An Angry World

 

Thursday, February 16, 2023

Why are the nations so angry?  Psalm 2:1

My mother was not a person prone to anger.  I can only recall seeing her lose it one time, when my dog ate the ingredients for a cake she was going to make for an upcoming birthday.  He only ate the sugar, frosting, and butter; he spread the flour all around the kitchen…every nook and cranny; it was the Pillsbury cloud! Come to think of it, that was also the time I heard the only cuss word ever to drop from her lips!  She chased my dog around the house with that big wooden spoon.  She never caught him…probably a good thing; if she had caught-up with the beast it might have completed the deadly sins triple-crown: anger, cussing, and murder!

The decades which followed World War II were, for me, was what it was like to live in Andy Griffith’s world, with Aunt Bea, Barney Fife, Gomer Pile, and Opie.  My summer days were spent exploring Miller’s woods, playing with frogs, and swimming at Stump Pond with the snapping turtles.  We rode bikes, and played “cowboys and Indians”.

That childhood is a fond memory, but it was not perfect.  We also had the threat of nuclear bombs dropping on us, drills in school; when that burst of bells rang, we all scrambled to see who could be first to get under our desks.  (To this day I still wonder who thought that up…a child’s wooden desk as protection from a nuclear blast?)

Interpersonal relationships were light years different than currently.  If a boy got a little flustered and dropped a “bad word” (anything stronger than darn), especially in front of a girl child or two, culture demanded an immediate apology.  Sex was only mentioned in school while dissecting frogs in Science class.  The internet of today may have developed its’ lightning-fast information-sharing from the way inappropriate behavior at school reached a child’s mother and dad before you got off the bus that afternoon.

As gentle and non-violent as my Mom was 99.99% of the days of her life, she would have stood out like a sore thumb in today’s culture.  Today’s foulness of language and angry in-your-face, stay-out-of-my-space, while I act out my sexual preferences for all the world to see on Instagram and Face Book, is the perfect medium for developing the attitude that, no suppressed wish to grab a gun and obliterate those who have angered you, will go unchecked.  The tantrum of an undeveloped sense of self-control is punctuated by the sound of semi-automatic gunfire.  And the weeping of Godly-grieving over this angry world is faintly heard from above.

For You Today  

Grieving the loss of what once was…even if that grief is somewhat biased by the rose-colored glasses of an old man’s memory of a so-called better day…is not to suggest we have nothing to which we can look forward.  Rather it just gives the appropriate frame for what God has promised.  To do that, let’s let apostle Paul have today’s last word, about the good that is coming, which will dispel the darkness of harsh times of anger in this world in which we live.  Paul writes to the Thessalonian believers:

…we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.  First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves.  Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words.  1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

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: 

Advice for the Mighty  and  Now Then, You Kings, Act Wisely  and  Short Fuse  and So Much Anger 

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

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

When GOOD Becomes Enemy of BEST

[1]

Thursday, November 14, 2019

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.  They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them.  For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky.  Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature.  So they have no excuse for not knowing God.  Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks.  And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like.  As a result, their minds became dark and confused.  Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.  And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.  So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired.  As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies.  They traded the truth about God for a lie.  So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.  Romans 1:18-25

Favorite sayings become favorites because they open a whole new world of understanding and resonate with truth deep within.  Here’s one of mine:

Don’t let the good become the enemy of the best.[i]

The deep truth of this saying is that even good things, family, friends, opportunities, and material blessings, can become obstacles to our spiritual growth.  Whatever good things God has placed in our hands are never to become more important than the God who gives them.  This was the mistake Paul was holding up to the Roman believers.

There are many areas of life that can become enemies to spiritual health, and sorting-out the wheat and chaff are part of discipleship for the believer. 

For instance:

·      Food is good (trust me on this!), but living to eat instead of eating to live is NOT.

·      Money is useful in many ways; if getting more of it becomes your focus in life it is an enemy!

