Judgments True and Just

Friday, November 17, 2023[1]

After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.  The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight and served the images of Baal.  They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt.  They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them.  And they angered the Lord.  They abandoned the Lord to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth.  This made the Lord burn with anger against Israel, so he handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions.  He turned them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them.  Every time Israel went out to battle, the Lord fought against them, causing them to be defeated, just as he had warned.  And the people were in great distress.  Judges 2:10-15

And I heard a voice from the altar, saying, “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just.”  Revelation 16:7

The justice system in America is arguably skewed at times, as is every other system created by humankind.  A statement attributed to Winston Churchill is:  Democracy is the worst form of government ever created…with the exception of every other form of government.  With all due respect to the esteemed Mr. Churchill, there is one justice system that is true and just; its righteousness is never failing!  That system, of course, is the judgments of God.

Joshua led the nation of Israel to conquer the Promised Land after Moses’ death.  They occupied it under the sole-leadership of God (a theocracy) until Joshua died.  Then a new generation decided that serving Jehovah was outdated and old-school.  They wanted to be like the other nations and left God in the dust. 

For Israel, bad became worse.  Their strength as a nation disappeared.  Their military was never enough.  Their infrastructures became compromised; superstructures and resources were hacked and stolen, and no leader could be trusted.  The whole nation was in severe distress.

Does that sound familiar?  I know it is dangerous to insert “America” into any prophecy or Biblical scenario, but when the shoe fits it is appropriate to wear it.  The trend in our culture is to trust in an idea of America as inherently good and all-powerful.  The problem in believing such is that we wind up attributing the nature of God to a national identity.  America is not, has never been, and will never be…GOD! 

The identity of a nation consists of  the nature and character of the people who make up that nation at any point in time.  According to Scripture (which has yet to be proven wrong), the character and nature of humans is corrupt, and has been so ever since Eden.  This is a fallen world…and, despite the flag-waving that has most of us rallying around the stars and stripes, fallenness is our heritage…prone to wander; prone to leave the God we love.  And leave God behind we have…for the pragmatism of bigger stock portfolios, harsher conversations, and a national profile of yell louder to win the argument.  And we do so at a great cost!

For You Today 

The distress of God’s justice rolled-down on the heads of those who led Israel after Joshua passed.  I am not a prophet in the sense of being able to foretell the future, but I am student enough of history and Scripture to sense that we are at harvest time, and what we have been sowing, we shall certainly reap! 

Let us be wise and plant seeds of justice, mercy, and walking humbly with our God, while we pray it is not too late.

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  

Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] This devotion originally appeared on Rocky Road as The Distress of Justice, November 16, 2017 (with updates)

Sovereign

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

“From eternity to eternity I am God.  No one can snatch anyone out of my hand.  No one can undo what I have done.”  Isaiah 43:13

Once one gets past the sophomoric notion of atheism, to admit there IS a divine Creator, one must grapple with a supremely-challenging dilemma of IF that divine One is truly in charge…and to what degree.  Is God sovereign, or are there some things he cannot (or chooses not) to touch?  And if He truly is “in charge” of everything, why is the world in such a mess?

If one has the temerity to affirm God is Sovereign (as Isaiah wrote), the final question surrounding humankind’s response to a sovereign God is two-fold:  What does that look like, and how should I live now that I know that?

In my limited experience as a human being, and a believer in the sovereignty of God, in nearly 50 years of theological thinking, writing, preaching, and pastoral ministry, I have never been able to fully articulate in a single sentence the answer to that question…until yesterday, when a Facebook friend re-posted a prayer from a friend’s page:

It took me just a moment to read it, and pass it off as simply another superficial stab at teaching a child to pray.  I continued scrolling through the endless and mostly inane trivia of social media, but the thought of that sentence would not fade to the background  Then the depth of faith contained in this one sentence scratched its’ way to the surface of my tired mind and shouted:  Listen, Russell; you’re never going to need more in life, or My Kingdom than this.  This is what living in My Kingdom is like; this is how you bow before Sovereign Lord.

