“For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his goings.'”
Don’t you agree that it is a sobering thought that God sees everything that we do? That is what our text reveals. It is even goes on to say that “He ponders (our) goings.” This can also be translated the Lord “examines all our ways.” That is even more sobering – at least it is to me. Be honest, it is sobering to you too. (lol, or “oh me.”) What does God see in our lives? (I will use “you” with the understanding that I’m including myself.) Does God see you making excuses for making bad decisions? What I mean by this is, does God see you making decisions that are obviously not in His will for your life? A decision to sin is always a bad decision. We are faced with these decisions every hour on the hour, minute on the minute, or second on the second. Our eyes are bombarded with sinful scenes today everywhere we turn. That is why we need the leadership of the Holy Spirit every minute of the day. I do not mean that we need to obsess about this, but I mean that we need to stay prayed up and read up enough to turn our eyes, minds, and bodies from sinful decisions. (Don’t you agree that this makes us glad that God is a forgiving God?) This leads me to, instead of making excuses for bad decisions, let’s just ask for God’s forgiveness, accept His forgiveness be thankful that He does forgive. Does God see you making excuses for being quiet when you should speak up, and for talking when you should keep quiet. This is a two-edged sword. Let’s just say that there are times when we should speak up for Jesus, and then there are times that we should “shut up for Jesus.” We need to speak up when it is obvious that we can do some good; on the other hand, we need to shut up if what we say will only lead to a meaningless argument. Here again, we need to seek the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and speak up when He prompts us and stay quiet when He does not. We also need to pray that we will be wise enough to know the difference. I will deal briefly with this final point: Does God see you making excuses for bad behavior. There is bad behavior that is just plain old sin, and there is bad behavior that may not be sinful but is useless, and doesn’t do any good. Hey, you know what bad behavior is….stay away from it. (Please understand that I mean me too!!) Amen, Selah, and oh me. Bro. Joe
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“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…”
This prayer that Jesus taught us to pray helps us deal with inevitable temptations and gives us the promise of deliverance from them. We are introduced to temptation in the beginning of the Bible with Adam and Eve. A temptation is a test that we have to deal with in daily life. Satan will put us to the test in all kinds of circumstances. We need to recognize Satan’s presence when we are tempted to do something that we know is wrong. Satan will make it look inviting as though we have to do what he is tempting us to do. There is no limit to the temptations that Satan will put in our way. Furthermore, we do not have to wonder if Satan is going to tempt us. There is no human being in the world that will not have to face temptation. We just need to recognize when he is tempting us to do wrong. Some things we are tempted to do, or not do, do not always appear as evil. Satan is good, or should say bad, at that. Perhaps, you are dealing with a temptation now, something that you really want to do. Read on: Jesus told us that when we face temptation, we should ask for His deliverance: “deliver us from evil…” This means that we do not have to fold in to the temptations that we face, for deliverance is available through the Lord. When Jesus was tempted in Matthew 4, He met each temptation with quotes from scripture. In Ephesians 6:16, Paul gave some guidance on meeting and being delivered from temptation: “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.” Jesus delivers us from temptation through scripture, faith and prayer. I don’t think that I have told you anything that you did not know, but these are tools of deliverance that we should actually use in meeting daily temptations and our deliverance from them. Deliverance does not come from our strength, but by the strength of the Lord. Jesus is bigger than any temptation that we might meet, and we need to hide behind Him. He sincerely means to deliver us from evil. He actually died on the cross in order to give us the strength to overcome temptation. He has sent the Holy Spirit to live within us to give us the strength that we need for deliverance. The good news is that we are not defenseless in our encounters with temptation and with evil. We need to use the faith and power that only the Lord can give us. Deliverance from temptation is abundantly available through Jesus. Bro. Joe “A time to love and a time to hate…...”
