God Knows Best

“And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.” (Ge 19:2-3 AV)

It is customary to invite guests into one’s home for the evening.  It was much safer for them lest they spend the evening in hostile surroundings and risk being victimized by an ungodly populace.  That was Lot’s intention.  Two angels came to visit him.  They were tasked with bringing Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah lest they die with the wicked.  It was late in the day and flight would not have been possible.  So, Lot invited the angels to remain under his roof for the evening.  They declined the offer, but Lot persisted.  Note that he pressed upon them greatly.  This wasn’t a simple invite.  Lot persisted until they relented.  The thing is, they are angels of the LORD.  There is no risk to them.  They have the power of God and if they felt threatened, they could take care of themselves.  Lot would have none of it.  He insisted they relent to his invitation.  In the middle of the night, sodomites came to the door and demanded Lot release the angels to their warped deviancy.  Lot refused.  Instead, he offers his daughters to their deviant desires.  I wonder how they felt!  The thing is, had Lot listened to the angels to begin with, he never would have had to offer his daughters as objects of lust.  The angels took care of it.  They blinded the eyes of all those perverts.  They could have done that without involving Lot at all.  All Lot had to do was to accept God’s will without thinking he had a better plan.  This seems to be Lot’s pattern.

Lot was brought up with Abraham.  Lot was Abraham’s nephew.  Rather than stay under the protection of Abraham, he parted from Abraham desiring the well-watered plains.  However, he changed God’s plan and pitched his tent in Sodom.  Here, Lot changes God’s plan and invites the angels in.  When he flees from Sodom, God told him to go to a mountain.  He insists he must go to a small city, Zoar.  God relents, then Lot flees to the mountains, anyway.  It is in the cave of the mountain he fathers two nations with his daughters that turn out to be Israel’s greatest enemies.  Every time God tells Lot to do something or not do something, he thinks his judgment is better.  This leads to severe consequences.  Lot lost his family.  He lost his wife, sons-in-law, sons, and at least two daughters.  When he flees Sodom, his wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt.  Her eyes were city focused.  Perhaps that was why Lot wanted to go to Zoar.  When he fathers two Israel-hating nations, Lot loses the remaining part of his family.

Thinking we have a better plan that God costs us.  Sometime, it costs us dearly.  In all cases mentioned above, there was a rationale behind Lot’s choice.  It wasn’t simple desire.  He desired the plains because it was better grass.  He pitched toward Sodom and Gomorrah because his daughters needed husbands.  He desired to go to Zoar because he feared the wild animals of the mountains more than the wicked of a city.  He eventually went to the mountains because he feared the wrath of God in the cities.  There was always a good reason to change God’s plan.  Lot was pragmatic, if nothing else.  It was that pragmatism over faith that was his undoing.  There was a program on many decades ago called Father Knows Best.  It was a family show that supported the leadership of the father in the home.  The family learned that Dad was usually right and worthy of being trusted.  Today’s sitcoms portray dad as a bumbling idiot who couldn’t tie his own shoes.  He is not to be trusted.  This is what Lot did.  He felt he had a better grasp on what was the best course of action and he couldn’t bring himself to trust the LORD.  We learn, don’t we?  Often at significant cost.

The Unfortunate Reality of Loss

“And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.” (Ge 18:33 AV)

Abraham pled with God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah.  Lot lived among these cities.  Abraham began with fifty.  If there were fifty righteous with in the cities, would God spare them?  The LORD said He would.  Then it was 45.  If there were 45 righteous, the LORD would spare the city.  Then thirty, twenty, and ten.  Each time Abraham attempted to spare the city for the sake of a small minority, God said there weren’t that many.  It is not out of the ordinary for a writer to assume Abraham stopped at ten because it is believed that was the number in Lot’s extended household.  I don’t think the Bible explicitly states how many were in Lot’s household, but if ten it was, then Abraham had to deal with a hard reality.  I wonder how he felt when he realized his extended family no longer loved the LORD.  Abraham used the argument that God would not judge the righteous with the wicked.  He knew by faith that the LORD would, more than likely, not include any of Lot’s household that were righteous.  Therefore, then Abraham stopped at ten, and was assured there weren’t ten righteous. It must have been a heartbreaking truth.  All that Abraham had done for Lot and the majority of Lot’s family was lost.

