I make no apologies for staying on topic with these and will continue to do so until I feel directed elsewhere or felt led to stop all together. I know many have expressed an appreciation for what I’ve been sharing here and that they seem blessed by them; and for that, I am thankful. When you find something good...you can’t help but to want to share it with everyone...especially when you believe and are convinced it’s something good from God.
It is extremely important to me to provide plenty of scripture to support and back up what I share here. I cannot stress enough the importance of you doing as they did in Acts 17:11 in “searching the scriptures daily to find out whether these things are so”. I also have a tendency to use analogies and personal experiences, which can be good as long as they are supported by the word. I will also go on record that I am not above being ‘corrected’ if anyone believes I am teaching something that does not line up with the Word. Notice I did not say your ‘personal doctrines that you have always believed to be true’. I would only ask you private message me so as to not engage in lengthy discussions on the posts. I am even open to meeting with anyone that has further questions or needs clarification regarding anything I post here.
Allow me to ‘sketch’ a simple ‘picture’ as to what all these postings point to and why I believe it to be imperative that you are made aware of and study for yourself. For me personally, the light of God’s word being revealed in these areas has dramatically changed my life for the better. And as stated...I only want others to experience the same for themselves. As a former pastor, I so understand the limitations any pastor has today to fully dive off in to such subjects as these...given you are usually allotted 30-45 minutes a week on Sunday mornings and perhaps a little longer for those who attend a midweek service. It is a near impossible task which restricts one greatly from building on teaching week after week. So it is not all that surprising that Sunday sermons have been reduced to some tasty, practical serving of thoughts and a few verses to hold the ‘sheep’ over until the next meeting.
When God created man, He did so making them in His likeness and image. God was holy and God was love. God also gave us free will to choose. We are taught from scripture that God does indeed test our hearts. The first Adam failed the test, and as a result, sin and death entered the world and man was separated from God, no longer having His nature and likeness. Man now had the selfish, prideful nature of Satan, who was the one who tested and tempted them to sin. Sin indeed brought death as it continues to do so today.(Rom. 5:12)
God, who continued to establish relationship with fallen man, did so in the form of covenants. Covenants were a contractual relationship with detailed conditions, in a manner of speaking that came with great promises and benefits, as well as serious consequences if those conditions were not fully met.
God established a covenant with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses. When God used Moses to lead the descendants of Abraham out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt, it was a foreshadowing of God’s ultimate plan to lead us out of the bondage of sin and the world when He would later send Jesus. Yet there is much to learn from the book of Deuteronomy and all that God laid out for them, especially having to do with His Law. As Paul writes much later, the law was given 430 years after God’s covenant with Abraham. The reason for ‘laying down the law’...was due to sin and transgression. (Gal. 3:17,19)
When we hear or think of ‘the law’, we tend to include not only God’s commands for righteous living, but all the rituals and sacrifices that embody much of the culture that God’s people lived out back then. And while those rituals and sacrifices and dietary restrictions no longer apply today, God’s law was never done away with. Jesus made that clear in Matt. 5:17 and as I have shared before, confirmed by Paul in many places throughout the NT writings. (Rom. 2:13, 7:12; 1 Cor. 7:19; 1 Tim. 1:9-11)
We find in the gospels where men came to Jesus asking what they might do to inherit this ‘eternal life’ He came preaching. He pointed them to the Law. (Matt. 19; Luke 10:28) And if it helps to simplify things...Jesus did just that when He made it clear what all the law encompasses...that we are to love God with ALL our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourself. (Matt. 22:36-40)
Without a more accurate understanding as to what role the law actually has today, we have a confusing and limited understanding as to what ‘sin’ actually is. The scripture answers that for us. Sin is breaking God’s law. (1 John 3:4). Jesus shares one of the more unsettling passages in the NT when He declared “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21). He goes on warn that ‘many will come in that day saying...’ listing all the great things they did in His name. (22) And they will be stunned to hear His response of...”I never knew you ...depart from Me you workers of lawlessness’ (those who continued to practice sin-23).