·      Sex is a God-given blessing and part of the way God has given for our enjoyment and participation in His creative ways, but when it becomes our obsession it can lead to perversion and distort everything good and holy.

·      Friendships are needful, as are the bonds of Family, but these must stand behind allegiance to Almighty God.

·      Work is necessary, and God-ordained that we should be productive.  But when work crowds-out everything, even excluding time for worship, we have let our “work ethic” become our God.

Therein is the sticking point – worshiping the gifts, rather than the Giver of those gifts. In so doing we have not only allowed the good things of God to become enemy to the best God wants for us, we have allowed ourselves, good creations of God, to become enemy of God.

For You Today

Wherever your activities take you on this day, make sure to be aware who or what is ordering those feet of yours…the pathway you take always leads somewhere.  Destinations are achieved one step at a time…for good or best…that is our choice!

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

Go to VIDEO

---

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

---

[i][i] For another post on this saying see:  Rocky Road Devotion 6-15-19

Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire

[1]

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

“When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest.  But when it finds none, it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’  So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order.  Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there.  And so that person is worse off than before.”  Luke 11:24-26^(NLT)

It is some incredible thing we humans do, jumping out of the frying pan, only to land squarely in the fire!  We leave a bad choice behind, cleaning up our act so we have a fresh start (usually at someone else’s expense), and promptly wade right back into our destructive behavior. 

The apostle Peter wrote one of his epistles about the human condition of despising God’s way in favor of following every twisted and destructive human desire that comes our way:

These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness.  They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting.  With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception.  They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption.  For you are a slave to whatever controls you.  And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before.  It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.  They prove the truth of this proverb:  “A dog returns to its vomit.”  And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”  2 Peter 2:17-22^(NLT)

A life of deception, uselessness, corruption, enslavement, being controlled, tangled up, returning to our vomit or mudhole, and drawing others into all this woe and misery to keep us company and soothe our guilt – this is the life of addiction.

As a pastor I’ve had some front row seats to what addiction does to families.  Frankly, the word “addiction” is almost too sanitized; Jesus characterized it as demonic possession.  Peter compared addicted humans to “unthinking animals” describing the way we become when enslaved to our particular substance of choice…alcohol, drugs, power, sex, or just plain evil for the sake of wickedness.  We leave a wake of discarded relationships, destruction, and regret in our pathway.

If the subject comes up there is almost no human alive who cannot contribute to the conversation.  Every family has its stories about the alcoholic, or the one with the gambling gene, or the one who, as that “fun-loving, lovable, impossible-to-dislike party guy or girl” could never be depended-upon, except for failing to show up at the most important time.

The space available for this devotion in your day hardly has time to say anything comprehensive about our 21^st century problems and their solutions about this addictive culture in which we live.  So, let me just cut to the bottom line.  We have graduated from the kindergarten of an uncomplicated trust in being obedient to God; we have enrolled in the lower education process of doing it our way.  And that change of major includes a heavy emphasis on feel-good, avoid-guilt or accountability at all costs, obliterating all mention of sin or self-control and discipline.  Make certain to satisfy every desire you have, and whenever something goes wrong with your plan, find an excuse that keeps your self-esteem intact!

In other words – avoid going to the altar to get right with God; just jump out of that frying pan of pleasing self, and right into that fire of addictive behavior, destroying whatever is left of the imago Dei – God’s image in your soul.

And…as long as we’re in revival mode here, let me just complete the picture:  in that fire, you’ll meet the one who is stoking-up all that mess, God’s enemy, Satan, who is laughing with uncontrollable, wicked glee to meet you there.

For You Today

Wow!  Who expected to start the day with THAT kind of tirade over sin?  Well, better to address our sin by naming it in confession, than to live like an empty, dried up spring, or a dog returning to the vomit; Peter said that is a useless life, bound for the blackest darkness.  And who wants that?