One of the hardest situations to assist is a family whose children have walked away from the LORD.  There have been a few along the way.  Parents are crushed when just one of their children abandons the LORD.  But when they all do, that is a burden often too hard to bear.  One child may walk away from God.  But when most of them do, it is hard not to take that personally.  More times than not, parents give up on God, too.  They figure there is nothing left to lose, so why try?  Hope is lost.  Often, the key to resurrecting this family is to give the parents hope.  As long as there is breath in their longs, their children can return to the LORD.  The key is to not give up hope.  If they begin to blame themselves to the point, they think their family is lost forever, there is no incentive to follow on with God.  These are very hard cases indeed.

Abraham had to have walked away from his prayer meeting over Lot, deeply disturbed by what he learned.  Lot was his brother’s son.  He cared for lot at the death of his father.  Lot was raised in the home of Abraham.  He could see much of what the LORD did for them.  Lot’s uncle walked with God.  Lot had every chance to learn what it was like to raise a godly family.  Somewhere along the line, Lot failed.  Peter tells us how.  Lot decided to set up house too close to the world.  His children were led away of the people of the plains.  Now, Abraham must deal with the heartache that his nephew and grandnieces and grandnephews would not make it out of Sodom alive.  The thought of Abraham walking away from that prayer meeting with God is in my heart.  The thought of knowing his extended family was doomed because they refused to love the LORD must have been a hard pill to swallow.  Abraham went on with the LORD.  He didn’t allow the holiness of God or his own sense of failure to keep him from loving the LORD.  He may have had to process a hard reality, but when it was all said and done, Abraham followed the LORD. That takes immense character on his part.  What a man of God Abraham was!

Open Tent Flaps

“Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched [his] tent toward Sodom.” (Ge 13:12 AV)

My mind went back to the days of old when a phrase like that above would generate a great Bible camp meeting sermon.  The good old days when the preacher preached on sin and worldliness.  It seems like those days are gone.  It really is sad, though.  We need them more and more, not less and less.  Questions like: “Have you pitched your tent toward Sodom” would be thrown out there.  Or: “exactly what do you have your front door open to?”  Perhaps, “How deep and permanent is your life as you face the temptation of the world.?”  These questions and more would bellow forth from the sacred desk.  The altar would be full of those renouncing worldliness.  Sin would be confessed.  Wickedness would be forsaken.  Worldly pleasures would be burned at a bonfire, pledges made and kept, and a great movement of the Holy Spirit would run a course through the congregation.  No longer do we hear revival messages like that.  The cause has not abated.  Worldliness is a sickness that will always plague the body of Christ.  What is missing is the same thing that was missing on Lot’s day.  There simply is no concern.  No care.  No worry that the world would harmfully influence the family and the individual.

Lot lost everything.  He lost his home and his family.  All he had left were two daughters who got him drunk and laid with him.  He fathered two nations with his own daughters.  When it was all said and done, the Bible does list Lot as a righteous man.  But barely.  Lot is a type of the raptured church.  We are saved, yet so as by fire.  We are getting out of here having lost much.  The questions above become important because they become personal.  Have I staked my tent facing Sodom?  What is it that is allowed to influence my home?  How much like the world have I become?  Have I considered separation as a serious Christian principle?  Do I use the cause of evangelism as an excuse to be like the world?  If the LORD would blow the trumpet tonight, how much of what I value would be left behind?  How much of my extended family will miss the rapture because I allowed myself to be more like the world than like Christ?

Where we decide to define ourselves matters.  What we focus our attention on matters.  Lot may have been a righteous man, but he lost much.  Lot may have been protected by the angels of the LORD, but they could not protect his wife or married children.  God may have honored Abraham’s prayer, but Lot lost more than he could bear.  All because he pitched his tent toward Sodom.  Where have you pitched your tent?  What is your front door open to?  What comes into your home that would be better left out?  From whom are you separating and unto whom are you joining?  If Lot could have kept his herdman under control, none of this would have happened.  If they separated because of failure to control Self, then their situation would be compounded by joining with cities that we invested with revelry.  What do we pitch our tents toward?

