A Little On the Dumb Side!

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to bring you twelve wooden staffs, one from each leader of Israel’s ancestral tribes, and inscribe each leader’s name on his staff.  Inscribe Aaron’s name on the staff of the tribe of Levi, for there must be one staff for the leader of each ancestral tribe.  Place these staffs in the Tabernacle in front of the Ark containing the tablets of the Covenant, where I meet with you.  Buds will sprout on the staff belonging to the man I choose.  Then I will finally put an end to the people’s murmuring and complaining against you.”  So Moses gave the instructions to the people of Israel, and each of the twelve tribal leaders, including Aaron, brought Moses a staff.  Moses placed the staffs in the Lord’s presence in the Tabernacle of the Covenant.  When he went into the Tabernacle of the Covenant the next day, he found that Aaron’s staff, representing the tribe of Levi, had sprouted, budded, blossomed, and produced ripe almonds!  When Moses brought all the staffs out from the Lord’s presence, he showed them to the people.  Each man claimed his own staff.  And the Lord said to Moses: “Place Aaron’s staff permanently before the Ark of the Covenant to serve as a warning to rebels.  This should put an end to their complaints against me and prevent any further deaths.”  So Moses did as the Lord commanded him.  Then the people of Israel said to Moses, “Look, we are doomed!  We are dead!  We are ruined!  Everyone who even comes close to the Tabernacle of the Lord dies.  Are we all doomed to die?”  Numbers 17:1-13

If there is one consistent theme in Scripture about the people of God it’s their inconsistency (with a few notable exceptions).  It’s like that New Year’s resolution you make about eating less, working-out more, and avoiding driving past Krispy Kreme; the vow lasts until the next temptation arrives.  And so it goes.

The next temptation for Israel was always grumbling about the way they were led; the target of their grumbling was all about the leader, Moses, a humble man. But over and again God had demonstrated Moses was the leader.  Even with a dead stick budding, blooming, and producing ripe almonds, all in the space of one night[1], demonstrating God’s leadership choice, God’s gracious miracle only produced fear in the hearts of the people.  And fear will destroy any faith!

Such is the point of this account.  Time after time God’s people were in a crisis and God rescued them from danger; each time there was immediate relief, but the return to fear and grumbling (with its accompanying unbelief, or lack of faith) arrived within nanoseconds. 

And so it goes…even today.

This problem is not a particularly Jewish thing; it’s endemic to humanity.  It started with the first sin in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve took a bite, realized their separation from God, heard the Lord approaching, and they hid!  They hid because of their shame, knowing (as fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil suggests), that they were now less than they were created to be, and had separated themselves from God.  And what were they hiding from?  The Lord, the solution to their problem.  And what did they do about it when busted for their sins?  They offered excuses trying to deflect their responsibility to others:

      Eve:  The serpent tricked me 

      Adam:  Lord, the woman YOU made, gave me that bite.  And so it goes.

For You Today 

The question of the day (and of the ages) is…when we’ve seen how that worked-out for Adam and Eve, why do we join them in that foolishness?  All it produces is more fear and grumbling.  When fear arises, it kills your faith.  Wouldn’t it save a myriad of trouble and heartache to live in faith, and let it destroy your fears?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Title Image Pixabay.com  Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] It takes one year after a bush has matured (3-4 years) to produce the first crop – see Nav Athwal article Forbes

Morning Prayer

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Your laws are wonderful.  No wonder I obey them!  The teaching of your word gives light, so even the simple can understand.  I pant with expectation, longing for your commands.  Come and show me your mercy, as you do for all who love your name.  Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.  Psalm 119:129-133

Laws are meant to be broken!  So goes the twisted thinking of the outlaw.  Yet, those who perceive themeselves as uniquely qualified to judge the laws of God and man do not realize (or perhaps they do not care) that by ignoring how the Sovereign Lord has designed life to be a blessing, they are storing up misery for themselves, and anyone who will follow their lead.  Jesus, speaking to religious leaders who were largely hypocritical imposters, said they looked like big shots, parading around in their expensive robes, but on the inside they were lawbreakers; their hearts were set on their own will, not God’s:

