There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
If I was writing a book, I could strain all of the truth that is given in this verse for you, but I am writing a blog, so I will give you what is on my mind today concerning this text. Yesterday, I shared with you that there is not an “undo key” in our lives. In other words, once something is said or done it cannot be unsaid or undone. But there is a key on our computers called the “escape key,” and we do have this key in our lives. Our text tells us that we do. We will not have a temptation that is peculiar to us. That’s what Paul wrote: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man…” All of the great men of the Bible had the same temptations that we have today, and all of the great Christians throughout church history have had the same temptations. Hebrews 4:16 reminds us that even Jesus was tempted: “For we have not an high priest Who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Notice that I underlined “all points,” for that tells us that Jesus had every kind of temptation that we have. The caveat here is that He was “yet without sin.” We can’t say that about ourselves, but we need to be reminded that the temptation is not the sin. We do not need to feel guilty about temptations, for they are “all common to man.” But we should not yield to temptation, no matter how demanding it seems to be. Remember, God will not “suffer you to be tempted above what you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” There is our “escape key.” It is not hopeless, because God will show us a way to escape. Hebrews 4:16 gives a way to escape a temptation: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” This follows the reminder that Jesus “was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.” Because of our sinless Savior, we can go to His throne and find the grace to help us escape. Going to the “throne of grace,” is a way of saying “going to the Lord in prayer.” This would call for a prayer of confession that results in a prayer of repentance. We can’t overcome temptation on our own, but God has given us a way of escape through prayer. Another way that God has provided as a way of escape for us is the Bible. Constant reading of the Bible will remind us that sin is not pleasing to God. I love to read the Bible, because it makes me aware of the danger of sin. If more people would spend more time in the Bible, their lives would be happier and more productive. It is interesting to note that Jesus beat back temptation by quoting scripture to Satan. This I know: There are some temptations that are constant and persistent. The enemy, Satan, knows our weaknesses. In the aforementioned temptation of Jesus, he knew Jesus was hungry after forty days of fasting, and made his first temptation for Jesus to turn the stones into bread. Jesus did not heed Satan; rather, He heeded the word of God. No matter how persistent Satan is we need to hurry to the “throne of grace,” and to the word of God in order to escape. The power to escape temptation does not come from our strength, but from God’s strength. We will be wise to remember this. Use the “escape key,” or in this case, the “escape keys.” Bro. Joe
0 Comments
“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.”
Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of repentance after his affair with Bathsheba, and after he had been confronted by Nathan the prophet with his sin. Sadly, after the fact David realized the sinfulness of what he had done. Indeed, he saw how twisted he was because he referred to his “iniquity” which means twisted. He saw that he had gone out of the bounds of God’s holiness because he acknowledged his “transgression,” which means to go out of bounds. He realized that he had “missed the mark” because he referred to his “sin,” which means to miss the mark. We could say that David realized he had sinned in every way that it is possible to sin and that he could not undo it. Which leads me to what I want to write about. This morning I was wishing that God had given us an “undo key” in our lives like we have on our computers. If we do not like what we have written, we can simply push a key and what we have written will be undone. We also have a key called “backspace,” that we can use to erase what we have written. Alas, we do not have either key in our lives. I’m sure that all of us have done things that we wish we had not done, and that if we could, we would undo or erase them. But what is done is done and cannot be undone. This would seem to be a hopeless situation. In the throes of his guilt, David wrote, “My sin is ever before me.” Perhaps you have sins that are “ever before you.” Thank God, that though He has not given us an “undo key,” HE has given us a way out of our iniquities, transgressions and sins. David saw the glimmer of hope in his conundrum when he wrote: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” While David could not undo or erase what he had done, he could make his plea to God for forgiveness. In Psalm 51:12, David requested: “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.” As a child of God who had experienced the power and love of God on many occasions, David knew that God was/is a forgiving God. Make no mistake about it, God is not happy with our sins, and He will discipline us because of our