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

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com FIRE and FRYPAN

When God is Captured

[1]

                                                                            Friday, June 8, 2018                 

After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod.  They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon.  But when the citizens of Ashdod went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord!  So they took Dagon and put him in his place again.  But the next morning the same thing happened—Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark of the Lord again.  This time his head and hands had broken off and were lying in the doorway.  Only the trunk of his body was left intact.  That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor anyone who enters the temple of Dagon in Ashdod will step on its threshold.  Then the Lord’s heavy hand struck the people of Ashdod and the nearby villages with a plague of tumors.  When the people realized what was happening, they cried out, “We can’t keep the Ark of the God of Israel here any longer! He is against us! We will all be destroyed along with Dagon, our god.”  So they called together the rulers of the Philistine towns and asked, “What should we do with the Ark of the God of Israel?”  The rulers discussed it and replied, “Move it to the town of Gath.”  So they moved the Ark of the God of Israel to Gath.  But when the Ark arrived at Gath, the Lord’s heavy hand fell on its men, young and old; he struck them with a plague of tumors, and there was a great panic.  So they sent the Ark of God to the town of Ekron, but when the people of Ekron saw it coming they cried out, “They are bringing the Ark of the God of Israel here to kill us, too!”  The people summoned the Philistine rulers again and begged them, “Please send the Ark of the God of Israel back to its own country, or it will kill us all.”  For the deadly plague from God had already begun, and great fear was sweeping across the town.   Those who didn’t die were afflicted with tumors; and the cry from the town rose to heaven.  1 Samuel 5:1-12^(NLT)

Because of Israel’s unrepentant sinfulness God allowed them to be defeated by the Philistines…badly!  In this defeat was the loss of the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God’s presence among the nation.  It was a big mistake for Israel to ignore God; it was just as costly for the people of Philistia to think they could capture God.

The Ark was placed in the Philistine temple of Dagon, the fish god.  In the morning Dagon was on his face before Yahweh’s ark.  They set poor Dagon up on his feet again, but the next night the same thing happened; only this time Humpty Dumpty was broken to pieces.  It’s a questionable thing to serve a god that can’t even stand up straight.

So, you have two nations with impotent, incompetent gods?  Israel’s nation gets clobbered and their God is taken prisoner; Philistia’s victory turns out to be a nemesis of tumors, humiliation, and death; so, is it better to be an atheist?  

That’s what many think in America today, except we have our own version of Dagon; we worship our gods:  money, sex, and national prowess of military might to set the world straight.  Our 21^st century vanity is the resurrected self-importance of Philistia, the world bowing at the feet of our manufactured nationalistic pride.  We are not much better than Israel carrying the Ark into battle, like a lucky charm, thinking God must be on our side.  God will not be carried with unclean hands, and Yahweh will not be captured without consequence.  If a carved, two-ton stone idol cannot stand before the presence of the Almighty, what makes any of us think sinful flesh and blood would fare better?

But, like the Philistines, we hardly ever learn.  This same temple where God was captured is the very place where the Philistines tried to humiliate Samson.  But Judges 16 recounts how that all worked out; Samson’s strength (taken by Delilah’s haircut) returned for one last battle, and he pulled down Dagon’s temple, killing many thousands who thought to capture God’s man.[2]  Many in the current generation have chosen to have done with the church, and the Lord of that church.  This is an unfortunate choice of eternal consequence based wrongly on present, temporary circumstances.  It’s similar to the argument for suicide – and just as deadly.  Like the Philistines figured the Israelite God had been captured, tamed, and neutralized, today’s culture has put aside any notion of fearing an Almighty Creator.  The consequence for that choice was monumental in Dagon’s temple; I fear for America if she doesn’t return to Christ.

For You Today

If you share this foreboding, but despair that you have no clue as to how to start the revival, remember that you cannot start a revival in a single other person’s heart.  But if YOU live revival, God can use it to move mountains.

