood, and has a husband who is hanging on to life by a thread is grief-stricken. And when we are face to face with grief-stricken people, aren’t we quick to give grace and slow to condemn? But you have to appreciate Job’s mindset, don’t you? This is a mindset that can only be where it is if you understand the sovereignty of your Creator Who gives and takes away as He pleases:
“But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 2:10 ESV).
So, Job wins. God wins. Satan loses. But it is not over. May I propose an inference as to why this suffering still plays out in forty more chapters? We ask ourselves, why is it that Job has to continue to endure suffering? Let me be clear that I do not know because God does not say. But there are a couple of reasons that may be true, or it may be a reason that we will never know. That said, perhaps God is giving Satan time to wear down Job in order to find a victory over a weakened Job. We have all been there before, haven’t we? We face a new challenge with strength and resolve, but as time drags on with no relief in sight, we start to lose faith.
“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” (Hebrews 2:1 ESV).
Few things cause us to drift away more than when we have to endure trials. Perhaps this is what Satan was angling for. Or, perhaps God knew that Job and his friends, who we are about to meet, needed to learn a lesson about His sovereignty that they didn’t know. It seemed that they had made a couple of assumptions about God that were not true and that led them to some false ideas about who God was which was a challenge to His sovereignty. Maybe God was going to take this terrible thing that Satan had incited Him to do against Job and glorify His name and His sovereignty in a way that only this circumstance could accomplish. Whether or not this is God’s purpose in allowing the suffering to continue, it was certainly a result as we see in the next 40 chapters. This is why I say that the book of Job is more a book on the sovereignty of God than it is a book on suffering.
In Luke 12, Jesus tells the story of the rich man who planned to take his excess produce, build bigger barns to store it, and take it easy for the rest of his life. The problem is that the rich man never considered God in all his plans. Jesus said to him:
“But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (Luke 12:20 ESV).
This is more than a prophet saying that God said this. This is Jesus, God Himself, saying what HE said to the rich man.
This is what we call a primary source. In essence, Jesus said, “I said to him, ‘Fool, tonight I am taking your soul…’”
When Jesus gives us warnings, He’s not speaking as simply a messenger of God. These are His words that will judge us on the last day (John 12:48).
The people who heard Jesus preach realized that He was speaking as someone different from the scribes. He had authority behind His word. This is something we always need to remember too. When we read the words of Jesus, we are reading the words of God Himself.
“And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.” (Mark 1:22 ESV).
Yesterday, we looked at how Jesus spoke as one with authority. He is God and when He told the rich man in Luke 12 that God said this very night his soul would be required of him, it was Jesus, our God, who said that to the rich man.
And in His sermon on the mount, Jesus says this:
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30 ESV).
Again, when you realize Who is saying this, it brings even more comfort to us. Jesus says that God loves us so much more than the grass of the field that He clothes. And Jesus, being God, is giving us insight into His very heart.
In essence, Jesus looks out over His creation listening to Him on the mountainside, and tells them, “I take care of my grass that I created and you, my children, are worth so much more to Me than the grass. If I take care of the grass, how much more do you think that I will take care of you?”
Every time we read where Jesus gives insight into how God feels toward us, we need to understand that He is giving us a personal glimpse into His own heart. What a wonderful God and Savior we have Who tells us so plainly how much He loves us and how He feels when we forget about Him.