sins, but He will forgive us and wipe the slate clean. If you are a frequent reader of this site, you have read this before, and you will read it again, but it explains what David learned and that we need to learn: “If we confess our sins, He (Jesus) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrigheousness.” (1 John 1:9) (Hey, “all” means all.) Whatever is eating at you today can be forgiven and you can go on with your life, perhaps sadder but wiser, but you can go on knowing that the blood of Jesus can cleanse even your sins. Throughout the Bible, we see God forgiving what might seem to be unforgivable. Peter denied Jesus three times, yet he was forgiven and used of Jesus in mighty ways after his denials. The thief on the cross had lived a sorry, sorry life, perhaps stealing and killing but Jesus forgave him and took Him to paradise. There is no “undo key” but there is the fact of forgiveness and that is what we need to concentrate on. If we are as truly repentant as David was, and are really aware of the seriousness of our sins and the hurt they have caused others as well as ourselves, we can take them to God in true repentance, and He will forgive us. It is a fact! Do it now! Bro. Joe "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
We need to be transparent in prayer; for God knows everything about us anyway. David was very transparent in this prayer. He admitted here that he did not always understand why he did what he did, and that he needed God's help in his behavior. David knew that God already knew about his behavior, but he still shared it with God. This kind of honesty is what God wants from us in prayer. He asked God to know his heart. Of course, David never read Jeremiah, but he knew the meaning of Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" He knew that he needed God's help in dealing with his heart. If we are wise we will pray the same prayer. You have heard people say, “I don’t know my own heart.” But God always knows what is in our hearts. I guess in a way we mean that we want to know about our hearts what God knows about our hearts. This kind of prayer can help us to change what needs to be changed in our hearts. It is really great when we are going through hard times personally and God gives us insight into ourselves. It would be a good idea today for you to ask God to know your heart in order for you to know it as well. We can lie to ourselves, i.e., be dishonest with ourselves, but we can’t be dishonest with God. Open your heart to Him and let Him give you cleansing and clarification that you need. He asks God to "try (him) and know (his) thoughts." He wanted to be in control of his thoughts. If this psalm is after the Bathsheba affair, and I'm not sure about the date, he is probably remembering how his thoughts went wild that night and led him to do terrible things. It is true that "the thought is the father of the deed." Do we dare invite God into our thoughts? It is very difficult for us to control our thoughts. Satan is aware of the power of our thought processes in our behavior. He is always working on our minds to keep them on things that will not be good for us or for our relationship with God. That is why we need to turn our thought processes over to the Lord. The Lord knows every thought that we have, and He wants to be involved in the things that get into our minds. Maybe our thoughts lead us into spiritual trouble sometimes because we have not been honest with God about our thoughts. We might as well confess that we can’t control our thoughts by our own efforts. David knew this, and He has written this inspired word to help us know it as well. He wanted God to uncover any wicked way in him and lead him "in the way everlasting." What he wanted was to live with eternity in mind each day. We really need to have the courage to pray this prayer. What David was asking of God was for Him to offer leadership for His life. We will follow some kind of leadership in our lives, and as Christians we just need to make sure we are following God’s leadership. If we ask God to lead us “in the way everlasting,” we will live a life that is pleasing to Him. Be honest with God and yourself and seek His leadership for your life. Bro. Joe ""For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my way, saith the Lord. 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Several years ago, a friend sent me an Email about a man who had a heart attack. The hospital staff tried to revive him but could not get a heartbeat. Finally, they pronounced him dead and had begun to prepare him for the morgue. The doctor who pronounced him dead is a Christian. He said that the Lord spoke to his heart and said to turn around, go back to where the man was and pray for him. At first, he was a bit hesitant, but the “still small voice” was so persistent that he did what the voice told him to do. He went in and prayed for the man, then told the technician to shock him one more time. To make a long story short, the technician applied the paddle to the man, shocked him and he revived. He is still alive today and is indeed a believer because of the experience. (What I failed to add above is that the man was not a Christian, and is glad he was called back, because while he was dead, he was in a dark place.) Do you believe that this sort of thing can happen