God Provides for Obedience and Faith

“And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” (Ge 28:20-22 AV)

God will never ask us to take a step of faith or require of us obedience without providing the means to do so.  The above vow of Jacob is based on that truth.  On the face of it, the vow may seem selfish.  But it is not.  It may seem as though Jacob is making a deal for his obedience.  But he is not.  It may seem as though the father of the nation of Israel is putting a condition upon his faith.  But he is not. What Jacob is saying is his obedience and faith is predicated upon the faithfulness of God.  Because God will honor His promises, he will trust the LORD as He provides.  He will walk with God because God would never expect him to step in faith and walk in obedience where He hasn’t already made plans to provide for that obedience.

When we read of the treatment of Israel by the Egyptians, we see a stark contrast between God’s benevolence and the world’s cruelty.  Pharaoh demanded they increase the output of production.  Then, he withheld straw and required they find their own material for the making of bricks.  God doesn’t do this.  He provides the means necessary for obedience and faith before requiring either from us.  Note very carefully for what Jacob is asking.  He is not asking for a guarantee and provision for the entire trip all at once.  He is asking for the faithfulness of God to stay with him while he is in the way.  In other words, he is asking for God’s provision along the way.  Not all at once and ahead of the way.

Some think that the LORD is unkind and uncaring.  They see adversity as God’s way of playing with us.  But He is not.  Sometimes, adversity is exactly what we need.  No one can learn endurance without resistance.  Others accuse God of making faith and obedience harder than they can bear.  That is only because their eyes are too far forward.  Obey and trust for the day while in the way.  Not for where that way might lead.  God is not cruel.  God is merciful.

Not Abandoned

“And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” (Ge 24:27 AV)

There are times when we wonder just how engaged the LORD is in the matters of our lives.  We know He is there.  We know He cares.  But just how involved is He in those things that are near and dear to our hearts?  That which the Spirit reminds us of this morning is found in the word ‘destitute’.  This word means abandoned.  When we see someone whom we say is destitute, we are not saying they are lonely.  We are saying they have been abandoned by all opportunity to secure the things needed for life.  They are destitute of clothing, food, or common comforts.  They have been abandoned by life itself.  According the prayer of Abraham’s servant, he states the obvious.  Abraham, and by extension Isaac, has not been abandoned by the mercy and truth of God.

Trying to draw a comparison in my own life is impossible.  At no time have I ever been destitute.  At least of the physical needs of life.  There was a time, spiritually speaking, that I was destitute of the grace of God.  That was only so because there was no repentance from sin and request that Christ save me.  I was lost.  I was destitute of the mercy and truth of God.  Then, on March 28^th, 1982, the LORD rectified my destitute condition.  On that glorious Sunday morning, Jesus Christ shined His grace and mercy upon my sin-sick soul and saved me from myself and hell.  What a wonder that is and was.  Since then, Abraham’s servant and I can walk in agreement.  There has never been a time when the LORD has left me destitute of His mercy and truth.

However, one cannot be honest is he doesn’t admit there were and are times when this promise is cast into some doubt.  Even if that doubt is fleeting, it still comes around from time to time.  We are human.  And because we are, we have a tendency to live in the moment.  We tend to forget the greater truths of walking with God when things become stressful and worrisome.  We tend to forget the foundations of our faith that have led us thus far.  The Spirit pleads with our hearts of anxiety not to forget that the God that has brought us thus far will lead us still on.  Abraham’s servant is exactly right.  We have never been destitute of the mercy and truth of God.  It is always there.  It never goes anywhere.  All we need to do is have the faith it is still present and simply ask for it.

Live Right in Private, Be judged in Public

“And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.” (Ge 19:9 AV)

We need to pay close attention to this passage because these days are coming, if not already here, in our great nation.  Note carefully the details of this encounter.  Two men of God came under the roof of Lot’s house.  The homosexual men of the village came to the door of Lot’s house and demanded he send out the angles so they could have abominable physical relationships with the angles.  Lot refused.  Lot offered his own two daughters as vessels for their lust.  This was not good enough for them.  They lusted after the angles in a perverse and immoral manner.  Now, read carefully and understand of what the sodomites accuse Lot.  Because Lot refused to allow their wickedness to infect his own house, they accuse Lot of being judgmental.  Nowhere does Lot condemn their lifestyle.  Although he would have been justified in doing so.  The only thing he did was disallow them access to his house for their lust.  They see this as a judgment upon their sin.  They are right, in a manner of speaking. This is a serious warning to our present culture.

