Hope Secured

Thursday, November 16, 2023

Then I heard a mighty voice from the Temple say to the seven angels, “Go your ways and pour out on the earth the seven bowls containing God’s wrath.”  So the first angel left the Temple and poured out his bowl on the earth, and horrible, malignant sores broke out on everyone who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue.  Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse.  And everything in the sea died.  Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs, and they became blood.  And I heard the angel who had authority over all water saying, “You are just, O Holy One, who is and who always was, because you have sent these judgments.  Since they shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets, you have given them blood to drink.  It is their just reward.”  And I heard a voice from the altar, saying, “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just.”  Revelation 16:1-7

The last several days we’ve looked at our hope in Jesus Christ.  Hope, as a noun or verb, is an expectation; we either expect something will happen, or want it to happen.  This is the perspective of our last three devotions, hope anew, hope renewed, and hope shared.  These are matters of faith, as we place our faith in Christ, have it renewed through this life of trials and fears, and as we share faith’s hope with others. 

In today’s passage, we step from faith in this life, to fulfillment of our hope, the consummation of God’s promises, as He pours judgment on evil in the truest and most just of recompense.  Angels, in perfect obedience to the Father, pour out the stored reprisal of every evil thought, or brutal deed.  Those who have rejected Christ and God’s offer of forgiveness meet the horror of God’s wrath.

Those who mock God in this life caricaturize any mention of Judgment Day, or sin, or any allusion to God’s authority as “fairy tales” or a naïvely ignorant, preacher’s manipulation.  But in that day, when the hope of the faithful shall become sight, all will see His glory.  Those who refuse to bend a knee now will have no choice but to kneel then!  Apostle Paul wrote:

…for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.  For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.  So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.  Romans 14:10b-12^(KJV)

In that day there will be no excuses, for even those who, in their unbelief, mock and profane the name of God will see Christ and His Father, who by the Holy Spirit unveils the glory of Heaven…and they will fall to their knees and confess that He alone is God.  Those who have chosen in this life to deny Jesus, the hope of God’s glory, will in that day have their choice granted…eternally…in the lake of fire.  That is a sad, but solemn part of our hope in Jesus Christ; he will right every wrong against God, and reward every sacrificial service or suffering in the name of Jesus.  God will not do this lightly or with any degree of spite or enjoyment.  But the ultimate character of God is to be holy, and entirely righteous.  And in that holy righteousness, God will judge sin.  Those who have trusted in Christ will be gathered like a hen gathers her chicks, or a mother bear protects her cubs.  Those who have trusted in themselves, refusing Christ’s offer of forgiveness and eternal life, will experience an eternal death without God.

For You Today 

A preacher friend of mine once summed-up God’s offer to be saved from our sinful wickedness.  He said:  The wages of sin is death[1] and those wages must be paid.  We can let Jesus’ death on the cross pay for our sin now, or we can pay for them later when we stand before God at the judgment seat!  My friend was telling it like it is.  Trust God, place your faith in the secure hope of Christ!

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.

Today’s title Image from Pixabay.com  

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Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Romans 6:23

The Sins of the Father

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

“The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will greatly increase the human population and the number of animals here in Israel and Judah.  In the past I deliberately uprooted and tore down this nation.  I overthrew it, destroyed it, and brought disaster upon it.  But in the future I will just as deliberately plant it and build it up.  I, the Lord, have spoken!  “The people will no longer quote this proverb:  ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste.’  All people will die for their own sins—those who eat the sour grapes will be the ones whose mouths will pucker.  “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.  Jeremiah 31:27-31

This text was the focus of study in this past Sunday’s lesson at church.  That phrase about children experiencing puckered mouths because their parents ate some sour grapes became a well-known idiom of that time, largely due to sin’s judgment affecting an entire family.  It was Old Testament law:

I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.  Exodus 20:5[1]

But Jeremiah said that was all coming to an end.  God’s special people would be responsible individually for their sins.  No longer would judgment extend to the son for the sins of the father.  The inverse would also be true…no longer could there be an automatic benefit of righteousness because you were born into a household of the righteous.  Each individual would bear the judgment of his or her own actions.  That was welcome news to Israelites born during the Babylonian captivity.  They had been born slaves, due to the sins of their ancestors; now they were to be a restored nation.

