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daily devotional
December 20
Morning and Evening
Morning ...
Jeremiah 31:3
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.
Sometimes the Lord Jesus tells His Church His love thoughts. "He does not
think it enough behind her back to tell it, but in her very presence He says,
'Thou art all fair, my love.' It is true, this is not His ordinary method; He
is a wise lover, and knows when to keep back the intimation of love and when to
let it out; but there are times when He will make no secret of it; times when
He will put it beyond all dispute in the souls of His people" (R. Erskine's
Sermons). The Holy Spirit is often pleased, in a most gracious manner, to
witness with our spirits of the love of Jesus. He takes of the things of Christ
and reveals them unto us. No voice is heard from the clouds, and no vision is
seen in the night, but we have a testimony more sure than either of these. If
an angel should fly from heaven and inform the saint personally of the
Saviour's love to him, the evidence would not be one whit more satisfactory
than that which is borne in the heart by the Holy Ghost. Ask those of the
Lord's people who have lived the nearest to the gates of heaven, and they will
tell you that they have had seasons when the love of Christ towards them has
been a fact so clear and sure, that they could no more doubt it than they could
question their own existence. Yes, beloved believer, you and I have had times
of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and then our faith has mounted to
the topmost heights of assurance. We have had confidence to lean our heads upon
the bosom of our Lord, and we have no more questioned our Master's affection to
us than John did when in that blessed posture; nay, nor so much: for the dark
question, "Lord, is it I that shall betray thee?" has been put far from us. He
has kissed us with the kisses of His mouth, and killed our doubts by the
closeness of His embrace. His love has been sweeter than wine to our souls.
Exodus 32:1-6
(1) And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of
the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto
him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
(2) And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the
ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto
me. (3) And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their
ears, and brought them unto Aaron. (4) And he received them at their hand, and
fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they
said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of
Egypt. (5) And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made
proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. (6) And they rose up
early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings;
and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
Go to this verse on Bible Tools
Moses had placed Aaron in charge while he received instruction
from God on Mount Sinai. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Aaron probably
lacked the conviction or courage to fill Moses' shoes adequately in his
absence. To stall for time, he asked the people to contribute to the cause,
hoping to deter them. Understanding the principle of "where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21), he asked them to donate some of
their jewelry.
His plan failed. They eagerly gave of their treasure, showing
where their heart really was. Now Aaron had to go through with it, and he did.
A major motivator in the process of apostasy is contained within
the words, "Moses delayed his coming." Impatience, weariness with the way, and
the constant struggle without any indication of relief are all included. God
repeats this in the New Testament, when Christ warns that the evil servant
says, "My master is delaying His coming" (Matthew 24:48; Luke 12:45). God
emphasizes it just in case His children's endurance begins to lag. He does not
want anyone to turn aside to some exciting distraction in the surrounding
culture.
Unfortunately, that is what occurred here. The impatience and the
weariness of their struggle moved the Israelites to take their eyes off the
Promised Land, their goal. Instead they focused on a more exciting and
stimulating practice from the world they had just left.
The key to this process is found in verses 4 and 5, in the words,
"This is your god, O Israel" and "Aaron made a proclamation and said, 'Tomorrow
is a feast to the LORD.'" Can God be worshipped in any form as long as it is
dedicated to the Lord? Does that please God? Did this celebration become a
feast to the Lord because a man in authority like Aaron proclaimed it? Is God
pleased when His people worship Him in ways other than what He has prescribed?
God's reaction to their idolatrous festivities plainly shows they had turned
aside from what He had delivered to them through Moses (Exodus 32:10).
The world's theologians call this process syncretism, which means
"the combination of different forms of belief or practice; the fusion of two or
more original forms." The incident of the Golden Calf blends the worship of the
true God with the worship of false gods, and the result is proclaimed to be
worship of which the true God approves.
Predictably, God was indignant with the people for defining for
themselves the nature of the god they wanted to serve. They were preventing the
God of heaven from defining His own nature as revealed in His laws, His way,
and His actions for and against them. Their experience with these things would
teach them about Him. Instead, they decided to define that nature, and chose
the form of a bull, a god commonly worshipped in Egypt.
Is God a bull? Of course not! Is God confined to what a bull can
do? Of course not! To modern thought worshipping a bull seems silly and
foolish, but the spiritual lesson involved is serious. The essence of idolatry
is defining the nature of God, not according to His Word, but according to
human experience and ideas.
What is the effect of man defining God according to his own
ideals? His god determines his standards. These standards are immediately
perceived in his conduct, which can rise only as high as his god, as
exemplified in Exodus 32:6: "Then they rose early on the next day, offered
burnt offerings [a form of worship], and brought peace offerings [indicating
fellowship between God, the priest and offerer]; and the people sat down to eat
and drink, and rose up to play."
As one might imagine, they were not engaging in ordinary eating
and drinking and playing. They were not throwing a ball around, they were not
shooting a ball through a hoop, nor were they kicking a ball around a field.
They were playing! These people were involved in a gluttonous, drunken
debauchery! "Play" suggests conjugal caresses-fornication and adultery!
The symbolism is obvious. When the nature of the true God is
falsely defined, the effect will be spiritual adultery. There will be a
deterioration, a degeneration, of society expressed in peoples' conduct.