Let me first say that Christ died for the homosexual just as much as He did for the monogamous individual.  Just because someone claims homosexuality does not, on its face, mean he or she is the worst of the worst.  There are many sins referred to as an abomination.  We all need to repent of our sin and trust Christ.  Whether it is homosexuality, or the many other acts God calls and abomination.  Having said that, it is noteworthy that the same-gender crowd has changed.  It went from a private sin to a very public one.  We do not see habitual liars organizing themselves for equal rights.  We do not see drunkards organizing and demonstrating for the purpose of their behavior being normalized and accepted.  We do not see the drug addicts demanding they allow powerful drugs into the schools and homes of those who wish not to participate and force them to accept this life as entitled.  In Lot’s case, the homosexual crowd demanded their lust be allowed into his home and inflicted upon those under his care.

We would assume this would never happen in our own country.  But it is already happened.  Homosexuality is being forced upon our children in their classrooms.  We have invited them into our homes by way of entertainment.  The last place they will force their lust to be normalized is the church.  There will come a day wherein corrupt laws of non-discrimination will enter the house of God.  It will first show itself in the form of revoking our tax-exempt status.  Then it will show itself in the form of criminalizing the refusal to officiate all marriages regardless of type.  It will eventually end with the bible doctrine of marriage being a form of hate speech.  It will come.  We need to pray for the strength to stand no matter the consequences.  They see us as a judge.  Even if we state our position in private, we will still be seen as judgmental.

By Losing We Win

“And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.” (Ge 13:8 AV)

I have learned something from my youth.  Those who seek peace often wind up in better circumstances than those who never want it.  The herdmen of Lot strove with the herdmen of Abraham over available pasture.  Lot looked upon the planes of Shinar and saw, what he perceived as, an opportunity.  He indeed believed the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.  Just my personal belief, but what I think he really saw was green fields adjacent to major cities.  He saw what he believed to be the best of both worlds.  What he did not realize it this ambition and skewed values cost him his family and his flock.  His family strove for what they perceived as the better choice.  Abraham, who only sought peace within his own family, gave the choice to Lot and ended up in far better circumstances.

Those who continuously strive are often blinded by their own agenda.  They cannot truly see the better of two choices.  The reason is pride and selfishness.  Because sin is at the heart, then that for which they strive is less in value than the alternative.  For those who seek peace, we need to understand this and trust the LORD to even the scales.

In my many years of service to the LORD, I have seen a few churches wherein a certain portion of the membership strive for control over the majority.  What they believe they have in not, in truth, what the end up with.  I have seen ambitious people strive for control, only to cause a church split and lose those who were doing the vast majority of the work and sacrificing to support the church.   Sometimes giving in doesn’t mean we lose.  It means we win.  Abraham certainly did.  The land which he inherited was a mixture of forest and pasture.  Perfect for raising herds.  There were no major metropolitan areas that brought with it deviant behavior.  Lot may have thought he got the better of the deal and that striving made it happen.  But all that did was put him in a worse situation than he was and he lost he protection of the LORD.

Forget Who You Are

“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:” (Ge 12:1 AV)

In contemplating why the LORD used ‘thy’ in stead of ‘the’ or ‘that’, we see an important lesson on separation and service.  The ‘thy’ indicates that which defined who and what Abram was prior to the LORD calling him.  He was a citizen of a nation.  He was a herdsman among his kinsmen.  He was the eldest of the sons and thus the patriarch of his family upon his father’s death.  This places or stations of life was who and what Abram was.  Yet, the LORD had a different purpose for his life.  No longer would he be a citizen of a country.  He would be the father of his own.  No longer would be a laborer in the family business.  He would be the patriarch and founder of a nation that worshiped God.  No longer would he be the continuation of a heathen family, but the first among billions who would be redefined by the God of creation.  These things cannot happen unless he leaves that which he once was.

While speaking to one of my church members, a familiar refrain resurfaced.  He was sharing how he had moved a few times in his life, but all in the same city of which we now abide.  He was also sharing with a visitor a bit of my history.  The visitor wanted to know where I was from.  “All over” is my usual response.  This visitor could not comprehend how someone could have lived in four different states, eight different cities, and nine different counties.  He could not understand how someone could have attended three different high schools and have no class reunion to which he identifies.  Some may feel sorry for a person who has lived that way.  But the truth of the matter is, a history like that is liberating.  There are no ties to the past that keeps one grounded and unable to adapt to that which the LORD may wish him to do.  Each new place is an adventure.  There can be no loyalty to the past.  It was a step along the way.