today? Well, do you believe the Bible? There were all kinds of miracles in the Bible in the Old and New Testaments. Miracles occur by the hand of God, who is sovereign over human affairs. In other words, not everybody is healed when healing is prayed for, and not everyone is raised from the dead when people would wish it to happen. But if God wants a miracle to occur, it will occur. Our part is to have faith in Him, believe in what He can do, and trust Him to do what is best for us. Jesus did all kinds of miracles in His ministry on earth. He did things that were way above the level of possibility. For example, Jesus turned water into wine. Now, you can’t make wine out of water. When water sits for awhile it only becomes brackish, has little green things in it, and is harmful to drink. There might be such a thing, but I have never heard of "water wine." Another example of Jesus doing miracles is His power over demons. They were absolutely subservient to Him. When Jesus told them to come out, they came out. Now, demons are cast out today, but the casting out is not from the power of people, but from the power of Christ. It is our faith in Jesus that can cause Jesus to do things far above what we would humanly expect. To me, that is the exciting thing about being a Christian. We can’t do everything that we want to do, but we serve a God who can do what He wills to do. . You might be thinking right now: “Bro. Joe have you ever seen a miracle?” Let me put it this way: I have prayed for people to be healed and they were healed. I didn’t slap them on the forehead in front of television cameras, but I prayed for them in the quiet of my place of prayer, God heard and answered. Needless to say, I have prayed for people to be healed and they were not healed because God had other plans for them. Did I pray for myself to be healed in my bout with cancer a few years ago? Of course I did, and I was healed through doctors, medicine and the prayers of many Christian friends and family members. God did not see fit to heal me immediately, but He grew my faith in Him while I was recovering and He was healing me in the process both physically and spiritually. I am not trying to explain to you why God does what He does in various lives. I’m just telling you that our sovereign God always works on our behalf, and sometimes that does not jibe with our ideas of what He should do for us. Like Isaiah, I don’t think that God has to explain to me why He does what He does. We just have to confess that when God inspired Isaiah to write that His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts, He wasn’t playing games with us. He is beyond our understanding. I just rejoice that by faith in Jesus Christ, I can serve God and see what He can do in the lives of individuals. It is beyond our power to determine when God will perform miracles. It is in our power to trust Him when He inspires Paul to write in Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” That is a miracle within itself. Believe it! Bro. Joe "Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."
From Genesis through Revelation, faithfulness is a requirement for the servants of God. I want to share four requirements of faithfulness for servants of God. We should be faithful to read and study the Bible. The Bible, of course, is the text book for God's people. We should be faithful to read and study the Bible in our churches, but we should be faithful to personally read and study the Bible in our private time. The Bible contains all that we need to know in order to live the Christian life, and to serve in Christ's kingdom. Read and study your Bible each day, and read it systematically, meaning that you should read it a book at the time until you have gone from Genesis to Revelation. That is really not too much to ask of God's people We should be faithful to pray. We need to seek the Lord in prayer each day, and not only talk to God, but take some time to listen to what He says to us. Prayer is a two way communication between God and His people. If we will just be still, we can hear the voice of God in our hearts and minds as we pray. I have never heard God audibly speak, but I have surely heard what He has said to my mind and heart. This is how I knew that God was calling to me into the ministry, and how i have known His will as I have moved through my years of ministry. You will not be a faithful servant of God if you are not faithful to pray. We should be faithful to love people. This sometimes might be most difficult order that we receive from God. Let's just be honest, some people are difficult to love. (I know that sometimes I am difficult to love.) But the command to love people is seminal in our call to serve God. When we serve God, we will have to work with people. Some of these people will be easy to love and to serve beside, and some will be difficult to love and to serve beside, but we are required to love and serve beside all of them. (We might consider that we might be that difficult person for some people to love and serve beside.) We should be faithful to support Christ's church with our time and with our money. It is through churches that we find structure for our Christian service; therefore, we should not neglect our responsibility in that area. This does not mean that it is only through the organized church that we serve the Lord, but it is the primary source of our Christian service. Don't neglect Christ's church! This is certainly not a complete list of our need to be faithful servants of God, but they are important, and we should not neglect these areas of our Christian service. Selah Bro. Joe "For all of our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you. So teach us to number our days that we may have a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:9-12 ESV) "Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." (Ephesians 5:15-17 ESV)
