“And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, the Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil.”
Zephaniah prophesied a few years before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. His prophecies were typically negative and positive, but the warnings that he gave were dire. In the verses that we are considering today, he was dealing with the complacency of the people of Judah. They just did not take God seriously, as seen in Zephaniah’s words: “(The men) who say in their heart, the Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil.” They had marginalized God. In other words, what God wanted with and for them did not matter. They would just go their own way. This prophecy applies today just as it did in that day. What will complacency due to the marginalization of God lead to? It will lead people to trust in their own resources instead of in God. This happened to the people of Jerusalem, and it is happening in our own day. Of course, the way things are today are not unique in history. There have always been times when people did not trust in God and instead trusted in their own resources. But we did not live in those days, we live today. (Duh, I know you knew that, but read on.) It is too easy for us to go our own way and forget that the Lord has input in our lives. Indeed, He must have input in our lives. We need to trust that the Lord will provide and has provided. We need to be thankful for what He has done in our lives. There is no such thing as a self-made man. Other people have had input in his life and helped him along the way, and, if he is wise, he has depended on God to help him along the way. Be grateful for the resources that you have in your life, but remember that God had a hand in all of it, and was the real cause of all of it. It will lead people to devise their own moral code. This is what the Jews did in Zephaniah’s day. They decided that the gods of the Canaanites were as good as Yahweh, who led them out of Egypt into the Promised Land years before. The memory of the Ten Commandments had faded from their minds and hearts. The moral code of the pagan nations around them was as good in their sight as the moral code given in the Pentateuch – the first five books in the Bible. One of the reasons for this treason was that the pagan moral code suited their desires more than the Law of Moses. The pagan moral code allowed them to do whatever they wanted to do. In fact, Baal worship encouraged immoral behavior. God’s people succumbed to the siren call of paganism. The same thing is happening today, and we need to be careful lest we get hooked into it as well. It will lead people to treat people any way that they want to treat them. For example, what the Jews had in the Law of Moses, we have in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us to love our enemies and do good to those who mistreat us. (Not a direct quote) Jesus told us to “turn the other cheek” if someone strikes us. In John, Jesus told us that people would see Him in the love that we have for people: “By this all shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) In the preceding verse, verse 34, Jesus said: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Loving people is a commandment, not a suggestion. Therefore we cannot decide how we want to treat people, any more than the people could in Zephaniah’s day. Zephaniah’s main theme was “the Day of the Lord.” His warning to Judah was actually twofold. First, Judah and Jerusalem would be destroyed. Second, there is a day of judgment coming on all the world, which is the Day of the Lord. It is a warning that is given throughout the Bible. We need to heed the prophet’s warning and not be complacent. The Bible’s message has not changed . There will be a pay day. Let us rise up and believe in and serve the Lord instead of our own interests. Bro. Joe
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“Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord.”