Just Do It

"I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths…The way of the wicked [is] as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.” (Pr 4:11, 19 AV)

Solomon is speaking to his adult children.  They have received wisdom from their father.  They have learned much.  The book of Proverbs is as much a book to remind them of that which they already know as it is to share new wisdom they had never heard before.  When Solomon states he has taught them in the way of wisdom, he is reminding them they already have a great deal of wisdom upon which they can build the rest of their lives.  There comes a time when we have the majority of what we need in order to live godly lives.  It isn’t information which we lack.  It is discipline.  A father can only teach in the way of wisdom.  He cannot teach wisdom.  Wisdom is the discipline to live according to the truths one has learned.  At least that is how the word is primarily used in the book of Proverbs.  Solomon’s children have watched their father as he was successful in governing a nation.  The king has taught be example, both good and bad, the consequences of choices.  It is this example that is the way.  But I digress.  There comes a time when we have enough light and it comes down to action.

There is nothing like learning by immersion.  I have been trying to learn a foreign language.  It is going ok.  One drawback is most learning is visual.  Words appear and you read those words.  What is lacking is audio learning.  There is little active listening.  I can learn verbs.  I can learn nouns.  I can learn grammar.  But until I have actual conversations with people who speak my target language, then there is something seriously lacking.  I have a son who is a foreign missionary.  He had to learn a foreign language.  He went to language school.  I tried to learn with books and classroom time.  It was not until he was forced to survive on his own that he could begin to grasp what he had learned.  One drill my app encourages me to do is active translation.  Or, trying to speak in the foreign language even if it to yourself.  So, when I think of some sentence in my head, I try to speak it in another language.  There are different levels of speaking.  There are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2.  In order to be considered fluent for normal everyday conversations, B2 is where you want to be.  This takes practice.  This takes putting into practice what one has learned from the books.  This takes speaking as those who have taught you speak.  There comes a time when what we have learned has to be put into use.

We are the most educated of all generations.  Information is at our fingertips.  If we don’t know a word, we can click a couple of times and find it.  If we cannot remember where something is, then we can use AI to find it.  If we want to know any opinion regarding any doctrine, it is a simple search away.  We have all this knowledge, but our churches are declining, falling into sin, and Christ is becoming irrelevant.  The social gospel has taken over.  Why?  Because of wisdom.  We do not lack knowledge.  We do not lack understanding.  What we lack is the discipline to live the principles of the word of God.  Solomon did all he could do.  All he could do was to remind his children of principles, which they have observed all their lives.  All he could do was to encourage them to live godlier than he did.  All he could to was to challenge them to live out what they learned.  For must of us, it is not a matter of learning something new.  It is a matter of living what we already know.

Not Just Faith

“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Mt 6:11 AV)

Last night, I read a book that challenged me and is in the process of profoundly changing me.  When we think of George Muller, we think of faith.  Almost everyone knows the story of the milk cart that broke down in front of the Orphan house.  One morning, with nothing left in which to feed his little orphans, Bro Muller, and his staff began to pray.  Before they were done praying, a milkman whose cart broke down near the orphan house gave the milk to the orphanage lest it spoil and be of no use. As I read his journal entries, I was struck by a profound truth.  But more of that a bit later.

George Muller set out to start and sustain orphan houses.  He started very modestly, but at his peak, cared for 2,000 orphans at one time.  Many souls came to Christ through this ministry, but that wasn’t Muller’s primary motivation for starting and running this ministry.  It is said this ministry touched the lives of 100,000 orphans in over one hundred years of operation.  As you read George’s select journal entries, one cannot help but learn of a man given to prayer and faith.  It wasn’t the 100,000 souls this ministry touched that was Muller’s primary motivation.  At its height, the ministry support 258 foreign missionaries.  But it wasn’t his heart for missions that was the primary driving force behind George’s ministry.  Muller had a training school for those considering ministry, a publication ministry, and other interests from the walls of these orphan houses.  But it wasn’t all these tentacles of ministry that affected millions that were at the heart of George’s ministry.  At the heart of his ministry was an unquenchable desire to show God faithful through prayer and faith.  This has to be understood, or his narrative becomes tiresome.