Ecclesiastes usually leaves me puzzled. I came across this verse today and decided to give it some thought. This is not the first time that I have written about this verse, and this is probably not the last time. Following is what I got from it this time: First, Solomon wrote that “there is a time to love.” There is no puzzle here. In fact, the New Testament reminds us that we are to love people whether they are lovable or not. Now, that is not difficult to understand, but it is difficult to do. My mind went to 1 John 4:20-21, which is one of my “go to” verses on this subject: “We love (God) because He first loved us. 21. If a man says, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar, for he who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen.” The “brother” here is simply another person. These two verses are why I make every effort to love people who are not lovable. If you are not making the effort, you should, because there is always “a time to love.” Second, Solomon wrote that there is “a time to hate.” I want to share my thoughts on this puzzling verse: There is always a time to hate Satan and his demons. He never means any good for us and will ruin us if we let him. There are people who claim to love Satan, but they are sadly confused. We find Jesus’ opinion about him in John 8:44: “He is a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” There is always a time to hate sin. We really need to hate our prevailing sins. These might not seem like much to us but they are important to Jesus. That is why it is so important to seek His forgiveness on a daily basis. Sin can never bring good things into our lives. I’m not guessing about this, I know this from experience. You can say the same thing if you will think about it. There is always a time to hate the evil deeds that people do. This does not mean that we should hate the people, but to hate their deeds. Isis comes to mind. I honestly pray for Jesus to enable me to love them, but I do honestly hate what they do. I constantly pray for their conversion. You probably get my point: It ain’t easy but it is the Christian thing to do. Let’s pray to love people and hate the things that we should hate. Bro. Joe “And the serpent said unto the woman, “You will not surely die.” 5. For God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
The serpent approached Eve and asked her if there was fruit in the garden that she should not eat. She told him that they were not to eat from the tree “in the midst of the garden,” because they would die. Then he started his temptation in earnest. He told her that she would not die. In other words, he was calling God a liar. This is one of Satan’s favorite tricks and he just does it over and over again, and people still fall for it. Jesus said of him: “When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44) Jesus was probably referring back to this original temptation when he called Satan “the father” of lies. The liar was lying about calling God a liar. No matter how devastating the results of sin are, we brilliant human beings just keep falling for it. Like Eve, we just don’t believe God…… He told Eve that if she would eat the forbidden fruit, she would “be as gods.” Why? Because she would know both good and evil. This is exactly what God warned them would happen. Satan made what God forbad look as if it was really something beneficial. We haven’t learned a lot since the Garden of Eden…..Have we! That is when the forbidden fruit began to look good to eve, and she plucked it and ate it, and was joined by Adam. There is an old adage that forbidden fruit always looks good. I don’t guess that there is a human being, outside of Jesus, who has not experienced the pleasure of tasting forbidden fruit. We read about the devastation of this forbidden fruit throughout the Bible. The original couple did not die right away, but die they did. Satan lied….sin is a killer. “The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a) Thank God, that in His grace, that is not the final answer. The conclusion of Romans 6:23 is: “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Satan was defeated at the cross, because by His blood, Jesus made forgiveness for sin possible. Satan tried all of his lies to keep Jesus from the cross, but it did not work. Jesus drank all of the bitter dregs of pain and suffering in order to rescue us from the liar. Satan continues to lie, but through faith in Christ, we do not have to give in to his lies. The answer is lined out for us in Romans 3:23-24: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. 24. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” We are redeemed by our faith in Jesus Christ, Who died for our sins, rose from the grave, ascended to heaven, where He intercedes for us, forgives us and gives us eternal life. Bro. Joe “And lest I be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8. For this thing I sought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. 