Ezra’s Prayer

When Ezra the priest prayed in the ninth chapter of his book, he was not pointing out the sins of others. He did not tell God he was right and everyone else was wrong.

Ezra was ashamed and embarrassed for the sins that had been committed (Ezra 9:6). When he said, “Our iniquities have risen above our heads,” he painted the picture that Judah’s sins were drowning it. He was right. Sin can overwhelm us and drown us under its wake. Unless we recognize we need help rising above the tide, we can drown in sin!

Judah failed to realize its idol worship and its disregard for God and his laws had destroyed the nation. But it was just as King David wrote, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people,” (Psalm 14:34 NASB). Ezra said in his prayer that the guilt of Judah had grown “to the heavens,” (Ezra 9:6b).

Not only was Judah drowning in sin, but also its iniquities were responsible for its captivity in Babylon and its lack of independence from its current Medo-Persian ruler (Ezra 9:7). This sin was not just Judah’s inability to admit its wickedness 70-years before its captivity, but for its refusal to admit its sin even when it had returned from Babylon.

There is a contrast here. Although Ezra clearly admits the sins of which Judah is guilty, his heart is lifted in thanksgiving for God’s grace. Ezra said, “But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, (Ezra 9:8a). God saved Judah not because he was required to do so, but because God loved these people. So, he will extend grace to them; God will grant Judah a revival in its bonds.

Judah had once had “a peg in his holy place,” but it had been pulled out. For many years, the Jews had been bereft of the sacrificial system designed to cover its sins. Its place in the house of God had been removed because of the sins that enslaved it. But, now, Judah was given back its place. God, through his tender mercy, had allowed a remnant of Judah to return to Jerusalem. It would again have “a peg in his holy place.”

Ezra also notes that “our God has not forsaken us,” (Ezra 9:9). Through the 70-years captivity Judah suffered, it was always God’s design and desire to bring his people back to Jerusalem. God showed his lovingkindness is doing this, even though the Jews would fail him again. He did this because from this remnant, there would come the Messiah who would save us all. Even though God knew the Jews would fail, he gave them a chance to succeed anyway. Such is the lovingkindness of God for all.

God is extending everyone the same lovingkindness he gave Judah. Even if you’ve failed God before, he extends to you his grace and love to try again. You may even fail him again, but he is going to give you the chance to serve him anyway. Isn’t that amazing? As long as you are alive he continues to extend this grace and lovingkindness to you because this is what God is.

The apostle Paul wrote, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8). The Lord God extends his love to you and offers you a second, third, fourth, fifth chance. Isn’t it time you recognized the love he has for your soul and try to serve him again?

There is Danger in Delay

Procrastination is a common trait. It is often very easy to delay taking out the garbage, washing the car or mowing the grass.

Some don’t think there’s any harm in putting off some of the things they should do. While there are probably times when a person might procrastinate doing menial tasks,  obeying the gospel and living a faithful life for God is much too important to postpone.

Delaying obedience to the gospel can result in consequences that can be devastating or even tragic. There is danger in delay, and the danger is real and can last eternally.

• Delaying obedience to God is dangerous. Once a person delays obeying the gospel, further delays become easier. More time is wasted. It is entirely possible that a person could waste an entire life in procrastination and arrive at the end of life unprepared to face God. It is also possible a person may delay obedience so long as to make it impossible to do the good works that could have been done during younger years.
• Delaying obedience to God may hurt others. People are watching your example and your procrastination to obey God will send them the signal that obedience isn’t important. If those people die in that condition, they would be lost. Remember what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:2, “Behold now is the accepted time; behold today is the day of salvation.” You wouldn’t want your friends to blame you in the judgment for losing their souls, would you?
• Delaying obedience to God will cause regret from lost moments of joy. There are so many moments in life as a faithful Christian you don’t want to miss. You wouldn’t want to miss seeing your children baptized, would you? You wouldn’t want to miss the tears of joy in your wife’s eyes when she sees you lead someone to Christ. If you delay obeying the gospel, all of those joyful moments and more could be lost and you would deeply regret it.
• Delaying obedience to God may cause your soul to be lost. This is ultimately the most tragic thing to happen. If you’re waiting for a convenient time to obey God that time may never come. Burton Coffman wrote, “Life does not come to people a day at a time, but a moment at a time.” None of us are guaranteed tomorrow or even this morning, afternoon or evening. Paul wrote, “Behold NOW is the accepted time…”

Obeying the gospel is so important! So, “Today, if you hear his voice,” (Hebrews 3:7) obey God today! Remember what Ananias told Saul, “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord,” (Acts 22:16 NKJV).