In his day Jeremiah delivered mostly unwelcome news, judgment – a message of gloom and doom approaching because of sin.  Often called The Weeping Prophet, Jeremiah’s prophecies were the main reason he spent a good deal of time in jail.  What king likes to hear everything he does is more cause for God to bring the hammer down?

But the ultimate message was one of great news and blessing…there was a new covenant of grace on the rise:

“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord.  “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’  For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord.  “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”  Jeremiah 31:33-34

That’s the way it is with prophecy; sovereign God does what a sovereign God does, rule over His people.  A loving, grace-filled, mercy-loving God does that which is righteous and best.  He fulfilled that promise on Calvary’s cross.

For You Today 

We live in a sometimes-brutal world, where people experience repressive forms of brutal government.  Those who live in democratically-governed countries know an individual freedom that scoffs at the notion we might suffer judgment for a parent’s sins (or anyone else’s).  Truth-told, we may experience the effect of a parent’s substance abuse, or the weight of a sibling, spouse, or child’s irresponsible or cruel behavior…but God’s hand will never be that.  His Spirit may convict us of our own sins, but never those of our neighbor.

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 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] These words were repeated in Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, and Deuteronomy 5:9

 

His Voice

 

Monday, June 5, 2023

The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea.  The God of glory thunders.  The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.  The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic.  The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars; the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.  He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf; he makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox.  The voice of the Lord strikes with bolts of lightning.  The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.  The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks and strips the forests bare.  In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”  Psalm 29:3-9

Long ago I heard for the first time a preacher say these words:  If you’ve never trembled in the presence of Almighty God, it’s because you’ve never really stood in the presence of Almighty God.  He was making the point that we misunderstand a lot of things.  And sometimes we miss God, because we don’t know Him very well.  We hear about something marvellous being discovered – a cure for this disease, or that syndrome, or a new invention like driverless cars, or pilotless planes – and we mis-label a move of God for human inspiration.  We praise the Nobel laureates instead of marveling over Heaven’s gift.

Psalm 29 is attributed to King David.  It’s not hard to understand why; as a boy David spent many nights alone in the desert wilderness keeping watch over sheep.  To this boy, ordained to be the anointed king of Israel, the resounding crackling of lightning bolts were not merely storms, but the sacred voice of JHWH, the burst of almighty God’s love for His creation.  David heard THE Voice.

There are plenty of Biblical references concerning the presence of God, and how we are to enter boldly, to come closer, to dwell-in that presence.  Those are welcoming sounds – words of invitation to be near and experience God’s lovingkindness and majesty.  That is good, and it is right for us to receive those words as true; God means to provoke us to respond.  He wants His family to enter the house, and drink-deeply of His goodness.

But, somewhere, deep-down, within the center of our existential soul, there must be fear; not the kind of fear you might have facing a hungry lion in the wilderness, without a weapon or a place to hide.  Rather it is the awe of a majestic voice that thunders loud enough to split the cedars of Lebanon…trees that have withstood hundreds of years of storms and earthquakes.  This voice can make a mountain jump like a cat that’s been startled from behind.  His voice can strip a forest bare in an instant.  The power of God is limitless and unstoppable.  Scripture tells us that God’s power to rearrange, end, or begin life is without boundary.  He is God; his voice is final!  Apostle John was given a glimpse of that voice, and the finality of how it will preside over that great and final day of the Lord:

And a mighty shout came from the throne in the Temple, saying, “It is finished!”  Revelation 16:17

For You Today 

There is a day of reckoning approaching.  We’ve been advised in Scripture not to set a date, but rather to be prepared to meet that day.  If, as my preacher friend once said, you have never stood and trembled before a holy God, there will come a day when you will.  Better to stand there now in humble prayer, pledging your commitment to Him, and tremble as his thundering voice and loving arms embrace you.  The alternative is to stand before him later to receive judgment.

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

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Joy & Judgment  The Voice of God  

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

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

The Will to Choose

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates?  Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live?  But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:15

Albert Einstein gave an interview in 1929 in which he shared some of his personal philosophy, including a human being’s will:

"I am a determinist.  As such, I do not believe in free will.  The Jews believe in free will.  They believe that man shapes his own life.  I reject that doctrine philosophically.  In that respect I am not a Jew… I believe with Schopenhauer:  We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.  Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act is if freedom of the will existed.  If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.  I claim credit for nothing.  Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control.  It is determined for the insect as well as for the star.  Human being, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to an invisible tune, intoned in the distance by a mysterious player.”[1]

I am certainly no match for the likes of Albert Einstein; I have trouble enough keeping up with my grandchildren.  On the other hand, being an individual, I strongly believe I possess the choice to agree (or not) with his philosophy.