9. And He said unto me, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Paul was given an unknown “thorn in the flesh” from Satan to humble him. He wanted it removed, but Jesus reminded him that His grace was sufficient to handle this situation. Jesus’ strength is “made perfect in weakness.” We have the power of Christ to help us to live above whatever “thorns” Satan might use to hamper us. Let me share with you two of my “thorns,” which are probably also yours. Sometimes I am my own thorn. (You might as well admit it.) For example, Satan will zero in on my doubts and fears to hamper my Christian growth and witness. What I have found that the best thing to do when my doubts and fears start to get the best of me is to go directly to prayer and seek the strength of the grace of Jesus to help me overcome them. When Satan assails me with the temptations to sins of the flesh, so to speak, I MUST go immediately to Jesus. My ability to overcome the sins of my mind and my flesh is made possible through the strength that Jesus gives. I can know the strength of the grace of Jesus by submitting my weaknesses to Him. This can be true for you. There is, indeed power in prayer. Sometimes people are my thorn. I think that Satan works overtime in his temptations in the matter of “other people.” He will use this thorn to ruin relationships in the workplace. He will also use this temptation to ruin relationships in church. Face it, we get on one another’s nerves sometimes, and this happens as much in church as it does at work. A person who is obnoxious to us at work is as obnoxious at church. I have found in these cases that I MUST take these people to prayer. I don’t mean a “quickie” prayer, but that I MUST pray for them daily until I look at them differently. Sometimes I have discovered that I was also obnoxious to them. Don’t let Satan ruin your relationships at home, at work at play or at church. Ask for the strength of the grace of Jesus to help you overcome. You will discover as much about yourself in this exercise in prayer as you do about the other person. (Just saying!) I think that you will agree that the two thorns that I dealt with here are also thorns in your life. If Jesus overcomes these thorns, I think that He will overcome a lot of our problems with ourselves and with other people. You will probably agree. Bro. Joe Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
The background of this text is the occasion when Jesus prayed His prayer of submission to the Father, because He knew that he was about to be arrested, tried and crucified. When Jesus went apart to pray, He took what is called His “inner circle” of Peter, James and John with Him to watch while He prayed. They were exhausted and fell asleep while on watch. Peter had just declared that he would stand up for Jesus under any circumstances, but here he was sleeping while he was supposed to be watching. The final time that Jesus came upon them while they were sleeping, He spoke the words of our text above. I want to share with you some thoughts that I had about this text when I read it this morning. When Jesus told Peter, James and John that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” He was asserting that He understood their humanity as He understands ours. He knows that the flesh is weak and that we will not always do that which is right. Though Jesus was not weak in the flesh as we are, He still understood that people do get exhausted. He had been exhausted at times Himself as He ministered to people for hours and hours. The weakness of flesh goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve succumbed to the allurement of the serpent. Jesus knows that while we are in our human flesh, we are weak at best. Some people are stronger than others, but we all have weaknesses of some kind. Even the most holy among us have weaknesses. If nothing else, there might be a weakness to be self-righteous and look down our noses at “lesser” people. (The Pharisees come to mind.) So we can be assured that Jesus understands our weakness, or weaknesses. But that is not the whole story. Read on: Jesus will not allow us to appeal to our fleshly weaknesses. Notice that He said to Peter, James and John, “watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.” Jesus understood their exhaustion, but He did not excuse it. He gave them the remedy for giving in to their weaknesses, and this is a lesson to us as well. We need to “watch and pray” because the devil knows our weaknesses and will exploit them. That is why Jesus told them to watch and pray, and why it is a message for us as well. The devil will lull us to sleep, so to speak, and tempt us in our weakest moments; therefore, we need to be alert to his tricks and pray that God will make us more aware of the devil’s tricks. It was the same Peter who was in the garden with Jesus that day who later wrote, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Yes, our flesh is weak, but Jesus has gone to great lengths to help us overcome our weaknesses. He understands that we will not always overcome; that is why He is willing to forgive us when we succumb to our fleshly weaknesses. His preference, however, is that we “watch and pray, that we enter not into temptation.” If we are honest, we will confess that we know our weaknesses as well. When we are tempted in those weak areas we need to immediately “watch and pray.” Some of our weaknesses may be subtle and not seem like sin. For example, it was just natural to Peter, James and John that when they were exhausted and sleepy that they go to sleep. The problem was that Jesus told them to watch. It was wrong for them to go to sleep because they were supposed to be on watch. When a soldier is on watch duty, he or she could be court martialed for going to sleep. Jesus died on the cross, defeating the devil, and arose from the grave, defeating death, hell and the grave. He has given to us the Holy Spirit to help us overcome our weaknesses. Jesus will forgive us when we succumb, but it is preferable that we “watch and pray” and not succumb. I certainly have not written this to judge you. I have the proverbial three fingers pointing back at me, but we do well to heed what Jesus told Peter, James and John. Bro. Joe “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