Abram was asked to abandon all that had given his life meaning and structure for the opportunity to be something and do something unique for the LORD.  Don’t shed a tear for him.  Don’t empathize with perceived trials that never truly materialized.  The point is, for the LORD to use us in ways that we cannot even imagine, we have to allow Him to define who and what we are.  We cannot allow our circumstances of life to be the defining factor in what the LORD can and will do.  We are a new creature.  Old things are passed away.  All things have become new.  If that is the case, this should be a pattern of life and not a one-time event.  It means liberty!

Temporary Blindness In Preparation for the Future

“And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.” (Ge 8:13-14 AV)

Sometimes, the ground has to be prepared for us before God allows us to see our future.  What caught my curiosity was the time Noah waited before he removed the roof from off the ark.  It hadn’t rained for quite some time.  They hadn’t seen the sun for almost a year.  They were hold up in that ark with the stench of the animals for almost eleven months before he rolled back the roof.  I wonder why?

My wife, bless her heart, is just like her father.  Which is some ways is challenging.  They both love to open window and doors.  The weather does not matter.  Who cares if it is raining outside or the temperature is a few degrees shy of the sun.  The drapes go back.  The windows fly up.  The front and back doors are opened.  I figure, if they want to live in the open air, God bless them.  But God invented houses for a reason!  As my mother used to say, “I’m not heating/cooling the outdoors!”  Skin cancer and bug bites are the result of too much outdoors!  But even I might want to fling open a roof or two if I had to suffer with the stench of a zoo!  Knowing that it wasn’t raining, nor would it rain for quite some time, I might be tempted to open the roof as soon as I knew the ark was out of danger.  If anything, to let the smell escape and to see the sun.

The careful reader will note the ground was dry, but the earth was not dry enough for Noah and his family until about eight weeks later.  The roof was opened on the first day of the first month.  On New Years day the roof was opened.  But again, it begs the question.  Why wait so long?  Perhaps there are many reasons which we would not know because the Bible doesn’t tell us why.  Perhaps there is one that comes to mind.  That which was destroyed by flood may float atop the deluge for some time.  No doubt, there would have been flesh and foliage alike floating until the water has so saturated the victim that it sank to the depths.  There would have been birds abundantly feeding on the carnage as well as beast from the depths.  Just because the water had stopped falling does not mean the lasting effects of God’s judgment could not be seen.  Perhaps the LORD protected Noah and his family from seeing the natural results of His judgment upon the earth.  What we do know is the LORD did not allow Noah to see or interact with creation until God had prepared it.  He did not allow Noah to see or live in his future until the hand of the LORD has determined it was ready for him.  The same can be said for us.  Allow God to prepare what we cannot see and don’t be in too big of a hurry to get there lest we see something that might well be discouraging even though it’s temporary.

Our Priceless Wives

“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Ge 2:18 AV)

The tense of the verb ‘should be’ is a bit different than we are used to in the English.  The tense is infinitive.  What this means is neither past, present, or future.  It does mean to exist.  But it also means to come into existence.  In other words, it is different than saying that Adam ‘is’ alone, or ‘will be alone’.  The statement is not a mere statement of a condition.  Rather, it is a statement of condition in comparison to purpose.  Present conditions that cause his loneliness to be labeled from the LORD as ‘not good’ is not as much a concern as the conditions that will be which will also cause his loneliness to also be ‘not good’.  In short, the situation which Adam is in will change, making his loneliness more ‘not good’ than it is at the time the statement was made.  So, the question becomes, what will change that will make Adam’s loneliness a worse condition than it is now?

Keep in mind the this was the only time God said that something was not good in the first six days of creation.  On day seven, He said that it was all good.  So, putting it all together, there was something that changed in day six that the creation of Eve rectified from not good to good.  There were two changes that occurred.  They are that God asked Adam to name the animals.  The other was to be fruitful and multiply.  Herein was see the wonder of marriage.  The key to a fulfilling relationship which the LORD had said was not good, then became good.  God gave Adam three responsibilities which he could not accomplish without Eve.  He could not name the animals, tend the garden, and procreate without Eve.  Let us consider these truths for just a moment.

The older I get and the longer I am married, I realize just how integral a help meet is.  Not for companionship alone.  If that is all the LORD intended, I would be most blessed.  But even more than that.  My wife is the essential half of what we need in order to accomplish that which the LORD desires of our lives.  What is harmful to our ladies is teaching them they can find satisfaction in life outside of God’s divine design for them.  Adam could not accomplish what God called him to do without Eve.  When we consider which of the two is more essential, an argument could be made that it is Eve, and not Adam, who is more essential to the perfect plan of God.  Eve was made for Adam, and not Adam for Eve because Adam cannot survive or succeed without her.  God bless our wives.  The are far more important than many give them credit for.