It is true that "time and tide wait for no man." We wake up and it's Monday, then it's Friday, then it's Christmas, then it's New Years Day - again. Our lives pass so fast that we really have to be careful how we handle each day. Unwise people just let time pass by without making any plans or without considering what their lives should mean. That is why the psalmist wrote: "So teach us to number our days that we may have a heart of wisdom." "Numbering our days" means that we live one day at a time and grasp what we need to be or to do each day. If we are not careful, time "will soon be gone and we fly away." When we number our days, we have a "heart of wisdom," which means that our hearts are in tune with God's wisdom for our lives. Paul admonished us to "make the best use of our time." If we do less than this, we will be foolish and we will not "understand what the will of the Lord is." The best way to make the best use of fleeting time is to get in tune with the will of God for your life and follow the path that He has laid out for you. It took me a while to learn this lesson, but when He "gets ahold" of you, you will notice, or be awfully miserable. Number your days to today, stop, listen, and let what God is telling you in your heart and mind take hold! Selah Bro. Joe Bro. Joe "As the hart (deer) panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before Him."
These are two of my favorite verses in the psalms. They express a need that every Christian has. Our greatest passion should be God/Christ. Whatever gifts of the Spirit we might have, and whatever desires we might have in our service to Him, we need to thirst for Him - period. The psalmist compared himself to a thirsty deer in his thirst for God. I have never really seen a thirsty deer, but I have seen thirsty cows, etc. When they are thirsty, they really go after it. This is how we should long for more of God/Christ. These "thirsty" times are the times when we can't wait to get to our personal prayer closets and fellowship with Him. In those times, we are not really asking for anything. We just want more of Jesus. We want to be closer to Him. We want to express our love and devotion to Him. These are the kinds of prayer moments that change our lives, draw us closer to Jesus and to each other. Of course, the Lord wants to hear our petitions, for He wants to meet our needs. He knows what our greatest needs are, and He will meet them, but we need to grow enough spiritually to worship the Lord simply because He is the Lord, not just for what He can do for us. I think that this was what was happening in these two verses from Psalm 42. The psalmist was going through a difficult time when he wrote these verses. .He wrote. “Why are you cast down oh my soul?” (Verse 7) If you will read the whole psalm you will see that this was not a victorious time for the psalmist. The point is that God allows these times so that we will feel the need to draw closer to Him. We need to be reminded that we need the Lord at all times, and that only He can fulfill the deep needs of our souls. Notice that the prayer is, “so panteth my soul after thee.” This prayer came from the deepest longings of the psalmist’s soul. I will confess that there are times when I feel a deeper need for the presence of God than at other times. The need is always the same, but we do not always feel the need the same. When our souls are “cast down” we find ourselves not just talking to God, but reaching out to Him from deep inside of ourselves – from our souls. Let’s think about David just before he faced Goliath. I think that David was reaching out to God from his soul. He had to be because he knew that he really needed God at that time. There was no way on earth that this young fellow could face up to Goliath in the flesh. David was probably reaching out to God from his soul. We can understand these times, because we face them ourselves if we seriously serve the Lord. I have found myself in many situations where my soul was panting after God. I think that this is what Paul meant when he wrote in Romans 8:26-27: “Likewise the Spirit also helps us our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27. And He that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." The amazing thing is that when we seek more of the Lord, we find that He is willing to give more of Himself and to bring blessings into our lives. I wish that I could say that every prayer session I have is like that, but it would not be true. But what great times await us when we thirst for more of God. Get thirsty! Bro. Joe "Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship more than one loaf. 15. And (Jesus) charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the ;leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod."