I’m not one given to hearing God audibly, or seeing a message behind every bush or cute thing my dog does, but this one sentence about how to go about greeting God every morning of my life makes more sense than all the combined drivel you can find in self-help speeches and books; this is placing 100% of all the trust I can ever muster in God’s care for me. 

Fix me when I’m the problem – is taking the humble knee, admitting I’m broken enough to need fixing

Protect me when I’m not the problem – is admitting I’m going to move on in God’s strength, speaking up for loving justice, doing mercy, and walking humbly with God[1], because my strength isn’t enough for this messy life…I need Him to have my back.

·       This is taking my stand on the only hill I’ve ever truly needed to die on. 

·       This is how you take up the cross and follow the One who died for you. 

·       It is the bottom line of the call. 

For You Today 

Want to know how to walk in God’s presence?  Let your heart pray:

Sovereign Lord, fix me and protect me as I walk with You today!

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:  via WikimediaCommons   Images without citation are in public domain.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.Micah 6:8

Faith Seasoned Wisdom

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Then Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother, Esau, who was living in the region of Seir in the land of Edom.  He told them, “Give this message to my master Esau: ‘Humble greetings from your servant Jacob.  Until now I have been living with Uncle Laban, and now I own cattle, donkeys, flocks of sheep and goats, and many servants, both men and women.  I have sent these messengers to inform my lord of my coming, hoping that you will be friendly to me.’”  After delivering the message, the messengers returned to Jacob and reported, “We met your brother, Esau, and he is already on his way to meet you—with an army of 400 men!”  Jacob was terrified at the news.  He divided his household, along with the flocks and herds and camels, into two groups.  He thought, “If Esau meets one group and attacks it, perhaps the other group can escape.”  Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my grandfather Abraham, and God of my father, Isaac—O Lord, you told me, ‘Return to your own land and to your relatives.’ And you promised me, ‘I will treat you kindly.’  I am not worthy of all the unfailing love and faithfulness you have shown to me, your servant.  When I left home and crossed the Jordan River, I owned nothing except a walking stick. Now my household fills two large camps!  O Lord, please rescue me from the hand of my brother, Esau.  I am afraid that he is coming to attack me, along with my wives and children.  But you promised me, ‘I will surely treat you kindly, and I will multiply your descendants until they become as numerous as the sands along the seashore—too many to count.’”  Genesis 32:3-12

To learn from your mistakes is the essential quality of wisdom.  To apply faith to wisdom is to serve God above all.  Jacob had a rocky, selfish start to life.  It started in his mother’s womb, when he and his twin brother, Esau, had a daily wrestling match.  As they were born, Esau was first out, but Jacob was hot on his heels, actually grabbing his brother’s foot.  It was sibling rivalry with the first breath.

The story of their lives in their father Isaac’s home was contentious, to say the least.  Jacob’s selfish behavior divided his mother and dad, and made an enemy of his twin brother.  Esau was so angry with his brother’s treacherous ways, Jacob had to leave home and go live with their uncle Laban at a safe distance.  Esau swore he’d kill his twin if ever they met again.

Fast forward twenty years…Jacob is much wiser, and is on his way home to reconcile with his family.  He has no clue as to Esau’s mindset…will his brother make good on his vengeance threat?  Will it end in calamity?  Jacob is wise at this point, dividing his wives and children into two camps, hoping to minimize losses of life and property, if Esau is still bent on Jacob’s death.  But a new dimension has foraged its’ way into Jacob’s life and thinking – faith!  The night before he was to face Esau, he met face-to-face with God’s angel, and the outcome was Jacob’s commitment to serve God, and live by faith, even if it meant giving up everything he'd gained, or even his own life. 

What Jacob had learned was what Jesus told Peter hundreds of years later – swords, be they steel or the treachery of human selfishness, may work for awhile, but they have little place in the heart of God.  It is faith that wins.[1] 

Seasoning the wisdom of learned mistakes and rocky roads, with faith God has given, is the mark of a life changed and usable in God’s Kingdom.  It took Jacob decades of hard lessons to shed his clever ways in favor of God’s clear kindness…the deep faith of the unashamed!