The Word of God is Lost

(From a recent radio broadcast.)

Good morning everyone. Welcome to the program sponsored by your friends at the Grand Blanc Church of Christ. I say friends because these people love you and are concerned about your eternal destiny.

Have you ever thought how much we’re influenced by the way people think? Philosophies have influenced people for centuries. It is said Alexander the Great was tutored by a philosopher, Aristotle. Philosophers, like John Locke were at the heart of the creation of the American democracy.

Hollywood has more influence on us than we know. The fruit of this is being seen with how many people are relating their understanding of ethics and morality on the basis of what they’ve seen in movies. Understanding this, actors have been taking center stage to share their philosophies and they’re trying to influence the world.

The most evil king and queen of Israel influenced the tiny nation of Judah. It was Ahab and Jezebel who were responsible for bringing the worship of Baal into Judah. They influenced Jehoshaphat, king of Judah to help in a losing battle against Syria over Ramoth-Gilead in 1 Kings 20-22. Even though Ahab, Jezebel and their children were destroyed, their influence was felt in Israel and Judah for years and years.

In the 22^nd chapter of second Kings, there is the story of good King Josiah and how he repaired the temple of God. The craftsmen and scribes went into the temple and discovered the book of God’s law inside. It had been lost. Think of it. The law of the Lord had been lost IN THE VERY HOUSE OF GOD! It had been covered with debris and the rubbish of the crumbling walls. It had been lost to the Levites and the priests — the very ones who should have kept the word of God alive and at the forefront of the people’s minds and conscience. If any institution should have kept the law of God alive, it should have been the House of the Lord.

The youthful king wept as the law was read because he realized the law of God had been neglected and the Lord’s commands had been disobeyed. He called the people together and had the law of God read to the people.

If living in this world teaches us anything, it is that the MAJORITY OF THIS WORLD HAS LOST SIGHT OF THE WORD OF GOD. Most people, including members of the Lord’s church, only consult God’s word in DIRE EMERGENCY. Preachers of the word, just as in the days of Elijah, Elisha, Michaiah and Jeremiah, are considered only to be consulted in time of need, much as a fire hose is kept coiled in disuse behind a glass that says, “Break only in case of fire.”

In this world, we pay professional athletes millions of dollars to put a stupid little ball into a stupid little hole, or hit a stupid ball out of a baseball park and consign those who teach the word of God to almost the status of paupers.

I say this to draw to our minds the CONTRAST of WHAT PLACE THE WORD OF GOD HAS IN OUR LIVES. In many ways, we have lost the word of God and consigned it to a dust heap INSIDE THE VERY CHURCHES WE ATTEND. Our Bibles are used, not as a guide for our lives, not as a path for our feet in this world, not as the truth to lead us to heaven, but rather as an adornment or an ornament on a coffee table. It is a catcher of dust.

The pity is that the word of God, which is God’s power to save, is LOST INSIDE STRUCTURES CALLED CHURCHES.

As we look at what is called Christianity in this world, we see the law of the Lord is lost again. Just as in Josiah’s day and the influence of Ahab caused the word of God to be lost in the temple, the influence of the world is causing the word of God to be put into last place among those who say they are God’s people.

Think about it. Why are there so many churches? Why is division, the very thing the apostle Paul condemned in 1 Corinthians 1, the most prevalent thing in the world? All division is contrary to God’s plan. Jesus prayed in John 17, “That they all may be one…” Jesus wanted us to be one that the world might know “that thou hast sent me.” He called upon us in John 13:34, “Love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another.”

Why are we not one? Why do we not speak the same thing, as Paul exhorted the Corinthians? Why do we not all practice the same thing?

The law of the Lord is lost. That’s why. The law of God is covered with the debris of man’s philosophy, man-made ideas and doctrines. Just as Judah left God under the influence of Ahab, the influence of the world has caused the division of the body of Christ.

Think of it. The word of God was sufficient in the first century to guide the early church, wasn’t it? Someone might say, “Well, they didn’t have a Bible.” Of course they did. They had the writings of the apostles and there were teachers in the churches who possessed the word of God.

What happened? Man decided he could direct his steps as well as God does. So, creeds, manuals, disciplines and articles of faith replaced the word of God. What happened is that man substituted himself for the objective standard of God’s word in religion. The final authority of God’s word was rejected.