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

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

[2] Image via Wikimedia Commons

Idols of the Nations

[1]

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The idols of the nations are merely things of silver and gold, shaped by human hands.  They have mouths but cannot speak, and eyes but cannot see.  They have ears but cannot hear, and mouths but cannot breathe.  And those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them.  Psalm 135:15-18^(NLT)

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.  For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.  These are not from the Father, but are from this world.  And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave.  But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.  1 John 2:15-17^(NLT)

Forty years ago rock singer Bob Dylan wrote:

You might be a rock ’n’ roll addict prancing on the stage
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage
You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody[2]

What Bob Dylan understood is how we humans are hard-wired to worship.  And, despite all the choices we have of what to do with our time and energy, the choices are amazingly simple and clear cut; we either worship God or we worship ourselves as god.

What?  Explain that a little, please.

Whether your choice of idol is money, sex, power, personal accomplishments, being a groupee for the next American Idol, or carving-up a tree into a totem pole, the whole idea of a crafted, carved, accumulated, experiential, historically-meaningful idol is still an idolatry.  And an idol does not see, hear, or speak; an idol is lesser than its creator/carver.  So, anytime you encounter an idol in your life, understand that you have created it, and therefore, you are its god.

Simpler translation:  when anything other than God is given greater significance than God in your life you have become an idolater! 

Or, as the apostle John put it, you do not love God, you love this world.

The sad thing about that is this world is passing away; you miss the eternal for something that will fade, fizzle, and disappear.  And that’s a really poor choice.

For You Today

Giving up the world’s stuff in order to serve Jesus is a matter of discarding the idols that cannot see, hear, speak or have the life to breathe…in favor the life offered by He who sees all, hears all, knows all, and will live forever.

Not much of a contest there!

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

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Gotta Serve Somebody, Words and Music by Bob Dylan © 1979 by Special Rider Music

Two BILLION!

Friday, June 6, 2014

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart.  And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.  So don’t be troubled or afraid.     John 14:27 (NLT)

In the world of professional sports nothing much surprises me anymore.  Donald and Shelly Sterling have owned the L.A. Clippers basketball team since 1981 when they bought the franchise for about $12 million.  They’ve found a buyer for $2 billion….TWO BILLION!  That’s like, two-thousand million. 

I’m just about speechless!  (Nobody at our church would believe that).

It’s not that a group of buyers are willing to pay that much.  The cost of a sports franchise reaching nine zeros goes along with the big business genus; big business costs big bucks.  What I have a hard time getting my mind around is how the sports and financial business is so much bigger in all this than integrity and fidelity. 

Consider what started the firestorm that is the Sterling-NBA headline squabble:  Donald Sterling was recorded uttering racial slurs in a (supposedly) private conversation with an African American woman he was pursuing.

Sterling, a white, lawyer-billionaire who has little respect for his players (who are mostly African-American), was cheating on his wife, chasing a black woman whose integrity was tied to a digital recorder.  The National Basketball Association was pushing to get the Sterlings out of ownership while the Sterlings threatened lawsuits.  

So, there you have it, Los Angeles drama at its finest:  sex, racism, legal posturing, money and headlines. 

Where is Integrity?  Where is Fidelity?  Where is Respect?

Or it just big business, power and unrestrained hedonism?

Sounds like the rarefied air of the fast-lane version of the American dream is more nightmare than sugar plums.

Where is peace of heart, soul and mind in any of that?  Answer…absent! 

By contrast, Jesus did not stutter when he told the disciples that the world (and all of its riches, power and fame) cannot give you a single cubit of peace.  But his gift is genuine peace; it’s a heart that is calm and a mind that is opened to life abundant. 

And the fact that God’s gift of free will to us allows us to choose what we will pursue in life sets-up the Garden of Eden all over again for each of us.  What will it be?  Shall we respond like mesmerized sailors to the siren calls of the mermaids of modern culture, where you’re promised bigger, better, more and more…all you ever wanted or dreamed of?

Or does your inner being require something more substantial?

For You, Today…

There’s a better gift for you waiting in the wings; peace He gives!