You might wonder why I am writing about fellowship/partnership when the word is not mentioned in the short text above. While reading in Philippians this morning, I read this verse and it stood out so prominently in my mind and heart that I had to write about it and share my thoughts on it with you. The word “fellowship” is not in the text, but what I saw this morning were the principles of true fellowship. Let me show you what I mean: First, Paul referred to the Philippians as “my beloved.” Paul loved the Philippians. This love was personal to Paul, because he wrote “my beloved.” The Greek word that is translated beloved is agapaytoi, the root of which is agape, which is God’s kind of love, a love that has its roots in eternity. The first principle of fellowship has to be God’s kind of love. Jesus commanded us to love one another. He stated this in John 13:34: “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Notice that I underlined “commandment.” Love one another in Christ is not a suggestion; rather, it is a command. The principle is if you have a difficult time loving one of your Christian brothers or sisters because of personality differences, or any other kind of differences, that you just love them in spite of the difficulty. This is largely missing in church fellowship today and we need to get this principle down. As I was writing this, the Lord spoke to my heart and told me that I need to do better with it myself. (There, I’ve confessed, now it’s your turn.) Second, Paul referred to them as “longed for brethren.” In the Greek New Testament a strict translation would be, “my brethren/sisteren (I added that) beloved and longed for.” Remember that Philippians is one of Paul’s prison letters. He was tucked away under house arrest in Rome, and he could not have personal fellowship with the Philippians, or any other church, and he missed them. He longed to be with them, to fellowship with them. I wonder if we long for fellowship with each other. Our brothers and sisters who chronically miss assembling with us in worship on Sunday do not understand that when we ask them to come back, it is because we miss them. One lesson I have learned in my experience as a pastor after years of being an associational servant – Associational Missionary/Director of Missions, is that I look forward every Sunday and Wednesday to fellowship with my small flock. Each one of those people are dear to me, even those who chronically miss church. As much as I enjoy and thrive on the fellowship of my church, I still miss the broader fellowship that Mary and I had with all of the churches in our association. The Greek word translated “longed for,” means exactly that. It means to desire deeply for something or someone. Do you really long for, and desire, fellowship with your fellow Christians? (Come on, answer the question honestly in your mind and heart.) He also referred to them as his joy and crown, which could be the subject of another article. Third, he encouraged them to “stand fast in the Lord.” Paul was concerned that his beloved, longed for fellow Christians not stray from Christian truth. It was not a matter of them straying from church attendance, which is a symptom of not standing fast, but that each of them “stay by the stuff” and not only live the Christian life, but hold to Christian principles in their minds and hearts and in their lifestyles. We can’t do just anything that we want to do, go just anywhere that we want to go, hold just any opinion that we want to hold. There are biblical principles that we should live by, or that we should stand fast on. Just as Paul yearned for personal fellowship with the Philippian church, he longed for them to stand fast in the Lord. This is what we need to long for, and pray for, in our own church fellowship. It should be of great concern to us when one of our flock strays from living the Christian life. I think that you will agree with these principles of fellowship. Think of how much better our fellowship would be if we really followed these principles. Hey, let’s go do it. It’s in the Bible! Bro. Joe “When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he comes upon the people, he will invade them with his troops. 17. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive tree shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: 18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. 19. The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds (deer) feet, and He will make me to walk upon high places…”
The prophet Habakkuk was written in approximately 620-612 BC during the latter part of Josiah’s reign. (The Revell Bible Dictionary) In his first prayer the prophet questioned why God wasn’t taking action against Judah because of their idolatry and all of the immorality that this entailed. God’s answer to Habakkuk was that Judah would be destroyed by Babylon in the years to come. (It happened in 586-587 BC.) The second prayer of the prophet was why God would use a godless people like the Babylonians to destroy Judah. God assured Habakkuk that He would destroy the Babylonian Empire as well. Habakkuk realized that destruction was coming upon his people. He accepted that God’s judgment was inevitable that there was nothing that could be done to stop it. This is a good reminder to us as well, as we go about our merry way doing whatever we want to do. “God’s wheels grind