Time and again, he speaks of having a need and by prayer and faith, God answered those needs.  At the height of his ministry, he needed £97 a day to feed and care for all his children.  That is roughly $1300 today.  He mentions a trickle of support that came in more times than a generous sum that sustained them for a time.  Most of his entries regard this trickle of support rather than enormous sums.  Muller never published his needs.  He never asked for funds.  He never went on fundraising trips for anything other than foreign missions.  Yet, the LORD supplied all his needs.  Often, at the very last minute.  Herein is the profound truth which struck me.  I realized just how inextricably faith and humility are related.  We often equate faith with confidence.  Confidence can often look like arrogance.  I imagined how tiring it would be to rely on the LORD for every nickel and dime, often coming up short until the very last minute, for over forty years.  If God can provide one day’s expenses, He can provide a lifetime of expenses all at once.  I imagined how exhausting it would be to have to go to God every day for a piece of bread.  But that is what our verse states.  The LORD’s prayer, given by Jesus Himself, tells us we need to pray for each day’s provision.  This requires humility and faith.  Not mere faith alone.

When I began to think of George’s first passion, I realized how much his life truly meant to all whom he had touched.  It wasn’t about faith alone.  It was about humility just as well.  Muller could not set the example of faith unless he was willing to live a humble and disciplined life.  I appreciate something else he said.  He was afraid of making a mistake with the resources God has given, no matter how small, lest the LORD not bless him.  Muller purposely set out to live a life of constant need so that he could humble himself and prove God faithful.  One has to wonder how much we are willing to do the same.  If we don’t have our expenses planned for and covered so there is no anxiety or worry, we would work rather hard to make sure there is no need.  Humility and prayer wouldn’t be our normal go-to.  Muller was a remarkable man.  He left a legacy of God’s faithfulness.  The orphan houses no longer exist.  They closed in 1958.  That doesn’t mean Muller fails to make an impact.  His legacy of humility with faith is what changed the world.

The Unreasonable Nature of Rebellion

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, [saying], Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.” (Ps 2:1-4 AV)

The recent attacks on our nation came to mind.  In fact, all over the world, those who hate Jehovah are attacking nations that traditionally recognize the God of all creation.  As time marches on, it is only going to get worse.  The God-haters will not sit by and allow the truth of the gospel to have free rein.  The question above is what stood out at me this morning.  It is rhetorical.  It is meant to show the futility of rebellion against the Creator.  The response to this world-wide rebellion is the return of Jesus Christ to set up His kingdom in righteousness and holiness.  All the rage the heathen show at the holiness of God will not change a thing.  Their anger and wrath will be short-lived.  When Jesus returns, all those who hate God will be disposed of.  Jesus will enter His kingdom with those who have trusted in Him.  All others will be destroyed.  This is the right of the Creator.  He has the right to do whatever He wishes with that which He has created.  That includes the heathen who rage against Him.  The question above is a very simple question.  One that is meant to produce an ‘aha’ moment.  But it won’t.

There is a principle expressed in our constitution that understands this truth.  We all know the concept of slavery is morally reprehensible.  But why?  We know it is an evil that should not be tolerated.  But why?  In the natural world, there is no understanding of this.  Honey bees have a queen, the worker, and the drone.  These three castes have specific responsibilities in the hive and have no option but to fulfill that task.  Once their task is done, their lives are done.  There is no free will.  There is no option to change what one was created to do.  Other highly socialized creatures behave the same way.  Mankind, on the other hand, has no right to own another human being.  When we see the laws of slavery as they appear in the Bible, think indentured servant.  The master paid a debt for the servant and he is no indentured to him until the debt is paid.  Once the debt was paid, the servant had the option to choose freedom, or become a permanent servant.  But it was his choice.  So, where do we get the idea that slavery is an evil that should never be tolerated?  The second paragraph of our Declaration of Independence starts, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  In other words, slavery is absolutely wrong because we are all created by the same God and therefore have no rights that can infringe on the liberty of others.