Einstein’s deterministic view of human free will borders closely on a religiously hyper-Calvinistic version of irresistable grace, where God has pre-ordained who will be saved, and we have no choice in that matter…or anything else.  On this point I have to take issue, as I believe Scripture already does:

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  2 Corinthians 3:17

Einstein was born a Jew, yet held the full expression of that heritage at arm’s length, choosing a rather sad and hollow deterministic view of life’s meaning and purpose.  Yet, as Christians belive, the image of God, stamped upon his soul, cannot utterly deny the mysterious player of the invisible tune to which he gives place in that interview.  It’s my belief that crack in Einstein’s systematic theology of an imposed will by the hidden tune-player (God) demonstrates something of a humility to admit he doesn’t know everything.

If, as Scripture indicates[2], there is a beginning and an ending which God has pre-determined, and, behind the scenes is orchestrating, there is certainly room for human free will to exist.  What Scripture tells us is God’s sovereign will is determinative…the beginning of things created in 6 days, and the ending of things a re-creation of Paradise.  That does leave the meantime, the middle of things, in which we live, move, and have our being.  If we are to hold Scripture objectively, without prejudice, God gives us this moment to “determine” by our volitional choice where we will be when the cosmic dust settles.

For You Today 

The bottom line is the coming judgment of God.  If all were set-in-stone, determined without room for choice, where would be the grace of God?

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

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Following the Truth  and  Listening Carefully  

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

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

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[1] In an article Albert Einstein by Lotte Jacobi

[2] In Revelation 22:13 Jesus says: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

The Great Divide

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church.  And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.  

Ephesians 1:22-23

I love All-Saints Day.  Some might imagine it a little morose to dwell on memories of the saints who have passed, but I cannot help it; I need to be reminded that the Great Divide from earthly life, into the  heavenly realm, is as transitory as it gets.  Of course we know that heaven is forever, but that’s just the point-for a Christian!  The “divide” is only an illusion, like the picture of a river’s divide – it is fed by one source, and both branches flow to the same end…a reunion.  And it is still the same river, even if one cannot see the other.  The confluence, coming together again is that Great Judgment time, when Christ shall gather all into the fold.  This is the promise of God, and we are His inheritance, bound for the Kingdom.

And so, for today, All Saints are remembered as ONE, that huge cloud of witnesses[1], Paul described, surrounding us, encouraging us to that great getting-up day, when Christ shall come again.

There is one sadness in this fact of our eternal inheritance – some are disinheriting themselves.  In Holy Scripture we are told of a great book, the Book of Life.  Many believe it is only for the names of those people who receive Christ’s gift of grace in salvation.  And that is true in one sense.  But there is a verse in Revelation that makes me uncomfortable with that view as exclusive :

All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine.  Revelation 3:5

This verse suggests to me that every human soul’s name was written in the book before time began, and it is only in failing to kneel at the cross, in surrender to the grace offered there, which causes Christ to blot-out the name from the record.  That may sound like slicing hairs a little thin in the theology class, but it is consistent with a God who universally-loves everyone – PERFECTLY, so perfectly He sent his only son, Jesus, to die, and be raised from the grave, to offer freely the grace that saves a soul.  It tells us grace is offered, but must be accepted if our names are to remain in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

The confluence of life’s river, where once-again the body will be together is an offer of grace, God’s good, loving arms, extended wide towards each soul.  For those you have “lost” are not so, they are waiting for that time when Christ gathers the river back together.

For You Today

The cross is the great divide of history and eternity.  Paul reminds us to examine our lives to see if we’re truly in the faith[2].  When the divide between the living and dead is removed in the final judgment day, it will no longer be an illusion that separates[3] those whose names remain in the Book, and those blotted-out.

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

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

       Looking for a Place to Hide   and   Lenten Walk - Part 17

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

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[1] Hebrews 12:1

[2] 2 Corinthians 13:5

[3] Matthew 25:32

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!

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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^©