slowly but they grind surely.” The thing that we need to see is Habakkuk’s reaction to this news. When He accepted that God is God and that He will do what He will, Habakkuk reacted by the faith that he mentioned in 2:4b: “The just shall live by faith." Our text is the prophet’s reaction and we should take it to heart. In verse 17, Habakkuk wrote that if everything was destroyed he would believe in God and serve Him. (Read it in the text printed above.) In verse 18, he wrote, “Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” We need to learn what the great prophet learned, i.e., that our rejoicing should not depend on our outward circumstances, but in the joy of the Lord. The fact that God is real and present and loving us transcends all earthly concerns. This is exactly the same reason that Paul was enabled to declare what he did in Philippians 4:11: “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” It is difficult for us to realize, but the Lord is enough. We will understand this fully when we see Him in glory. Meanwhile, no matter what is going on around us, let us glory in the Lord. This doesn’t mean that we will not take a stand. What it means is that we are not going to give in to despair and depression because of what is happening in the word. Verse 19 gives us the reason why Habakkuk would rejoice in the God of his salvation: “The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like deer’s feet, and He will make me to walk upon my high places.” The prophet drew His strength from the Lord instead of worldly circumstances. Because of God’s strength, Habakkuk could be like a deer on the mountain, he could walk sure-footed in the world and be above the circumstances. Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit in our lives, our hearts, to strengthen and guide us day by day. We literally have the strength of the Lord living in us. For that reason, we can walk like a deer on the mountain and maintain our joy, knowing that we are secure in the Lord. We can say with Paul in Philippians 1:21: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Let’s catch the spirit of Habakkuk in the darkness of the hour. God is alive and at work – Rejoice! Bro. Joe Jesus said: “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
My good friend, John Townsend, sent me an Email that really caught my attention. The Email was 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 and was all alone.) Do you believe that this sort of thing can happen today? Well, do you believe in 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. Water cannot be made into grape juice or wine – period. 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 than 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 anything that we want to do, but we serve a God who can. 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 two cancers in 2011-2012? Of course I did, and I was healed through medicine. God did not see fit to heal me immediately, but He grew my faith in Him while I was recovering. 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 behalf of believers, and sometimes that does not jibe with our ideas of what He should do for us. Like Paul, I don’t think that God has to explain to us 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 “Take us, the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.”
If you look through the preaching files of preachers, you probably will not find many sermons from this love poem called “Song of Solomon.” At least that would be true of my files. As I was reading this puzzling poem today, my mind was drawn to the admonition to the Shulamite, the heroine in the poem, to look out for the “little foxes that spoil the vines.” In that day and in that place, foxes were like deer, and other animals today, that spoil crops by eating them before they are ready for harvest, or even after they are ready for harvest. I could probably be accused of taking this text out of the context of the poem, but I saw something that has a broader interpretation: We should be aware of the “little foxes” that can “spoil” our lives. Here are some of the “little foxes” that I thought of that can “spoil our vines.” One of our “little foxes” is misplaced anger. There are a lot of things that make us angry, and some of them should truly make us angry. The fact is, however, that if we aren’t careful, we can internalize our anger until it becomes part and parcel with our lives. We are given some godly advice in Ephesians 4:26 pertaining to anger: “Be ye angry and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” In other words, it is alright to be angry, just get over it. Sometimes, however, we are angry without cause, and that really becomes a “little fox” in our lives that will indeed hinder our Christian growth. Anger becomes guile and guile becomes malice. It is like a cancer in our souls that eats away at us, draws us away from Jesus, and stunts our Christian growth. Do not let this “little fox” spoil, or ruin your life or your witness. Another of our “little foxes” is petting and nurturing our negative feelings about certain people in our lives. That is closely akin to the first point about anger. Face it, there are some people in our lives who just rub us the wrong way. They say or do things that hurt our feelings, or put us down, and we want to hold a grudge against them. This “little fox” will