 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.  Matthew 23:28

The “law” the Psalmist characterized as “wonderful” was what we commonly call the Ten Commandments[1].  What makes them so wonderful is the power they contain to make life wonderful and a blessing to all who live within their parameters.  Consider the outcome when we live God’s way:

1.    No other gods – Life is better with focus…not a thousand different gods.

2.    Worship God, not what He has created – again focus…worship only God.

3.    Keep God’s name holy – think of life without Hollywood’s profanity!

4.    Sabbath reserved for worship – we often forget important stuff.  A routine that includes worship guards against slipping-away from good living.

5.    Honor father & mother – what you do is what you’ll also receive…honor.

6.    Do not murder – would our lives be better off with less homicide?

7.    Do not commit adultery – wouldn’t trust be better than constant suspicion?

8.    Do not steal – would life be better if we could do without locks on things?

9.    No false witness – if truth reigned, the courts would be empty.

10. No greed for what’s not yours – would life be simpler if we were people of glad contentment – both for what we have, and glad for what our neighbor has worked for?

Now that’s the short list of benefit tracks that could make life much sweeter.  There could be volumes written on all the side benefits associated with living like God designed it.  But the chief benefit of all is being able to approach God at any time of day with confidence that your prayers will be heard with Heaven’s favor.  The value of having an up-to-the-minute relationship with the King of the Universe is eternal joy.  Knowing He loves you is wonderful, but sensing His presence, because your heart is clean before Him is abundance in all that makes life worthwhile. 

For You Today 

My morning prayer, every morning tracks with the Psalmist’s thought:

Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.

I want that more than life itself. 

If in this moment it was possible for you to have a house valued at $5-million, and a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, $3-billion in the bank, and be elected President of the United States – OR an up-to-the-minute, intimate friendship with God, which would you choose?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Exodus 20:1-17

From WHAT to WHY and EVERYTHING In-Between

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

So Moses chiseled out two tablets of stone like the first ones.  Early in the morning he climbed Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands.  Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh.  The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh!  The Lord!  The God of compassion and mercy!  I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.  I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations.  I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.  But I do not excuse the guilty.  I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.  Exodus 34:4-7

There is a statement which, in essence, is deeply-ingrained in American culture, and is unquestionably anti-Christian.  It uncovers just how far we can drop from the tree of faith.  The statement (or its equivalent) is thus:

Nobody can tell me what to do; it’s MY life.

There are two responses to that statement which make it a logical non sequitur:

     1.    Your life would be yours alone if you didn’t belong to someone else.

     2.    Your life’s actions would have no consequences if the One who owns you didn’t connect you to everyone else, including your family tree.

The first response comes from the unquestionable fact that you didn’t create yourself.  Your parents had a hand in things, but it was God who formed you in the womb, and breathed the breath of a soul into your bones.  God said so in his meeting with Moses…Yahweh…the LORD; He is the Creator/Owner of all.

The second response is about consequences of what we do, which Yahweh also covered in the agenda with Moses.  The “document” he chiseled in stone covered the basic details of human behavior.  We call it the Ten Commandments; we venerate them, and, to a person, violate them.  And when we transgress those we set up misery for those who follow, even to the third and fourth generation.

Of course there is a positive side to view in this.  When we are obedient to God’s ways, we set up blessing to the generations that follow.  However, adopting the current culture’s mindset of I’m the only one that matters…I’ll do what I want, is hardly a formula for blessing.  Suppose that “what I want” is to become an alcoholic-addicted bank robber?  Think of the tentacles that reach into the wake of your actions for the many humans of the world’s population.  And imagine your children (and theirs) living with the fallout from that heritage of your behavior. 

When it comes to communicating a message of God’s love and our responsibility to respond with Godly living, people want to know why they should be subjected to living within so many rules.  Well, you have questions, and you want answers; God, the Sovereign Lord of the universe and all it holds has those answers, from the WHAT, to the WHY, and EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN!