In some ways, the law has been ‘lost’ as it was back in OT times. A great example of this is found in 2 Kings 22-23. Losing sight of God’s laws always came with a great price of loss, captivity, and destruction. (Hosea 4:6). If we lack understanding of the law, then we fail to see what sin is. If we have a misunderstanding (or lack thereof) of what sin is, then we could not possibly understand God’s judgements that follow sin. (remember, God never changes). IF we don’t connect the dots with sin and judgement, then how could we possibly understand the concept of the ‘fear of God’? Look at God’s assessment of mankind as echoed through Paul: “The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:17-18)
We should know by now that the ‘fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge’ and God’s people are ‘destroyed for a lack of knowledge’. (Prov. 1:7; Hosea 4:6). The fear of the Lord is something we are to be ‘taught’. (Ps. 34:11). And teaching the ‘fear of the Lord’ always points back to the law. This should come as no surprise. We use the same concept whether teaching a teenager traffic laws and the potential dangers of breaking those laws’; and we certainly hope a roofer is acquainted with the ‘laws of gravity’.
Moses spent the first part of Deut. 28 telling of all the wonderful benefits and promises of obeying God’s laws, but he spent even more time detailing all the horrific things that would ensue if the law was disregarded. They were known as ‘curses’. You might read over those again sometime. Many people believe those curses no longer ‘exist’ today or ‘apply’. If that is the case, after reading through those, you might then address the question of: “If they no longer exist, then why do so many people seem to be experiencing much of what you read in there?”
Here's where the waters have become muddy in our modern Christian world. And let me make clear...we are not ‘saved’ or ‘made righteous’ because we obey laws. Scripture clearly states no one is made holy by the law and keeping it. But 1 Timothy 1:9-11 makes it clear as to why the law exist. And just as those who broke the laws back in Moses’s day suffered God’s wrath and judgements as detailed over and over in the OT, so it is today. God’s wrath still comes on those who break His laws. Paul warns us to not be deceived with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes on them who do these things. (Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6). Are you one of those who tend to dismiss Paul’s words in place of Jesus’s words? Ok...suit yourself. Jesus told a man He had healed to ‘go and sin no more or something worse will come on you.” (John 5:14). He also taught that unless you ‘repent’, you will all likewise perish’. (Luke 13:1-5)
Back to my ‘sketching out a picture’ that the bible does indeed back up. Everything in and about our sinful flesh nature, is hostile to God and His law. It will not nor can it submit to God’s law. (Rom. 8:7-8). Many of the evident deeds of this fleshly, sinful nature (a.k.a. ‘the old man) are listed in Galatians 5:19-21. After listing these traits and practices, from murder to envy and hatred, Paul drives home the point that anyone who practices these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. You just cannot be any more clear than that. We sin...when we yield to the flesh nature.
Enter Jesus...who commands us to forsake all and follow Him (repentance) as He leads us to put to death this old nature. Not ‘dial it down’ or put it in a cage or on a leash. But put it to death. (Rom. 8:13) As we learn to abide, follow, and obey, we in turn take up our own cross as we put this old man to death. The result in dying is a new nature...His nature which enables us to fulfill the law which is summed up in ‘loving others as He first loved us’. It is impossible for us to fulfill this law with our old nature...which is why it has to die. This is NOT poetic or figurative language or some pie in the sky religious theory. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom. And if anyone has come preaching another gospel other than what Jesus and Paul came preaching, Paul says they are to be accursed. (Gal. 1:6-9)
When we are following Jesus, our Lord...(Luke 6:46) we are demonstrating we are the true children of God. (Rom. 8:14). When we are following Him, we are Not fulfilling the lust of the flesh nature. (Gal. 5:16). IF we are abiding in Him, we are not continuing to sin. (1 John 3:6,9)
IF...we are being led by His spirit, then we are not under the law nor subject to the wrath and judgements which the law continues to bring today. (Gal. 5:18). But If we are not truly following Him, (Heb. 5:9) then we are not walking in covenant with Him and that...is why we are ‘serpent food’...giving place to a spiritual enemy who was designed and assigned to carry out the curses that come as a results of breaking God’s laws. (Ps. 78:49-50)
If/when we are following Jesus, as demonstrated by walking according to the Spirit and not the flesh, then ‘all of the righteous requirements of the law are being fully met in us. (Rom. 8:4). That ...is what Jesus came to do...to lead us to fulfill God’s Holy Law...but it is not you or I doing this, it is Christ Jesus doing it in/through us. It is all him. And the fruit should be evident. (Gal. 2:20)
Lots to chew on here...please take your time with this today and go over a few times. Peace to you.
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