do more harm to you than it will to the person that you hold a grudge against. I will suggest two remedies for this: (1) Have a “thick hide” and don’t let little hurtful things said or done to you get under your skin. In other words, toughen up. (2) Ask the Lord to help you forgive that person, or those people, and to forgive you for letting them get under your skin. When you internalize things said or done to you, this becomes a stronghold of Satan, and he will drive it home until you will either have to repent or just keep on hating. Still another “little fox” related to the first one is failing to love other people. I am reminded every day that Jesus did not give us any choice but to love people. Hatred is never shown in a good light in the New Testament. When we internalize anger, and hold onto it until it becomes a grudge, we end up being unloving people. I know that this is a challenge for me. There are so many things going on today that I disagree with both theologically and politically, that every day is a challenge to love instead of hate. I get so angry sometimes that I almost want to throw a shoe through our TV set. (If I did that, I would be in real trouble at home.) That is when the biblical admonition to “be angry and sin not, let not the sun go down on your wrath,” comes to my mind – or the Lord puts it there to remind me. What I know about the Lord reminds me that I can’t hate, no matter what the offense. The Holy Spirit reminds me of Jesus’ first prayer from the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” If we want to be like Jesus, we can’t let hatred settle into our lives – our minds and souls. I’m sure that there are lots of other “little foxes” that you can think of that you have to deal with. There is probably no end to the “little foxes” that Satan puts in our “vineyard” to tempt us to let them “spoil the vines.” Just be aware of them, and don’t let them get to you. Bro. Joe “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
The word “heart” used here is not about the pump that keeps the blood flowing through our bodies. It is about what goes on in our inner lives. What we are in the secret archives of our internal lives is all-important. Jeremiah 17:9 gives us a dim view of the human heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” This makes knowing our hearts seem impossible, but a question is asked: “Who can know it?” We can’t really trust ourselves to know our own hearts, but in His grace, God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us discern our hearts. So we are told to “keep our hearts with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. In other words, what we are inside will determine how we live our lives. We are told to keep our hearts with all diligence. Diligence can also be translated as “vigilance.” We need to be vigilant about what we let into our hearts. We face all kinds of temptations in our lives and we need to be aware of them, because Satan knows all of our weaknesses and will hone in on them and really put what tempts us before our eyes and in our minds. Actually, Proverbs 4:26-27 gives us the solution to overcoming these temptations: “Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.” These decisions are made in our hearts before they are actively pursued. If we are going to “remove (our) feet from evil,” we will decide within ourselves that we are not going to allow Satan to have his way in this matter. We need to know that what we allow into our hearts is important. If we are not careful, we will fill our hearts and lives with many things that keep us from our highest and best. One of my favorite verses, that I quote often, is Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” I guess this would seem too simple to our jaded society, but it can work if we put these things in our hearts. The psalmist had the right idea in Psalm 119:10-11: “With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not waver from thy commandments. 11. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” He sought God wholeheartedly and insured obedience by heeding the word of God. We are told that “the issues of life” come out of our hearts. What are the issues of life? The issues of life begin with our relationship with God. If one has no relationship with God, his or her, heart will be hardened to a need for such a relationship. Decide in your heart that you have a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and if you do not immediately confess your sins, repent and invite Jesus into your heart. All of the other issues of life that you can no doubt decide for yourself come from our relationship with God. If we are not in a saving relationship with Him, the issues of life will not matter to us anyway. After all is said and done, this is the ultimate issue that we need to deal with in our lives. Give your heart to the Lord and let Him guide you in the issues of your life. You won’t be perfect, but you will certainly be better off – an understatement. Bro. Joe “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5. one faith, one baptism; 6. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2. With all lowliness/humility, and gentleness/meekness, with longsuffering/patience, bearing one another in love. 3. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (I added the slants to give an alternate translation of the words.)
