Grace or Regret

“And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” (Ge 6:6-7 AV)

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Ge 6:8 AV)

I think the one of the saddest verses in all the Bible is verse six and seven.  For the LORD to be so fed up with mankind that His heart changes towards those whom He has created, wishing He would never have done this, is beyond tragic.  One wonders how much we tax the LORD in our own lives.  One wonders if there is any regret the LORD feels when we dramatically disappoint the LORD.  One hopes the LORD doesn’t look upon our continued failures and comes the conclusion He wishes He had never allowed us to come into being.  I am sure that I have given Him sufficient cause to feel that way from time to time.

Then comes verse eight.  All is not lost.  There is one man and his family that strives to serve the LORD and live in righteousness.  The grace of God does not expect perfect.  It cannot.  Otherwise, it would not be grace.  What grace does do is reward those who have a heart, regardless of success or failure.  Remember, this same Noah would have way too much to drink and live immodestly in the privacy of his own home, causing the LORD to judge his descendants.  Noah failed when he became a drunk. The LORD knew he was going to do this.  Yet, the LORD still exercised grace towards a man who at least tried.

It would break my heart if I knew for sure the LORD repented that He even created me.  What a horrible thought.  Imagine if a child came to the understanding his parents were so disappointed, they wish they never gave birth to him at all.  Imagine that!  They are not angry.  They are not upset.  They are simply completely disappointed!  This is the potential of us all.  Yet, what Noah was is also a potential for the child of God.  Striving towards righteousness with a heart towards humility and repentance goes a long way in the experience of God’s grace!  We can go either way.  Which way will we go?

You Are An Expression Of God!

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (Ge 1:1-3 AV)

There is something about these first three verses of God’s word that reveals Him in a way that no other passage does.  I cannot put my finger on it but as the Spirit instructs, He will reveal that which the heart needs to understand.

The LORD has not created anything.  In these three verses, there is nothing in which to interact.  It is just the three persons of the God head.  No cosmos, no animals, no humans.  God and God alone.  Just Him!  There is a divine sufficiency here.  There is no overriding need for the LORD to create.  He does not create animals because He is hungry.  He does not create plants because He needs beauty.  He does not create mankind because He needs fellowship.  He is the all sufficient God.  He creates because it is His nature to do so.  He does, not because He needs to, but rather, because He wants to!  Knowing all things that will happen and the need of His Son to die on a cross for the sins of the ones He is about to create, He still wishes to create.

Perhaps what struck me was feelings I used to have in art class.  When the instructor puts a medium before you and asks you to create and expression of your thoughts, feelings, purpose, and design, it becomes a very personal thing.  I remember every piece I ever created.  The drawing of my left hand, the horse and rider wire sculpture, the countless papier-mâché projects, and the pastel of a mountain scene.  I remember them all because it was very personal.  When the soul reads of a God who is creating, he is reading of a God who is expressing Himself in a very personal way.  The God who needs nothing or no one is creating in His image an expression of Himself.  For this we need to treasure life!  Our existence is an expression of a God who desires to be known!  A God who desires to create something of value.  Something of worth.  Something worthy of redemption!  Something that will be expression of His grace!

Look Up

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Lu 21:28 AV)

It is too easy to keep our heads down and become preoccupied with the evil that is covering this world!  It is too easy to become overwhelmed or worse, depressed because we see a dark cloud gathering on the horizon!  The LORD is coming back.  The closer He is to His return, the more the forces of evil will gain in their strength.  We see this all around us.  Substance abuse is killing our citizens.  The sodomites are close to taking control of our nation’s institutions and churches.  Schools are no longer safe as the godless indoctrinate our young people against the LORD and His laws.  Open debauchery is no longer the exception.  It has become the rule.  The worst of it all is there is no interest in the things of God nor a concern over eternal destiny.  There is every reason for the saints of God to hang their heads!  But we don’t have to!

Jesus encourage us the closer He is to His coming, the more we need to look up!  Not down!  All these things are happening because the LORD wishes to allow mankind every opportunity to reject Him.  The consequence of that rejection is resolute judgment.  It has to happen.  However, as the saints of God, we can see the coming storm and know that our redemption draws nigh.

For me, it is a two-edged sword.  Evil is not something I wish to see!  Years ago, while serving as an interim Pastor, there was a former deacon who was in complete rebellion.  He hated me and the church so much that he brought his work to church, briefcase and all, and did office work while the preaching was going on.  It gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach!  This is how I feel when I meditate on the condition of the world and the body of Christ.  It is pure evil.  Time for us to look up!  Our redemption draweth nigh!

It Has To Be You

“And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible.” (Lu 1:36-37 AV)

There were plenty of holy priests to use as a father to the prophet that would precede Christ.  No doubt, Zacharias and Elizabeth were as devout and righteous as others.  Yet, there was one factor they had that others did not.  The element of impossibility.   The LORD deliberately kept Elizabeth from conceiving all her life so that at the right moment, she and her husband could be a work of God’s grace and miracle as a sign for a virgin who would conceive the Savior of the world.  The fruitlessness of these two were a work of the Holy Spirit!