In time, instead of insisting people conduct themselves according to the will of God, the authority of the Bible has been lost, just as surely as the text of the law was lost in the days of Josiah’s reign. What can reunite all people under the name of Jesus Christ? Only obeying the gospel as written in the book of God’s law can do that. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” God’s word must be the final authority in everything done is faith and practice. It must be the final authority in our life and in the church, it must be the ONLY RULE TO BE FOLLOWED.

When the law was found and read to Josiah, he wept because he realized he and his people had not been keeping God’s commandments. In other words, he knew and realized he was living in sin. There’s a lot of levity regarding the use of that phrase today. People laugh when they hear there are those living in sin because they believe living for sinful pleasure is like living in the lap of luxury. Sin is no laughing matter. There are people living in the destructive influence of sin every day. It is tearing their lives, their marriages, their families and their world apart. Living in sin may seem like living in pleasure, but that is the lie sin wants us to believe.

Several years ago, I covered the police and the courts for a daily newspaper. Each week I sat and watched families torn apart by sin. It was a sorrowful sight. I watched as a man and his mother signed an order of protection because they couldn’t live together without getting angry and trying to hurt one another. I watched another man in chains because he couldn’t have a relationship with a woman without pointing a gun at her. I watched as a man was sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and children. Just look at what sin has done to people! Just look what listening to the influence of the world has done to us! The word of God is hidden and the only thing left to people is the sadness of living in a world filled with sin!

What we desperately need is to return to the word of God and seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness first, as Jesus said in Matthew 6:33. What we need is to realize OUR VERY PURPOSE IN THIS LIFE is only to glorify God and serve him. Paul wrote in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service.”

Are we seeking God’s kingdom first? Are we presenting ourselves to God as a living sacrifice? Lost souls are dying every day, lost because the word of God is LOST, just as the word of God was lost in Josiah’s day.

Let us turn to the word of God as Josiah and the people did.

 

Today

God has often used events of the past to teach us lessons we need to know. While he has used the past in that way, he is intently interested in the way we are conducting ourselves in the present.

The inspired apostle Paul did this in Ephesians chapter 2 when he constructed a before-and-after picture for the Gentiles. Paul wrote, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others,” (Ephesians 2:1-3). It is important for us to learn from the lessons of the past.

But the apostle did not stop there. He also provided them a picture of the present. He reminded the Ephesians they were once aliens and strangers without hope, they were now “alive together with Christ,” (Ephesians 2:5). That’s quite a difference, isn’t it?

The writer of the Hebrew letter provides this contrast in Hebrews 3. While the inspired writer would raise the specter of the disobedience of Israel after being delivered from Egypt, he begins this lesson by warning these people about their present condition. He wrote, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me, tried me and saw my works 40 years,’” (Hebrews 3:7-9 NKJV).

The Lord God is interested in how you are living your life now, just as he was interested in the faithfulness of these people the writer is addressing. It may have been that the people to whom Hebrews was addressed were in the process of falling away from the faith. One of the theme statements of the book is, “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away,” (Hebrews 2:1).

How are you conducting your present life? Is your life filled with working and worship of God, or are you in the process of drifting away? Isn’t it time you should be as intently interested in your present life and change your ways? Isn’t it time you decided to follow Jesus as an obedient child of God?

 Today, you have the opportunity to hear the voice of God in scripture, just as in Hebrews 3:7. None of us have tomorrow guaranteed to us. There is today; tomorrow may never come. “Today, if your will hear his voice,” do not harden your heart.

Even the Least of Them

The telephone rang the other day and an elderly sister called requesting the preacher come and visit her. She was near death, she said, and she wanted some reassurance.

The 78-year-old sister seemed very small in her hospital bed. One could tell she was in great pain, but she smiled when she saw me standing next to her bed.

“You’re from the church, aren’t you?” she said. “You look like a Church of Christ preacher.”

“What does one look like?” I asked.

“When you get home, look in the mirror and you’ll see,” she said.

My sister said she had been told she had only about six months to live, but had improved. She wanted me to pray with her that her sins might be forgiven and that the Lord might help her feel better.

It was when we prayed that I saw him. It was the Lord, there. Jesus said, “’When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” (Matthew 25:39-40 NASB).

Sometimes we think of great people we could see or great things we might do. Always remember that “even the least of them” are great in the eyes of the Lord Jesus, and that he is ultimately the one we are seeking to please.

What is Marriage?

Understanding marriage is more than just dealing with legal terms. We must deal with terms in which God has a keen interest.