For You Today 

This world will afford you many opportunities to follow both Esau and Jacob’s early mistakes and sins…greed, treachery, revenge, and power.  In the end, those things only produce pain and regret, whether you wind up in jail, or residing in a mansion.  It’s all loss in Heaven’s record books.  The other, wiser choice is to season whatever you have learned with faith to do what the prophet Micah wrote:  do what is right, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

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 Wikimedia Commons 

Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] See John 18:10-11

When God Lets the Arrow Fly

Monday, May 8, 2023

When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land.  God said, “If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”  So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea.  Thus the Israelites left Egypt like an army ready for battle.  Exodus 13:17-18

When God directed Moses to lead his children out of bondage in Egypt, it would have been so easy to march them directly to Canaanland, and let the party begin!  That would have been the way I would have planned the trip.  

It’s about 775 miles from Egypt to Israel, so they could have walked straight there in two months.  But they didn’t cross the Jordan river for 40 years.  Evidently there was a lot more to Israel becoming God’s people, than just 10 plagues and a visit by the death angel, before they would be ready for the prosperity of the Promised Land.

There is much I do not understand about how the sovereignty of God, intersects with the free-will of human beings.  However, the Israelite forty-year layover in the desert[1] is a great teacher of how we can navigate being free-will beings created by a sovereign God.  It all comes down to using the free-will we’ve been gifted, to cooperate with the sovereignty of God’s plans, rather than just do what pleases us.  After all, it is God’s sandbox, and we are visitors, whom God wants to adopt as family.  It pays to be on one’s best behavior!

When it comes to how that behavior shapes our relationship with God, I have this image of an archer with a bow, pointed at a target…the arrow flies, released by the archer.  God is the archer; we are the arrows.  The target to which God points each of us, is the place closest to God’s heart.  He wants us to hit the bullseye (so to speak), and lodge there.  The purpose is blessing.  God wants us close to the source of the universe’s wealth of wisdom and well-being.  He wants what’s best for us.  The problem for we arrows, having been released from the bow string, is we have freedom to be blown about by gusts of winds, or objects (all kinds of sins against hitting the target). 

While God’s eye is never off the arrows he releases, our free will is a type of sovereignty over the moments we are granted to live.  We are pointed at the right target; we have free will to choose how we respond to the direction we’re given. That direction is clearly stated in the prophecy of Micah 6:8:

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. 

The arrow God releases into this vastness of free will invariably chooses to do what is wrong, love power, and walk arrogantly and selfishly, despising God.  And God allows that.  (Full Stop)

The full weight of sovereignty of humankind over their destination is a gift of God to His loved creation.  But the weight of that gift’s incredible value is the corresponding accountability of consequence for corrupting the gift against the holiness of God.  (Again – Full Stop)  We despise God’s sovereignty with our free will, and the result is spiritual Chernobyl.

For You Today 

You have freedom; choose wisely how to cooperate with God today.

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 explore some of these:   An Uncertain Path  and  Cloud by Day - Fire by Night   

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

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

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[1] Read all of the Exodus story, from Moses at the burning bush, to the miraculous rescue of God’s people at the Red Sea, and provision of God through 40 years of wandering in the desert.

Stan...

Friday, November 4, 2022

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you:  to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

On Wednesday we said goodbye to Stan Bingham, a friend and church member.  Only time and the unfolding of life’s mystery and purposes of God will tell the total of Stan’s doing right, loving mercy, and walking humbly with his God.  However, I strongly suspect the talley of all that will not do his memory any harm in his new home, a place not made with hands, where he sees clearly what he has meant to the countless people his life and kindness touched, as well as the love with which his Savior, Jesus Christ, embraced him.

I’m writing this on Thursday (the day before you read it, and the day after the gathering of saints and sinners to say that goodbye…and I am as exhausted as I’ve ever been – maybe more).  Being in a sizeable crowd, and responsible to lead a service for someone who is a legend in North Carolina’s legislative chronicles, well…my supply of energy isn’t grand to begin-with…yesterday ran the tank dry.    I feel a little like one of Stan’s dogs from a story posted in Lexington’s Dispatch, about the VW Stan had converted to run on used cooking oil.  

Whenever the Senator would arrive home from an event where he drove the Bug, the hounds would come running to the scent of french fries.  Stan said he feared he’d not get to them in time to keep them from killing themselves on fry-fumes.