When the Spirit encouraged me to entertain the other possibilities, they just wouldn’t do.  A couple in their thirties conceiving John the Baptist would not do.  There would be nothing out of the ordinary at the conception and birth of a son to a younger couple.  A newlywed couple certainly wouldn’t do.  They would be expected to be expecting.  Even though each conception is the hand of a God who still creates; a miracle in its own right; this sort of thing happens every day.  But when a couple in their old age and beyond the age of conception, conceive, this doesn’t happen every day!

“It has to be you” comes to mind.  There is a debate on the sovereignty of God that I often pointless.  Can God use others of those who are chosen refuse?  Obviously.  God uses the Gentiles precisely because the Jews rejected Christ.  Yet, there are times when the LORD allows or causes others to be put in a place where only they could pull off what the LORD wished.  Esther comes to mind.  There are times when it “has to be you” and only you!  God has chosen you for a purpose unique to yourself.  Finding that place brings meaning and purpose.  A joy that follows!  It has to be you!

Came For a Bath

“But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:” (Mal 3:2 AV)

We may look at this and see only judgment seated in wrath.  But there is another way of looking at it.  Note the fullers’ soap.  Both the refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap seek to accomplish the same thing.  They seek to cleanse and purify.  The fuller was a worker in fabric.  His soap was distinctly designed to whiten.  Hence, when the question is posed, “…who may abide in the day of his coming…” does not suggest judgment for the purpose of destruction.  Otherwise, there would be no fuller’s soap.  The question is posed to suggest the LORD is coming to clean those who are in need of it. 

Remember when OxiClean was sold on infomercials?  Who can forget Billy Mays selling us such a miracle product?  Why, all one had to do is put a white t-shirt stained with every imaginable stain into a swirling pool of water fortified with OxiClean, and it would come out white as snow!  Stain after stain would be defeated at the mighty power of this miracle product.

This is the point of the question.  No one will abide the perfect standard of the holiness of God!  No one!  We all need a bath in the fuller’s soap.  We all need to be cleansed from serious ailments of sin by the refiner’s fire.  This is why Christ came!  This is why He came the first time!  He came to show us how far we had fallen and offer to cleanse us by His own blood. That was His first coming.   If we reject the purpose of the first coming, we will suffer in the next coming.  There will be no refiner’s fire.  There will be no fuller’s soap.  Only the wrath of God on those who reject the free gift of salvation in Christ!

Keep Not Silent

“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,” (Isa 62:6 AV)

The temptation to keep silent grows greater the more people do not listen.  The more the message is rejected, the less motivated the messengers are to declare it.  The more it is ignored, the less purpose is seen in preaching it.  Yet, the LORD is very specific here.  Keep not silence. 

An analogy came to mind.  Imagine Noah has he is building the boat.  No doubt the beginning and the end was the time of greatest preaching.  The beginning, while the frame was assembled, the congregation was in full sight of Noah and his sons.  Preaching to the crowd would have been easy.  They were right out there in the open is the building of the Ark with all the activity could not be hid.  However, once framed in, the vast majority of the work would have been on the inside.  Noah and his sons would have to deliberately cease their inside work to preach to the congregation passing by.  It would have been difficult to stay motivated to preach without and audience passing by.  But then came the end of the project.  When they had to assemble the animals two by two.  This required them to be out and among the people again.  Preaching picked up.  The closer the floods of judgment came, the more involved in their world Noah and his sons became.  This is what the church must find herself doing!

There is this sense among the body of Christ the LORD is returning shortly, and as a result, the world is less responsive to the gospel message.  This may indeed be true.  But what we are doing is comparing the past with the present and defining a decline as a foregone failure.  As a result, we are declining to be aggressive in our witness around us.  This is just the opposite of what we are instructed to do.  We have allowed circumstances to dictate our outreach.  Noah went out and got the animals.  We need to go out and bring the gospel more and more into the homes and neighborhoods of the lost!  Never ceasing!  Never keeping silent!  Always abounding in the work of the LORD!

Merry Christmas

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness.” (Jer 33:14-16 AV)

I am so grateful the LORD kept His promise to Israel even if Israel rejected to offer!  God foresaw what the people of Israel would do.  He knew they would reject and crucify Him.  Yet, He sent Him anyway!  Why?  Two-fold!  To give the wonderful people of Judah the opportunity to accept their Messiah and to offer to the Gentiles the same!  Salvation!  What a grand thing that God keeps His promises because if the disappointment over Israel’s rebellion broke the covenant between the Father and His nation, none of us would have had the opportunity for salvation!

Merry Christmas!  What a wonderful day to call to remembrance and unbroken promise of redemption to wicked mankind.  A promise made way back in the garden of Eden!   A promise formed in the eons of eternity past before any single cell was created that the Son would come to Earth as a child, suffer as a man, endure the persecution of rebellious, and die for wickedness of all!  What a gift!  And that gift was all based on a promise.  A promise that could not be broken no matter how horrible God’s creation was to Him!  A promise born out of eternal love for the souls of mankind.  A promise founded upon His integrity, faithfulness, and mercy!  A promise that is available to all who will simple repent of their sin, placing their trust in the finished work of Calvary, and calling upon Him to save!