From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening ...
Leviticus 19:36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin,
shall ye have.
Weights, and scales, and measures were to be all according to the standard of
justice. Surely no Christian man will need to be reminded of this in his
business, for if righteousness were banished from all the world beside, it
should find a shelter in believing hearts. There are, however, other balances
which weigh moral and spiritual things, and these often need examining. We will
call in the officer to-night. The balances in which we weigh our own and other
men's characters, are they quite accurate? Do we not turn our own ounces of
goodness into pounds, and other persons' bushels of excellence into pecks? See
to weights and measures here, Christian. The scales in which we measure our
trials and troubles, are they according to standard? Paul, who had more to
suffer than we have, called his afflictions light, and yet we often consider
ours to be heavy-surely something must be amiss with the weights! We must see
to this matter, lest we get reported to the court above for unjust dealing.
Those weights with which we measure our doctrinal belief, are they quite fair?
The doctrines of grace should have the same weight with us as the precepts of
the word, no more and no less; but it is to be feared that with many one scale
or the other is unfairly weighted. It is a grand matter to give just measure in
truth. Christian, be careful here. Those measures in which we estimate our
obligations and responsibilities look rather small. When a rich man gives no
more to the cause of God than the poor contribute, is that a just ephah and a
just hin? When ministers are half starved, is that honest dealing? When the
poor are despised, while ungodly rich men are held in admiration, is that a
just balance? Reader, we might lengthen the list, but we prefer to leave it as
your evening's work to find out and destroy all unrighteous balances, weights,
and measures.
Evening ...
Job 38:16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
Some things in nature must remain a mystery to the most intelligent and
enterprising investigators. Human knowledge has bounds beyond which it cannot
pass. Universal knowledge is for God alone. If this be so in the things which
are seen and temporal, I may rest assured that it is even more so in matters
spiritual and eternal. Why, then, have I been torturing my brain with
speculations as to destiny and will, fixed fate, and human responsibility?
These deep and dark truths I am no more able to comprehend than to find out the
depth which coucheth beneath, from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why
am I so curious to know the reason of my Lord's providences, the motive of His
actions, the design of His visitations? Shall I ever be able to clasp the sun
in my fist, and hold the universe in my palm? yet these are as a drop of a
bucket compared with the Lord my God. Let me not strive to understand the
infinite, but spend my strength in love. What I cannot gain by intellect I can
possess by affection, and let that suffice me. I cannot penetrate the heart of
the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful breezes which sweep over its bosom, and
I can sail over its blue waves with propitious winds. If I could enter the
springs of the sea, the feat would serve no useful purpose either to myself or
to others, it would not save the sinking bark, or give back the drowned mariner
to his weeping wife and children; neither would my solving deep mysteries avail
me a single whit, for the least love to God, and the simplest act of obedience
to Him, are better than the profoundest knowledge. My Lord, I leave the
infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far from me such a love for the tree of
knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life.
a..
1 Corinthians 3:9-10
(9) For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's
husbandry, ye are God's building. (10) According to the grace of God which is
given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another
buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
If God places us within an office in the church—as an elder
or a deacon—it must be looked upon as a blessing that is a responsibility, not
a reward! It is given for God's purposes. Paul even had his office as apostle
because it was given to him. It is implied that all the powers to perform it
were also given. He used them to lay the foundation.
Everybody else is the same way. The important thing is that
each one of us must use our gifts to build. Paul ys "Be careful how you build."
The foundation that was laid is Jesus Christ. When we begin to expand on it, it
consists of the apostles and the prophets as well—the things that they wrote
and the examples that they set. Everybody is to build on the same foundation!
God gives everybody the gifts to enable them to do so.
To some, God gives gifts to be apostles; to others, He
gives gifts to be an evangelist, pastor, teacher, or whatever. They are given,
though, and every time God gives an office, He gives all that is needed for the
person to fulfill that office—including overcoming sin.
The Bible consistently teaches that an office is not a
place from which to exercise power, but a position from which to exercise
service. The authority is certainly there, since God gives it. He always gives
the authority to go with the office, but having it means that the elder or
deacon must also have the right perspective on how to use the office God has
given him. The office is given, not earned.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From Grace Upon Grace
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daily devotional
Evening ...