For You Today 

Do you remember what your father or mother (or both) said to you when you asked the why question as a little child?  They said:  Because I said so.

You didn’t like that…it wasn’t enough.  Now you understand…they were only repeating what God said.  He said to Moses, and all of us:  That stuff I wrote on those stone tablets…you do it…because I AM said so.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

            Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Trivial Pursuit  and  Rats      

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Weeping While the Harps are Silent

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem.  We put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees.  For our captors demanded a song from us.  Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn:  “Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!”  But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?  Psalm 137:1-4

I kinda know how the Psalmist felt…captured, caught, defeated, deflated of any hope that the future will get better.  There are millions of scenarios you could draw from the history of human experience to match the pathos of a soul caught in weeping, unable to sing, or even manage a faint shadow of a smile.  All tragedy (and even humor) arises out of the difficulties of life. 

It's impossible (for me) to talk about trouble without remembering that Job said we humans were born for it, just as certainly as the sparks fly upward from a fire.[1]  Each week in untold numbers of churches across the world, hands are raised to call a name in prayer.  These requests are the communication of the compassion of Christians for believers and unbelievers alike.  We pray for all sorts of illnesses, surgeries, accidents, and war victims.  We pray for a myriad of life’s mayhem and mourning.  And then, we’ll sing a hymn.  Often a joyful one. 

The point is, nobody likes to stay in the dark too long.  We want to be lifted by brighter thoughts and posssibilities.  And thus it is ever – we pray against the dark, drawing hope against the extant shadows.  But sometimes our darkness sings a joyful song as if it were a funeral dirge.  We know the words, but have sadly lost the joy of the melody.

According to the Psalmist, it was worse than that for the former residents of Jerusalem.  They’d been defeated politically; their homeland decimated by the unstoppable armies of Babylon, and all their young people carried off to the enemy’s homeland, to serve as slaves.  Not much to celebrate there.  It was time to hang the harps on the tree branches – there would be no happy songs with which to sing and dance.  Life was going to be one long, dreary treadmill; the only relief would be the graveyard.  That certainly would not be the advertisement you’re looking for on a travel brochure!

Jeremiah understood the national mood of the captives, and their weeping.  It’s not stretching the truth when I say most Christians understand that profile in our day, even though we still live in a land of relative prosperity and personal freedom, greater than many countries in the world.  We still celebrate remnants of a Christian national heritage.  However, truth be told, we can also see the gathering storm clouds, a darkening horizon of godlessness in this worldly culture.  We have moved past the God is Dead stage of the 1960’s to the next-worse stage; we have entered the age of God is Irrelevant!  And…God help us…if that is an accurate forecast, we are in the Days of Noah, just waiting for the flood of judgment’s hammer to fall.

For You Today

If there is one thing I have learned about dark times, it is that it is proof that God’s promises are true, and always kept.  It matters little what cultural trends want to proclaim…God is never irrelevant…He is patient, but even that will end some day.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Boiling Point   and   Joy in Troubling Times   

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Job 5:7

Us Too?

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Peter asked, “Lord, is that illustration just for us or for everyone?”  And the Lord replied, “A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them.  If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward.  I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns.  But what if the servant thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’ and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk?  The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant in pieces and banish him with the unfaithful.  “And a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions, will be severely punished.  But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.  Luke 12:41-48

Jesus was telling the disciples about responsibility in being his follower.  If you choose to respond and follow Jesus, the reward will be reconciled with the faithfulness of your service.  In true teaching mode, Jesus had to go over the main points a few times before even the sharpest disciple got it…there is no inside group…it’s the same instructions for everybody. 