What is lost on the heathen is the same truth that protects them against abuse is the same truth that demands submission to their Creator.  This is why the question is rhetorical.  It makes no sense to fight against the abuse from mankind based on equality of creation and then turn around and rage against the Creator that grants that right.  To think the Creator will create and surrender His right to that which He creates would then open the door for immoral slavery.  If God is the Creator and it is by this fact, we are all created equal and thus protected from enslavement, it must stand to reason the uniformity of our creation must also demand submission to He who created us.  This is why rebellion is so unreasonable.  By rebelling against our Creator, we also surrender all rights to His protection.  The best thing to do is cease the rage.  Surrender to the will of the Creator.  He will do what He pleases with that which He has created.  To fight against it surrenders one’s own mercy.

Praise God For The Predictable

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:” (Ge 1:14 AV)

I know this may sound simple, and it isn’t very complicated, but praise the LORD for the absolute and predictable.  The ordinances of heaven were the first of God’s creation.  He created time and then the celestial bodies to govern time.  Days, months, years, centuries, and millennia are all governed by the movement of the cosmos.  The sun rises and sets.  The moon changes her light.  The planets revolve around the sun.  The universe is in constant and unalterable motion.  We have seasons and times appointed because God set in His heavens that which measures all things.  Life may have unpredictable changes, but the sun comes up in the morning.  The earth rotates on its axis and orbits the sun once a year.  The stars rotate as the earth moves and measures times and seasons.  Time is something that does not change.  There are sixty seconds in a minute.  Sixty minutes in an hour.  Twenty-four hours in a day.  And 365 days in a year.  I am truly thankful God set in the heavens something that is as absolute as He is.  The sun rising in the morning is testament to God’s sovereign control over all things He has created.  It is the constant to which we can focus that gives us faith that God is greater than we could ever comprehend.

Sunrise is a very special time for me.  I am a morning person.  I like getting up early enough to see a beautiful sunrise.  Especially if I rise before the birds do.  I have seen countless sunrises.  Being a hunter and fisherman, sunrises were common to me.  Working the third shift meant I could take my last break at sunrise and watch the color of the morning sky.  There is something about a sunrise that is comforting.  No matter how the night went, the sun still rose.  The day still came.  Storms could not stop it.  The trembling earth could not frustrate it.  The sun came up, and the stars went away.  There is a brief moment when all three; the sun, moon, and stars are skyward.  This time is very brief.  It doesn’t last long.  That is the time I enjoy the most.  For a few minutes, the soul can witness all the celestial bodies which the LORD has placed to assure time continues unabated by the unpredictable events of life.  As long as the celestial bodies continue, so too will man.  As long as the sun rises, life will go on.  Sitting in a deer stand at the break of day is something else.  As the woods come alive with birdsong and scampering critters, the world is as it should be.  My troubles are lost in the predictable nature of God’s creation.  If God can make the sun rise and the chipmunk scamper every day of the year, then surely He can take care of me.

Life is but a vapor and has Job states so eloquently, his days are full of trouble.  General truths are predictable.  We know we are born and die.  We know we will be married, raise a family, work a career, and then fall ill and pass.  We know we will have a roof over our head, we will sleep every night, our cupboards will have food and there will be raiment on our backs.  We will get taller and then shrink.  We will be faster in our youth and slow down as we age.  Part of maturing is accepting life as it generally is.  Our days are full of trouble.  There is no escaping that.  Our days will be filled with sickness, unemployment, relationship issues, unplanned expenses, and more doctor's visits than one can count.  Yet no matter how difficult life can be, the sun still rises.  The clouds still pass.  Rain, sunshine, snow, and changing leaves will still come and go.  The ordinances governing bodies to set the limits of God’s dispensational plan.  Time measures God’s map.  Time is what God set in place for change.  When the day is done, a new one dawns.  Each year sees events in God’s plan unfold.  But time is absolute.  So, the next time you see a sunrise early in the morning, remember that is God is control.  It is one of an infinite manifestation of God's sovereignty that brings security to the soul.  As sure as the sun will rise, we say.  Why?  Because God is always in control.