Plummeting standards and moral laxity are the fruit produced. Writing of
Christianity in the second century, historian Will Durant observes, "Much of
this difficult code [of conduct, as practiced by the apostolic church] was
predicated on the early return of Christ. As that hope faded, the voice of the
flesh rose again, and Christian morals were relaxed" (Caesar and Christ, p.
599).
God handled Israel's debauchery at Sinai severely, but
unfortunately, Israel failed to learn the lesson. They never understood the
principle of worshipping God as He instructed. In fact, it led to their
eventual destruction and captivity.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From Guard the Truth!
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Morning and Evening
Morning ...
Joel 2:13
Rend your heart, and not your garments.
Garment-rendering and other outward signs of religious emotion, are easily
manifested and are frequently hypocritical; but to feel true repentance is far
more difficult, and consequently far less common. Men will attend to the most
multiplied and minute ceremonial regulations-for such things are pleasing to
the flesh-but true religion is too humbling, too heart-searching, too thorough
for the tastes of the carnal men; they prefer something more ostentatious,
flimsy, and worldly. Outward observances are temporarily comfortable; eye and
ear are pleased; self-conceit is fed, and self-righteousness is puffed up: but
they are ultimately delusive, for in the article of death, and at the day of
judgment, the soul needs something more substantial than ceremonies and rituals
to lean upon. Apart from vital godliness all religion is utterly vain; offered
without a sincere heart, every form of worship is a solemn sham and an impudent
mockery of the majesty of heaven. HEART-RENDING is divinely wrought and
solemnly felt. It is a secret grief which is personally experienced, not in
mere form, but as a deep, soul-moving work of the Holy Spirit upon the inmost
heart of each believer. It is not a matter to be merely talked of and believed
in, but keenly and sensitively felt in every living child of the living God. It
is powerfully humiliating, and completely sin-purging; but then it is sweetly
preparative for those gracious consolations which proud unhumbled spirits are
unable to receive; and it is distinctly discriminating, for it belongs to the
elect of God, and to them alone. The text commands us to rend our hearts, but
they are naturally hard as marble: how, then, can this be done? We must take
them to Calvary: a dying Saviour's voice rent the rocks once, and it is as
powerful now. O blessed Spirit, let us hear the death-cries of Jesus, and our
hearts shall be rent even as men rend their vestures in the day of lamentation.
2 Corinthians 13:5
(5) Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know
ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be
reprobates?
God, through Paul, commands us to examine our faith and to test ourselves. How
can we know the strength of our faith-our belief in the words of God? One of
the ways is to examine our fears and worries.
Nehemiah writes, "For this reason he was hired, that I should be afraid and act
that way and sin, so that they might have cause for an evil report, that they
might reproach me" ( Nehemiah 6:13). Why did Nehemiah call being afraid a sin?
Because fear and worry call God a liar, insinuating that His words about His
sovereignty, love, power, and faithfulness are not to be trusted. Fear and
worry mirror the attitudes of a faithless Satan who believes God exists but
does not believe what He says.
Philippians 4:6 tells us, "Be anxious for nothing." In other words, we are
commanded, "Don't worry about anything," another of God's absolutes. To have
fear, worry, anxiety, or forebodings question God's goodness and care. They
display a lack of faith in His promises of wise and gracious providence and
cast doubts on the depth of the love God and Christ have for us. If we cannot
trust God, how can He ever trust us? Why would Christ marry forever someone who
doubts His love?
Rather than give in to fear and worry, we can choose-an action-to believe God
and His love. If we believe in the depth of the love God ( John 17:23) and
Christ ( John 15:13) have for us, believing those words, faith in that perfect
love will cast out fear ( I John 4:18) so that we can say as David did: "I will
fear no evil; for You are with me" ( Psalm 23:4).
In Psalm 78:22 (New Living Translation-NLT), David succinctly cuts to the heart
of Israel's problem, and by extension, ours: ". . . for they did not believe
God or trust him to care for them." Doubting God's love for us is at the core
of the sin of faithlessness. This doubt was a major characteristic of our
ancestors, ancient Israel. ". . . because the people of Israel argued with
Moses and tested the Lord by saying, 'Is the Lord going to take care of us or
not?'" [ Exodus 17:7 (NLT)] They never overcame this sin of faithlessness. We
must. The stakes are so much higher.
It is sobering to consider the fate of the fearful and unbelieving and the rank
they are given in the list found in Revelation 21:8: "But the cowardly
[fearful, KJV], unbelieving [faithless, RSV], abominable, murderers, sexually
immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake
which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
God tested the faith of Adam and Eve and of Abraham. The former failed, the
latter succeeded. Eventually, God will put every human being to the same test.
As we cope with these tests we need to stir up ( II Timothy 1:6) and exercise
that gift of faith God gave us at the beginning, to get back to that first love
and dedication to the words and promises God has given us.
We have the same choice as Adam and Eve, ancient Israel, and Abraham had. It is
our decision to make: to believe God or to believe what we see-the visible
circumstances we face. Faith is life ( Habakkuk 2:4), and faithlessness is sin
( Romans 14:23) and therefore death ( Romans 6:23). God entreats us to choose
life ( Deuteronomy 30:19).
Pat Higgins
>From Faith-What Is It?
