From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening...
Isaiah 64:6
We are all as an unclean thing.
The believer is a new creature, he belongs to a holy generation and a
peculiar people-the Spirit of God is in him, and in all respects he is far
removed from the natural man; but for all that the Christian is a sinner still.
He is so from the imperfection of his nature, and will continue so to the end
of his earthly life. The black fingers of sin leave smuts upon our fairest
robes. Sin mars our repentance, ere the great Potter has finished it, upon the
wheel. Selfishness defiles our tears, and unbelief tampers with our faith. The
best thing we ever did apart from the merit of Jesus only swelled the number of
our sins; for when we have been most pure in our own sight, yet, like the
heavens, we are not pure in God's sight; and as He charged His angels with
folly, much more must He charge us with it, even in our most angelic frames of
mind. The song which thrills to heaven, and seeks to emulate seraphic strains,
hath human discords in it. The prayer w! hich moves the arm of God is still a
bruised and battered prayer, and only moves that arm because the sinless One,
the great Mediator, has stepped in to take away the sin of our supplication.
The most golden faith or the purest degree of sanctification to which a
Christian ever attained on earth, has still so much alloy in it as to be only
worthy of the flames, in itself considered. Every night we look in the glass we
see a sinner, and had need confess, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Oh, how precious the blood of Christ
to such hearts as ours! How priceless a gift is His perfect righteousness! And
how bright the hope of perfect holiness hereafter! Even now, though sin dwells
in us, its power is broken. It has no dominion; it is a broken-backed snake; we
are in bitter conflict with it, but it is with a vanquished foe that we have to
deal. Yet a little while and we shall enter victoriously into the city where
nothing defileth! .
2 Kings 17:33
(33) They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of
the nations whom they carried away from thence.
This chapter reports on the behavior of the people placed in Israel after
Israel's conquest and deportation by Assyria between 722-720 BC. These people,
who became known as the Samaritans, feared the Lord but worshipped their own
gods. They were afraid of God, but they did not really change their way of
life. Thus, they developed a syncretic religious system, a blending of the
truth of God and outright paganism. The Jews of Christ's day clearly recognized
this putrid blend and despised the Samaritans for it.
What is so interesting is that, by verse 36, God is no longer reporting
on the Samaritans but is addressing Israel. In other words, God is saying that
He was driven to defeat and scatter Israel because they were guilty of exactly
the same sin as the Samaritans! They too had blended the worship of the true
God with outright paganism, utterly corrupting the relationship He had
established with them.
It is urgent that we understand what is involved here because it reveals
the cause of God's anger that led to Israel's defeat and scattering. We must
understand that our god is not what we say we worship but what we serve. Our
god is what we give our lives over to.
Theoretically, the Israelites did not believe in idols, but in reality,
they did. They believed in a Creator God, but they worshipped Him at the
shrines they erected to the Baals. While they gave lip service to the Creator,
they adopted most of the Canaanitish religion with its lewd immorality, and in
actual practice, patterned their life after it. In daily life, they conformed
to and reflected the Babylonish system just as Israel does today. This is
exactly what God warns us to flee, and the only way to come out of it is by
developing and maturing in our relationship with God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From Be There Next Year
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daily devotional
Evening...
1 Samuel 15:22
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.
Paul had been commanded to slay utterly all the Amalekites and their cattle.
Instead of doing so, he preserved the king, and suffered his people to take the
best of the oxen and of the sheep. When called to account for this, he declared
that he did it with a view of offering sacrifice to God; but Samuel met him at
once with the assurance that sacrifices were no excuse for an act of direct
rebellion. The sentence before us is worthy to be printed in letters of gold,
and to be hung up before the eyes of the present idolatrous generation, who are
very fond of the fineries of will-worship, but utterly neglect the laws of God.
Be it ever in your remembrance, that to keep strictly in the path of your
Saviour's command is better than any outward form of religion; and to hearken
to His precept with an attentive ear is better than to bring the fat of rams,
or any other precious thing to lay upon His altar. If you are failing to keep
the least of Christ's co! mmands to His disciples, I pray you be disobedient no
longer. All the pretensions you make of attachment to your Master, and all the
devout actions which you may perform, are no recompense for disobedience. "To
obey," even in the slightest and smallest thing, "is better than sacrifice,"
however pompous. Talk not of Gregorian chants, sumptuous robes, incense, and
banners; the first thing which God requires of His child is obedience; and
though you should give your body to be burned, and all your goods to feed the
poor, yet if you do not hearken to the Lord's precepts, all your formalities
shall profit you nothing. It is a blessed thing to be teachable as a little
child, but it is a much more blessed thing when one has been taught the lesson,
to carry it out to the letter. How many adorn their temples and decorate their
priests, but refuse to obey the word of the Lord! My soul, come not thou into
their secret.
Luke 4:6
(6) And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the
glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give
it.
Notice that the Devil has authority over the whole world, and he
delegates authority to whomever he wishes.
Jesus refers to Satan as the "ruler of this world" ( John 12:31; 14:30;
16:11). Christ recognizes Satan as the present ruler of the world. However,
Satan does not rule alone. He has a whole a! rmy of fallen angels, called
demons, at his disposal. The apostle Paul refers to these evil rulers in his
letter to the Ephesians. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (
Ephesians 6:12). These demons may number in the multiple millions (compare
Revelation 5:11 and Revelation 12:3-4< /A>).
God gives us an occasional glimpse in His Word about how these evil
forces are used by Him to influence the rulers of nations. One such vignette
occurs in I Kings 22. When Ahab, the evil ruler of Israel, is trying to decide
whether to fight against Syria to retake Ramoth Gilead, Jehoshaphat, the king
of Judah, persuades him to consult his prophets first. All of his prophets tell
him to proceed with the battle because God would give him a great victory.
However, Micaiah, a true prophet of God, tells him that God had allowed an evil
spirit to put lies into the mouths of Ahab's prophets. This is because it is
God's purpose that Ahab be killed in the battle. Ahab shuns Micaiah, takes the
advice of his own prophets, and is killed while fighting the Syrian armies.
In His prophecies regarding those things that will happen close to the
second coming of Jesus Christ, God clearly describes how He permits Satan to
influence the nations of the world in order to fulfill His end-time prophecies.
In Revelation 12, God describes how there will be a great war in heaven
sometime near the second coming of Jesus Christ. Satan and his demons will be
cast down to the earth and will bring about great persecution on the church of
God.
Earl L. Henn (1934-1997)
From The Great Conspiracy
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