Jesus used this lack of bread to tell His disciples to beware of the "leaven of the Pharisees." He was telling them to beware of the teachings of the Pharisees. What was wrong with their teachings? First, they put "the teachings of men" ahead of, or on par, with scripture. They were big into traditions that had arisen after the "Bible days." Aren't we glad that this element of Phariseeism has not found its way into our lives and churches? Of course, I'm being sarcastic here, because we certainly are guilty of this. A lot of what we do is based on tradition rather than on the word of God. That's why we have trouble over "cutting down the oak tree that my granddaddy planted in the churchyard." You know what I mean! Second, they thought that they were righteous. Because they thought that their righteousness arose from their own thoughts and deeds, they were self-righteous. They actually thought that they were better than other people. (Remember the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke 18.) Again, this element of Phariseeism has not fully died today. If we are not careful, we will "look down our noses" at other people. We might live better lives than they do, but we are still only "sinners saved by grace." Paul warned the Romans: "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." What Paul meant was that they were not completely sinless themselves. Remember what Jesus said to the men in John 8 who brought the woman caught in the act of adultery to him: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Jesus is definitely not impressed with our righteousness. If He is impressed with anything in our lives it is our faith, because it is only by faith that we can please Him. (Hebrews 11:6) There is more that could be written about this, but this is probably enough for us to meditate on for now. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." Bro. Joe "He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loves abundance with increase: This is also vanity."
There is nothing on this earth than can fully satisfy us and keep us satisfied. When we were children we thought, "If I could get one of those toys (whatever it was) I would never want anything again." We really meant it at the time, but if we got the toy, we discovered that it could not satisfy us that fully. We have a hunger for more. Have you ever heard anybody say, "I've made enough money, I'm going to start giving it away?" But we don't have to look at other people, we only have to think of ourselves. Can we truthfully say that we are satisfied with what we have? If we were, we wouldn't go to Walmart (LOL). We always want something else. I remember that before I went to seminary, I thought that if I could just turn loose and go that I would be satisfied. Well, I went to seminary, and I graduated. I found that that degree was no more satisfying than the degrees from Norman Jr. College and Valdosta State. I am glad that I got all of my degrees, for I went and got one more in 1983, but degrees did not bring satisfaction to my life. Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes 5:10 knew what he was writing about. A man with 700 wives and 300 concubines is not easily satisfied. But I can say this: since I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I have never wanted another savior. I hope this is true of you. He satisfies us with spiritual blessings and is our only source of real satisfaction. I can truthfully say that I am satisfied with Jesus. Can you? Bro. Joe "In your anger do not sin, when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. 5. Offer right sacrifices and trust in the Lord." (NIV)
The emotion of anger is not a sin. When the doctor whacked our backsides to get us breathing, or whatever, we did not laugh, we cried, or rather we howled in fury. The first emotion that we express after we are born is anger. Anger becomes a sin when it becomes a part of who we are, when we never get over things that happen to us. I have known people who have been angry over things for years. I've had people express anger for another person as if what occured to cause the anger had happened yesterday. In reality it happened years ago. That's different from getting angry, expressing it and getting over it. The problem with hoarded anger is that it turns into malice. Malice is anger that has "gone to seed." When anger is held onto until it becomes malice, it becomes a lifestyle. That is when anger becomes a sin. Paul gave us another explanation of anger in Ephesians 4:26-27: "In your anger do not sin; do not let the sun go down while you are still angry; and do not give the devil a foothold." (NIV) When we hold onto our anger, Satan loves to help us keep it going. For example, when we see the person with whom we are angry, Satan will remind us of the reason we are angry, and we will relive the situation that caused the anger. The name "Satan" is synonymous with the word "sin." Whatever Satan has a hand in is sin - period. I think that "when you are on your bed, search your hearts and be silent" means to think about the anger, get rid of it and keep your mouth shut. This might be a shallow interpretation, but it works for me. Verse 5 completes the thought: "offer right sacrifices and trust in the Lord." By New Testament standards, this means to turn your anger over to Jesus and trust Him to help you overcome it. Do not hold onto your anger. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|