Jeremiah 49:23 There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.
Little know we what sorrow may be upon the sea at this moment. We are safe in
our quiet chamber, but far away on the salt sea the hurricane may be cruelly
seeking for the lives of men. Hear how the death fiends howl among the cordage;
how every timber starts as the waves beat like battering rams upon the vessel!
God help you, poor drenched and wearied ones! My prayer goes up to the great
Lord of sea and land, that He will make the storm a calm, and bring you to your
desired haven! Nor ought I to offer prayer alone, I should try to benefit those
hardy men who risk their lives so constantly. Have I ever done anything for
them? What can I do? How often does the boisterous sea swallow up the mariner!
Thousands of corpses lie where pearls lie deep. There is death-sorrow on the
sea, which is echoed in the long wail of widows and orphans. The salt of the
sea is in many eyes of mothers and wives. Remorseless billows, ye have devoured
the love of women, and the stay of households. What a resurrection shall there
be from the caverns of the deep when the sea gives up her dead! Till then there
will be sorrow on the sea. As if in sympathy with the woes of earth, the sea is
for ever fretting along a thousand shores, wailing with a sorrowful cry like
her own birds, booming with a hollow crash of unrest, raving with uproarious
discontent, chafing with hoarse wrath, or jangling with the voices of ten
thousand murmuring pebbles. The roar of the sea may be joyous to a rejoicing
spirit, but to the son of sorrow the wide, wide ocean is even more forlorn than
the wide, wide world. This is not our rest, and the restless billows tell us
so. There is a land where there is no more sea-our faces are steadfastly set
towards it; we are going to the place of which the Lord hath spoken. Till then,
we cast our sorrows on the Lord who trod the sea of old, and who maketh a way
for His people through the depths thereof.
Morning ...
Hosea 14:8 From Me is thy fruit found.
Our fruit is found from our God as to union. The fruit of the branch is
directly traceable to the root. Sever the connection, the branch dies, and no
fruit is produced. By virtue of our union with Christ we bring forth fruit.
Every bunch of grapes have been first in the root, it has passed through the
stem, and flowed through the sap vessels, and fashioned itself externally into
fruit, but it was first in the stem; so also every good work was first in
Christ, and then is brought forth in us. O Christian, prize this precious union
to Christ; for it must be the source of all the fruitfulness which thou canst
hope to know. If thou wert not joined to Jesus Christ, thou wouldst be a barren
bough indeed. Our fruit comes from God as to spiritual providence. When the
dew-drops fall from heaven, when the cloud looks down from on high, and is
about to distil its liquid treasure, when the bright sun swells the berries of
the cluster, each heavenly boon may whisper to the tree and say, "From me is
thy fruit found." The fruit owes much to the root-that is essential to
fruitfulness-but it owes very much also to external influences. How much we owe
to God's grace-providence! in which He provides us constantly with quickening,
teaching, consolation, strength, or whatever else we want. To this we owe our
all of usefulness or virtue. Our fruit comes from God as to wise husbandry. The
gardener's sharp-edged knife promotes the fruitfulness of the tree, by thinning
the clusters, and by cutting off superfluous shoots. So is it, Christian, with
that pruning which the Lord gives to thee. "My Father is the husbandman. Every
branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that
beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Since our God
is the author of our spiritual graces, let us give to Him all the glory of our
salvation.
Galatians 4:9-10
(9) But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of
God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire
again to be in bondage? (10) Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
The common, traditional explanation of Galatians 4:9-10 is that
Paul is reprimanding the Galatians for returning to Old Testament observances
that were a form of "bondage." Insisting that Paul taught that the Old
Testament law was "done away" (Colossians 2:14), they conclude that Christians
should not keep the days that God had commanded Israel to keep. In verse 10,
Paul mentions observances of "days and months and seasons and years." Some
contend that these observances refer to God's Sabbath and holy days commanded
in the Old Testament. But this interpretation overlooks many foundational
points.