Yes, marriage is a contract, a covenant, a commitment and a union, but it is a contract, covenant, commitment and a union in which God is directly connected.

There are marriages that are legal, but also sinful in the eyes of God. Just because a marriage may be legal doesn’t mean it is acceptable or right.

Marriage is…

1. A creation of God. 1 Timothy 4:3. Paul wrote there would be those who would want to regulate food and marriage, but both were made by GOD, not man. Men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created are wrong. As Jesus said in Matthew 19:5, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” This is a forgotten statement in our current society and is why the divorce rate is nearing 75 percent.

2. Instituted by God. Jesus said something that God had said in the beginning of man, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, he shall cleave unto his wife and they twain shall be one flesh,” Matthew 19:6. God instituted marriage for man, not for man’s abuse.

3. A divine creation that permits love between a man and woman for life. Matthew 19:4-5. Man tries to set aside God’s plan, but he cannot set aside what Jesus said in the passage. “Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?” Some people want to forget what Jesus said. His words, however, are irrevocable! Just because Rick and Steve want to set aside what God said doesn’t mean it will be set aside. This is the word that will judge them (John 12:48).

4. A divine plan that fosters faithfulness and fidelity. Romans 7:1-3. As long as husband and wife are joined together, they are bound to one another until death. Unfaithfulness through fornication is the ONLY exception (Matthew 19:9). God meant for marriage to last a lifetime. Unfortunately, children are growing up learning that a one-parent family is a good thing. When I was growing up, it was called a “broken home.”

5. A divinely authorized relationship only certain ones may enjoy. Marriage is only for qualified men and women. Those qualified for marriage are those who have never been married, those whose mates have died and those who are innocent in a divorce caused by fornication (Matthew 19:1-9). No one else is qualified to marry in God’s sight.

6. A divinely authorized union of man and wife. Marriage is not just the physical act of union. There are many who believe that just because they’ve had a physical union they are married. Perhaps in the eyes of the law they may be in a “common-law” marriage, but if God is not a part of the joining then there has been no marriage. Marriage is created by God for man, not created by man for man. Marriage is not something that is done as a convenience, but is something that is divinely authorized.

All of these definitions share the same basic necessity: GOD IS THAT NECESSITY. If a marriage is made without God, it is not marriage. It may be a civil, legal or worldly appropriate union, but it is not truly marriage in the eyes of the Creator of marriage.

Thanks to Bro. Goebel Music for the definitions. They come from “The Home as God Would Have It,” edited by Thomas B. Warren and Garland Elkins.

The Wise Person

There is a sentence in the Bible that accurately sums the definitions of wisdom and foolishness.

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil,” (Ecclesiastes 8:11 KJV). Of this verse, one commentator wrote, “They see not the smoke of the pit, therefore they dread not the fire.”

God does not delay his judgment of evil. But, because the actual punishment does not immediately follow an evil deed, some people believe it is a delay. Since any delay offers opportunity to do more evil, some people take advantage.

This, however, is foolishness. In fact, that’s what the eighth chapter of Ecclesiastes is all about. But, verses five and six really give the heart of the context: “Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment. Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him.”

The wise person keeps God’s commandments because God knows best. Every evil deed has its consequences; they will come whether speedily or not. Payday will come someday. As God said through the writer, “Because to every purpose this is time and judgment.” The wise understand this; the foolish do not.

Let’s focus on the wise person. There are some things that show the difference between the wise and the fool. The book of Proverbs is very instructive here.

• “A wise man will hear,” (Proverbs 1:2). This is true concerning those who will hear the gospel and obey it. The wise always understand the old saying, “God gave people two ears and one mouth, so they should listen twice as much as they talk.” Those who hear will take warning (Ezekiel 33:5).
• “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” (Proverbs 1:7). A wise person respects and fears God and will do what he says without quibble. The wise fix their minds on the study of God’s word so they will know it and do it. If a person wants to be truly intelligent, let that person begin there.
• “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not,” (Proverbs 1:10). All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), but there are people whose very lives are in rebellion against God. Wise people understand the wisdom of Joseph when Potiphar’s wife enticed him. He RAN, (Genesis 29:10-13).

Wisdom has always been about obedience to the will of God. Every wise person in the Bible is proven by obedience. All the examples in Hebrews 11 shows how the wise obey God. It is the foolish who believe that since sentence for an evil deed is not swift, that more opportunity exists to do evil. The wise smell the smoke of the pit long before it ever swirls around their nostrils.

Of course, the question is, “Are we wise?”