We do not read far into the Bible before we discover that evil is going to be a problem for all of mankind, and womankind, lest women feel left out. In fact, we don’t get more than three chapters into Genesis before we see evil raise its ugly head. Evil is present because of on evil personage – the devil. All you have to do to spell devil is to add a d to evil. We have to deal with evil from the time we are born until we leave this earth. Paul knew that evil could overcome us, so he exhorted us to overcome evil with good. The first thing we need to know about evil is that it does not look like our concept of evil. We think of evil as something ugly and deranged. Even pictures of our concept of the devil show him to be an ugly red creature with horns and a pitchfork. That concept is not what we find in the Bible. Paul wrote about Satan in 2 Corinthians 11:14: “And no marvel: for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” The devil is smart enough to not make evil look bad, in fact, it sometimes looks very good. Think of how the old serpent Satan made the forbidden fruit look to Eve. It was almost as if she had to have that fruit to find fulfillment in life. No, evil does not always resemble what we call evil. The pornography industry is making billions of dollars by making evil look good. I am reminded of a country song that was on the charts in the 1970’s, entitled “It Don’t Feel Like Sinning to Me.” The song was about a woman who was having an illicit affair and since it didn’t feel like sinning, it was alright. Go ahead and confess that evil does not always, or rarely, look like our concept of evil. To be fore warned is to be forearmed. The second thing we need to know about evil is that we will always have to deal with it. The devil would not leave Jesus alone, and he certainly will not leave us alone. He tempted Jesus to do his bidding on what we have come to call “The Mount of Temptation.” In one of the temptations, he told Jesus to behold all of the kingdoms of the world, and he would give them to him if Jesus would fall down and worship him. Aren’t we glad that Jesus refused to do his bidding!!!! Perhaps the devil thought that this was a weakness within Jesus. It wasn’t a weakness within Jesus, but it is within us. The devil knows our every weakness and he will play on our weaknesses all day long. That is why we need to bathe our days in prayer. I’m not sharing something here that I have heard about; rather; I am sharing something that I know firsthand all too well. He loves to destroy the witness of a Christian, and he does it all of the time. The third thing we need to know about evil is to share Paul’s admonition in this verse pertaining to evil, i.e., “overcome evil with good.” One way we can interpret this is that if the devil tempts us to dislike, or hate, someone we should make every effort to love them. I will warn you that the devil will not make this easy. Another way to interpret it is that if you want to say something hurtful and spiteful to someone, instead say something kind and uplifting. Again, this will not be easy. I could go on and on giving illustrations of how we can overcome evil with good, because there is no limit to the ways that we can do this. Jesus told us that when people say ugly things to us we should bless them instead of react in kind. I don’t know about you, but this has been a hard lesson for me, and I still have to work on it. I guess that the best thing to say is that when our minds turn toward evil we should turn them toward good, and depend on Jesus to get us through it. Become aware of the evil around you and overcome it with good. Bro. Joe “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with God.”
If you are a Christian, you do not need to be convinced that evil is pervasive in our world. It didn’t start with our times; it started in the Garden of Eden and has continued through history. Why did God send a flood to destroy all living things on the earth? It was because of pervasive evil. Why does Revelation describe in colorful language the wrath of God that will visit the earth in the future? It is because of pervasive evil. Paul reminded the Romans, and ostensibly us, by commanding that we not be “overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” When we think of evil, we think of sexual sins, lying, cheating, stealing, etc. But there are pervasive evils that we really need to look out for, because we do not normally see them as necessarily evil, but they take a toll on our Christian living and our witness. What are these subtle evils that we Christians need to look out for? The first of these is doubt. Now, I know that all doubt is not bad, because there are some things that we need to doubt in order to go forward in life. But the devil likes to cause us to doubt our beliefs. He wants us to doubt the existence of God. He likes to point out that the natural world just happened and did not need a God to create it. He likes to cause people to doubt that the crucifixion of Jesus is really enough to finish God’s plan of salvation. He likes to cause people to doubt that it does any good to live a good Christian life. After all, Christians get sick, get in trouble, even sin, so there is nothing to the faith that Christians preach. Satan really loves causing people to doubt the word of God. Criticism of the Bible is rampant today. There are many programs on television that shed doubt on the divine inspiration of scripture. Don’t let the devil lead you to “doubt your beliefs and believe your doubts.” (Quote from Dr. Ted Adams, one