It's much more popular (for obvious reasons) to dwell on the loving, inclusiveness of Jesus, than to even mention the possibility of judgment.  However, if you check the Gospel accounts closely, or even scan them quickly, we find that Jesus regularly taught about the reality of judgment.  His parables all consistently contrasted reward and punishment.  In fact, there is much more about Hell in Scripture than Heaven.  Consider these:

·       In Matthew’s Gospel there are foolish virgins who let their oil run out, a lazy manager who abuses his power, faithful and unfaithful servants who face an accounting on judgment day.  They are the goats separated from the sheep in final reward and remorse.  (Matthew 25)

·       In just two chapters of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 16, 17) there is the judgment of a lazy manager who abused his power, religious leaders who loved money more than the God they were supposed to be serving, serial wife-changing power people, and a rich man in Hell, begging a poor man in Heaven to bring him a drink.

·       In the Old Testament account of Esther, Haman, a proud official, second only to King Xerxes, plotted against the Jews, and particularly Esther’s uncle Mordecai.  Haman’s plan was to kill all the Jews, and impale Mordecai on a 75-foot high sharpened pole, to highlight his power.  But, in the final chapter, this is how Haman’s plan turned out:

Then King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, “I have given Esther the property of Haman, and he has been impaled on a pole because he tried to destroy the Jews.  Esther 8:7

For You Today

Punishment and Reward are as understandable (to even a child), as is the simple fact that keeping your fingers out of the fire will be better than not. 

It may be more popular to dwell on a loving God who forgives us.  But to ignore the righteousness of God who judges those who will not obey His Word, is to walk on the edge of a cliff overlooking the eternal abyss.  Be wise!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these:  Meet You at the Woodshed and When You Have a King for a Friend      

[1] Images:  Wickimedia Commons     Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Working on a Harvest

Friday, June 3, 2022

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God.  You will always harvest what you plant.  Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.  But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.   Galatians 6:7-8

The simplicity with which the Scriptures lay out our choices is sometimes too startling for 21st century minds.  We do not really want “simple” – we want multiple-choice, categories, and options…not just live or die.  To say there are only two choices, life and death, is to court the wrath of the “wokeness police”.  Yet, there it is, in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, King James, and whatever other language you need or want, the harvest will be what you plant, no matter whether you intended it to be that way, or, for that matter, if you think you’re entitled to something different.  The choice is only, plant, or don’t plant.  In short, the laws of harvest remain absolute; you reap that which you plant.

The harvest in the last week or so in America uncovers what we have been planting, cultivating, and are now horrified to own – at least 35 murders in 3 mass shootings…21 in Uvalde, 10 Black persons in Buffalo, and, just yesterday 4 more at a Tulsa Oklahoma medical center. 

Once again we have sowed violence to the wind, and are reaping a harvest of death’s whirlwind.[1]

If you want to pigeon-hole me as to which tribe I follow concerning the gun issue, here are the details (or ammunition if you will):

1.    I own a handgun, loaded, ready to defend our home if invaded.  I never wear it, concealed, or openly.  It stays under locked conditions for safety.

2.    I do not judge anyone…God’s Word is enough, and better at that, than my thoughts by an infinitely exponential mile.

3.    I do blame our culture that twists and bends every sense of goodness to turn a profit, including the NRA’s promotion, lobbying, and lack of decency, and Congress facilitating such under the guise of freedom.  I also include the purveyors of violence who pander to the culture with video games teaching children who cannot put a coherent sentence together, but are fluent in how to kill 98 “enemies” to reach the next level.  They learned this way of life, because we, the American public allow profiteers to spoon-feed violence to our children, and the weak-minded among us.

God has always judged, and will continue to judge, any who add to that.  It is the nature of He who Created us, and holds the next breath we may (or may not) take.  The choice is to be under His will of peacemaker, or under His judgment for peacebreaker.  Simple, uncomplicated, and lovingly just.

For You Today

My Dad was of the generation that didn’t mind letting you know there are consequences for our actions.  Have you ever heard this phrase:

You upset because you don’t think I’m being fair? 

I’ll give you something to be upset about!

I kinda think Dad knew something about reaping the whirlwind.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] A loose borrowing of Hosea 8:7a  “They have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind….”