Galatia was not a city but a province in Asia Minor. The church
membership was undoubtedly composed mainly of Gentiles, and the males were
physically uncircumcised (Galatians 5:2; 6:12-13). In looking at Paul's initial
dealings with these people, we find that they had a history of worshipping
pagan deities. In Lystra, a city in Galatia, God healed a crippled man through
Paul (Acts 14:8-18). The people of the area were so astonished at this miracle
that they supposed Barnabas and Paul, whom they called Zeus and Hermes (verse
12), to be pagan gods! They wanted to sacrifice to them, and would have, if the
apostles had not stopped them (verses 13-18). This shows that the people in
Galatia were ge nerally superstitious and worshipped pagan deities.
The major theme of the Galatian epistle is to put them "back on
the track" because someone had been teaching "a different gospel," a perversion
of the gospel of Christ (Galatians 1:6-7). The Galatians had derailed on their
understanding of how sinners are justified. False teachers in Galatia taught
that one was justified by doing physical works of some kind. The majority of
evidence indicates that the false teachers were teaching a blend of Judaism and
Gnosticism. The philosophy of Gnosticism taught that everything physical was
evil, and that people could attain a higher spiritual understanding through
effort. It was the type of philosophy that its adherents thought could be used
to enhance or improve anyone's r eligion. In Paul's letter to the Colossians,
we read of this same philosophy having an influence on the church there. It was
characterized by strict legalism, a "taste not, touch not" attitude, neglect of
the body, worship of angels, and a false humility (Colossians 2:18-23).
What, then, were the "days, months, seasons and years" that Paul
criticizes the Galatians for observing? First, Paul nowhere in the entire
letter mentions God's holy days. Second, the apostle would never refer to holy
days that God instituted as "weak and beggarly elements." He honored and
revered God's law (Romans 7:12, 14, 16). Besides, he taught the Corinthians to
observe Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread (I Corinthians 5:7- 8), and
he kept the Sabbath and holy days himself (Acts 16:13; 18:21; 20:6; I
Corinthians 16:8).
When the scriptures in question are put into context, the
explanation of what these days were becomes clear. In Galatians 4:1-5, Paul
draws an analogy in which he likens the Jew to a child who is waiting to come
into an inheritance and the Gentile to a slave in the same household. He
explains how, before the coming of Christ, the spiritual state of the Jew was
no different from the Gentile because neither had had their sins forgiven nor
had they received God's Spirit. Prior to the coming of Christ, both Jews and
Gentiles were "in bondage under the elements of the world" (verse 3).
The word "elements" is the Greek stoicheion, which means any
first thing or principal. "In bondage under the elements of the world" refers
to the fact that the unconverted mind is subject to the influence of Satan and
his demons, the rulers of this world and the authors of all idolatrous worship.
Satan and his demons are the origin, the underlying cause, of the evil ways of
this world, and all unconverted humans are under their sway. "Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor
indeed can be" (Romans 8:7). Paul is saying that both Jews and Gentiles had
been in bondage to sin.
In Galatians 4:8, Paul brings up the subject of the idolatry and
paganism that they had participated in before their conversion. "But then,
indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not
gods." This obviously refers to the worship of pagan deities (Acts 14:8-18). He
is making it clear that God had called them out of that way of life. Paul
continues this thought in verse 9, where his obvious concern was that the
Galatians were returning to the way of life from which God had called them. The
"weak and beggarly elements" were demon-inspired, idolatrous practices, NOT
something God had commanded. "Elements" here is the same word, stoicheion,
translated "elements" in verse 3. An extension of stoicheion can refer to the
heavenly bodies that regulate the calendar and are associated with pagan
festivals. The apostle condemns the practices and way of life that had been
inspired by Satan and his demons, the principal cause of all the world's evil.
Paul recognized that the Galatians had begun to return to their former slavish,
sinful practices.
It is evident that the "days, months, seasons and years" Paul
refers to in verse 10 were the pagan, idolatrous festivals and observances that
the Galatian Gentiles had observed before their conversion. They could not
possibly be God's holy days because these Gentiles had never observed them
before being called, nor would Paul ever call them "weak and beggerly." Rather,
they were turning back to their old, heathen way of life that included keeping
various superstitious holidays connected to the worship of pagan deities.
Far from doing away with God's holy days, these scriptures show
that we should not be observing "days, months, seasons and years" that have
their roots in paganism, such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Halloween,
and any other days that originated from the worship of pagan gods.
Earl L. Henn (1934-1997)
From Does Paul Condemn Observing God's Holy Days?
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