From saving his old dogs from themselves, to more than 170 bills passed in the legislature over 16 years, Stan was always shooting for doing right, loving mercy, and being humble enough to not care who gets the credit.

One of the speakers at the service[1], Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, shared that story in his eulogy, and it helped continue the theme of a joy-fillled homegoing for a much-loved, larger-than-life, prank-loving legislator, who was taken home so suddenly.  It was a grand send-off.

As a personal note of observation, tempered by 75 years of watching people, more than 40 of those years being a people-watching pastor, I can say I was most impressed by a mother and her four daughters, Stan’s closest family, long used to the press, and the fishbowl of public life, but less-mindful of the presence of all the trappings of that life, rather focused on celebrating the joy of a man who loved, and lived his life working for justice and mercy, all the while walking humbly with his God.

For You Today ,

You might be a good-sized cog in the wheel of life, or, like me, a rather smallish cog, who gets worn-down easily amongst the bigger cogs; either way, remember this:  you’re a cog that God loves, and has you in the right place on His wheel. 

So take that as seriously as my friend, Stan, by loving God with your whole heart, poured-into doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with He who gave you that first, and every breath you take on this planet.

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 libraryI.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       Do What?   and   Resetting the Compass

[1] Images: Title image courtesy of The Denton Orator, Used with permission by Bingham family   

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

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[1] You can watch the entire homegoing service for Stan Bingham on YouTube HERE

Resting in Peace

 

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die.  Isaiah 57:2

“R.I.P.” (Rest in Peace) on a gravestone carries many messages.  Was it a hard life that now has no problems?  Some would say a body in a tomb is problematic.  Does the message convey doubt over whether the departed had unfinished buisness?  Who, indeed, could manage to handle all of life’s errors and omissions in the “cleanup phase” of one’s life?  Yet Isaiah says that “Godly paths” is the route to resting in that place of peace when your days are done.  Possibly the meaning of “Godly paths” is what another prophet, Micah, said about the Lord’s requiring us to walk the path of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.  Without doubt, caring for family is part of that trifold formula.  

My friend, and colleague, Bill, cared for his aged and dying father for many months.  On the night before his death, the disturbance from the other end of the house caused Bill to look-in on his Dad.  A nightmare had awakened the old man.  When Bill came into the room, his father looked straight at him and asked:  Are you alright?  Bill assured him, he was fine, and his Dad drifted right back off to sleep.  A few minutes later he stopped breathing. 

Hanging on, until the assurance your work is completed here on earth isn’t over-rated.  Rather, it’s assurance in two directions; there is comfort for the one who is dying, which allows passing peacefully, as well as comfort for those left behind that you were loved…and the story isn’t over.  It’s an anchor memory.

Courtesy Pixabay.com

I had that kind of personal experience with Ruby and her three dachshunds.  Cookie was the mama, a sleek, graying, 17 year old, with her two pups, Flip and Gerry, brother and sister, still in great health and vitality at 15.  Ruby was not in good health at all.  She lived alone for many years before she died.  Those three wiener-dogs were her family.  When Ruby sensed her time was coming she called me to her home for a “chat”.  It was something of an ambush of the wet-behind-the-ears new pastor.  Ruby put on that face that said:  Take pity on a poor widow, preacher.  Russell (…the easy mark he is..) caved and promised to take care of the herd of hot-dog dogs.  Having finished her last bit of earthly stewardship, Ruby Luhrs slipped into Jesus’ arms a few days later.  That was in 1983. 

After 40 years of retrospect, I can say that Ruby had a lot to do with teaching me the kind of pastoral care I wish I’d been better at…making sure, as Bill’s Dad demonstrated, that, even in the dying process we can extend the grace God has shown us, and entrusted to our care, by simple, open transfer of love. 

For You Today

When all is said and done, it isn’t the size of the bank account, or the magnificence of an estate you might leave to loved ones, but dwelling on what will express care for that which is meaningful, hands-on caring to alleviate suffering in this life, and hearts-on caring for the soul for all eternity.

That’s the very definition of walking humbly with your God.

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

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