of my professors at Southeastern Seminary.) The second of these is a “don’t care” attitude – indifference. All of us have to guard against this, because it sometimes hurts to care. A lot of our hurts in life come because we care deeply about something, and when what we care about falls through, we want to guard our hearts from further hurt. Make no mistake about it; Satan is the author of this attitude. He is the god of indifference in this world, and especially in Christ’s church. If he can keep us from caring about the lost souls around us, he will have won a great victory in our lives. And when a whole church develops this attitude, it is tragic. Don’t allow yourself to become indifferent about the spiritual things of life, like Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, witnessing, etc. The third of these is discouragement. If Satan can get us discouraged, he can cause us to give up and to quilt. I’ve seen it happen too many times in church work and even in the lives of preachers. When we get discouraged, we feel sorry for ourselves and forget that life is not all about us. When we think that we are the center of the universe and that everything hinges on our success, Satan has a field day with our lives. Another problem with discouragement is that it distracts us from dedication to Christ and to our service for Him in our lives and through our churches. Don’t let Satan convince you that you don’t have anything to offer in Christian service. Don’t let Satan turn your thoughts only to yourself. Instead of getting discouraged, we need to think about all that Jesus went through to save us. He did not get discouraged and quit. We also need to remember great Christian disciples like, Peter, Andrew, James, John and Paul. All of these men made great sacrifices for the Lord, but did not let discouragement keep them from doing what they were supposed to do. Women like Mary Magdalene overcame negative things in their lives and went on to serve the Lord. Don’t let discouragement rule your life. Don’t let these evils, or any others, overcome you. Instead overcome evil with good, Bro. Joe Between yes and no, we generally think of yes as the best answer. However, there are times when no is the best answer. When we say “yes” to Jesus, we say “no” to Satan –and vice-versa. There are some people in the Bible who are famous for saying “no.” We will take a look at them and maybe learn from them how to say “no.”
Joseph Said no. Genesis 39:9: “There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” This was Joseph’s answer to Potiphar’s wife when she tried to seduce him. Evidently, she was a beautiful woman and was not accustomed to having men say no to her. Notice that Joseph said no because he did not want to betray Potiphar, but more importantly, he did not want to betray God. He saw adultery as a sin against God. If Joseph had said yes to this seductive woman, he would have been saying yes to Satan and no to God. In those times when we are sorely tempted to sin against God, we should learn to say no as Joseph did. We need to ask ourselves which is more important, to seek pleasure for a moment or seek to please God. Pleasure has become a way of life to us and we need to guard against those pleasures that betray ourselves, others and God. Shadrach Meshach and Abednego said no. In Daniel three we read about Nebuchadnezzar’s command that all of the people were to bow down to an image of gold. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered in the negative. They told Nebuchadnezzar that God was able to deliver them, but if God chose not to deliver them, they would still not serve his god’s or worship his golden image. (Daniel 3:17-18) We too have to make a choice as to who and what we will worship. We can choose to worship money, property, family, etc. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, we need to say no to all that the world offers that would call us away from our commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that the world offers is not evil, but sometimes Satan makes it difficult to tell the difference. We need to always say yes to what God offers. Keep in mind that they said no at peril of their lives. The stakes might not be as physically high to us, but they are spiritually high under any circumstances. Daniel said no. The jealous princes who served with Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar’s court, not being able to find anything else, concocted a scheme to get him killed. They talked Nebuchadnezzar into signing a law that anyone who asked petition of any god or man for thirty days should be thrown into a den of lions. Daniel knew about the law, but he still went three times a day to pray facing Jerusalem. He prayed to the God of Israel. He would not be coerced into substituting Nebuchadnezzar for God. Nothing could keep Daniel from praying. Can anything keep us from praying? Say no to Satan when he tempts you not to pray, because he knows that prayerlessness will rob you of spiritual power. Jesus said no. In Matthew 4 and Luke 4 Jesus was tempted by Satan. He had fasted forty days and forty nights and was very hungry. He was physically weak, so Satan sought to take advantage of it. You remember that each time Jesus said no to Satan that He quoted scripture to him. Satan is very much aware of our weaknesses and of our weak moments, and he will try to get us to do his bidding. Like Jesus, we should say no to him based on what the word of God says. Like the three examples above, learn to tell Satan no. It is important to do so. |
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