Paul wrote about a “walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” This means that we can’t live anyway that we want to live, but that there are qualities that we should possess within ourselves and that we show to the world that will make us good witnesses of Jesus Christ. We know that these are not all of the qualities that we need, but these listed here will go a long way toward making our Christian walk worthy. (“Walk,” here refers to the way we live.) A worthy walk will be humble. The NKJV translated it “lowliness” which is the same meaning. It does not mean that we are to feel inferior to other people. Humble people have realized that their standing in life before God and people does not depend on their being superior to other people. One of the greatest things about humility is that it makes one satisfied to be equal to all people. In other words, I’m not better than other people and they are not better than me – we are all equal. We can be humble before God and people, when we are so secure in our relationship with Jesus, and that our standing before God and people is dependent on our relationship with Him. A worthy walk will be meek. “Meek” is not spelled “weak.” When we are meek, we are gentle and do not mean harm to people. Meekness actually stems from a Greek word which means “controlled strength.” We can take insults with alacrity because Christ has given us the strength to do it. We are not weak when we act like Christians; rather, we are strong, because we are living on Christ’s strength. We can use Jesus, Paul and all of the early apostles as good examples of meekness and gentleness. They stood against the pagan world and maintained dignity, decorum and loving attitudes. This is meekness. A worthy walk will be longsuffering or patient. Longsuffering translates a Greek word that means we can endure in faith and love even in the midst of suffering. It literally means to “suffer long.” It goes beyond, for example, being patient while we wait for something. It means to live out our Christian witness even when we are going through difficult times. It definitely does not mean that we should prefer to suffer. It does mean that when we suffer we will keep the faith and walk the walk in spite of suffering. A worthy walk will be forbearing. Paul wrote that we should “bear with one another in love.” Christians are not isolated from the world. Jesus did not save us to avoid people, but to love people, and to be involved with them... Christians have to deal with all kinds of people in daily life and in church fellowship. Church fellowship can be as tough as dealing with relationships at work. All of us have our opinions and ideas that we hold dear. Other people, Christian or non-Christian, will not agree with us all of the time. This is where “longsuffering” can come into play. But the key word here is “love.” If we love people we can “bear with them” even though we are diametrically opposed to each other. Hey, the Bible doesn’t promise us that this will be easy. In fact, in our contentious world today, I have a real struggle with this. We just need to trust the Lord that forbearance is possible and try to live it each day. Forbearance does not mean compromising our faith, we can stand on the word of God and still forbear with people. We will be better witnesses for it. A worthy walk will result in, “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” All of the qualities listed above will mean that we have unity in our Christian fellowship. We will have peace in our hearts, with our fellow Christians and with people at home, work and play. Bro. Joe “Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” “A man that has friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
I have been humming the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” all morning. You remember: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief’s to bear, what a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer.” I figured that if that tune was on my mind and I couldn’t get it off that God wanted me to write an article about our friend Jesus. The text that I chose is from the Old Testament, but it is one of the best descriptions of the friendship of Jesus in the Bible. Jesus did, indeed, “show Himself friendly”, and He is a “friend that sticks closer than a brother.” This is what I see in the New Testament when I read about Jesus, and what I have experienced with Him in my life. .What does it mean to have a friend in Jesus? Proverbs 17:17 describes what it means to have Jesus as a friend: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." Let’s take a look at “a friend loves at all times.” Paul addressed this in Romans 8:38-39: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That reads an awful lot like “a friend loves at all times.” There is not a person on earth that Jesus does not love, for He died for all that “none should perish.” In His life, death and resurrection, Jesus befriended all people. He longs to have a relationship with all people. Of course, He doesn’t have a relationship with all people, because many people reject Him. But their rejection is not Jesus’ fault. The fact that Jesus loves at all times means that He loves us, and befriends us at all of the times of our lives. He is with us when we are going through smooth-sailing. When we rejoice, Jesus rejoices with us. Jesus is also with us, and befriending us, when we are going to through difficult times. Just because we are not “winning” does not mean that Jesus has stopped caring. He is especially with us when we are going through difficult times. I can attest to this, and I imagine that many of you reading this can attest to the same thing. Look at the second part of Proverbs 17:17: “And a brother is born for adversity.” This means that a real friend will not forsake us when things are not going our way. Jesus is as much our friend, and brother, in adverse times as He is in the good times. When we are suffering for any reason, we must not assume that Jesus does not care, for Jesus was born, lived, died, arose and ascended in order to be with us in adversity. Christians have to face all of the exigencies of life like everybody else. We can just rejoice that we have a friend that “sticks closer than a brother” at those times. Is Jesus a friend to those who have not put their faith in Him? I think that He is, or will be, but friendship has to work both ways. Proverbs 18:24 informed us that, “a man that has friends must show himself friendly.” Jesus has shown Himself friendly to all humanity, but all humanity has not shown themselves friendly to Him. He longs for their friendship. Bro. Joe |
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