Archive for June 2014
When The Bible Calls You Stupid!
When The Bible Calls You Stupid!
We were taught since childhood to avoid calling someone stupid. That advice is still sound and worth heading. As adults we realize not everyone acts very smart all the time. A few days ago, I saw this bumper sticker on the bumper of a beat up pickup truck.
The way of the transgressor is hard. Stupid ought to hurt!
Ask Esau
Ask The Prodigal Son
Ask Baalim
Ask Lot’s Wife
Stupid really does hurt!
To make matters worse I found an album of pictures showing, “Why Women Live Longer Than Men.” These photos prove that men can do some stupid things.
As a lover of the King James Version, I seldom read any other translations or versions. A quick glance at the NIV and the Good News Bible shows man’s stupidity in stark reality:
Proverbs 12:1 (NIV) Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.
Proverbs 12:15 (Good News Translation) Stupid people always think they are right. Wise people listen to advice.
There Is A Name For Those Who Hate To Be Corrected And Always Think They Are Right! Stupid.
When The Bible Calls You Stupid, It Very Bad!
A Nursing Father
A Nursing Father
A Nursing Father? Yes! That’s how Moses saw his own role as leader of the Children of Israel. He saw himself as a nursing father to them. They were often rebellious, unwilling, unbelieving and hard to control. Yet, he constantly nurtured and guided them. He mothered the people of God.
Sure he depended solely on Jehovah to direct his every word. Yes he daily had to ask for Divine guidance and support. But it was up to Moses how and in what manner he dispensed the instructions of righteousness. He had to nurse them all into understanding and believing. He mothered them from a promise to a possession.
- They craved their old life in Egypt.
- They wanted idols like the heathen had.
- They complained about the manna.
- They fussed about Moses’ authority.
- Yet they were helpless without him.
1. Moses Felt Like He Was A Nursing Father,
Numbers 11:12 Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?
Moses did not ask for this role. It was imposed upon him. God saw his heart and knew this would be the man who would nurse and nurture the Israelites.
- As a nursing father, he nurtured a nation into the Promised Land.
- As a nursing father, he provided guidance and strength for them during the harshest of times.
- As a nursing father, he gave of himself completely.
- As a nursing father, he pled for their very lives and survival before God.
- As a nursing father, if God had killed all the disobedient Israelites, he was willing to die with them.
- As a nursing father, he gave his very life for them.
- As a nursing father, he has been remembered by Israel to this day as their hero and their father.
- He nurtured them even though they were a thankless group of people.
Moses went to school in the wilderness and trained to be a nursing father for forty years as a shepherd. As a shepherd under God, he provided guidance, protection and provision for Israel when they couldn’t take care of themselves.
2. Job Was A Nursing Father
Job 1:4 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
Job 1:5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
Job prayed and sacrificed every day to God for his children, just incase one of them might have sinned or thought bad thoughts. His life was an example of love, thoughtfulness and righteousness to his children.
3. Joshua Was A Nursing Father
Joshua 24:15 … but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
- As a nurturing father, he chose the proper life for his children.
4. The Apostle John Was A Nursing Father
3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
- Nothing makes a nursing father happier than to know his children are living for God.
5. A Pastor Is A Nursing Father
There are a lot of pastors and teachers in the church world, but not many of them are fathers.
1 Corinthians 4:15 For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
A pastor is not called to be neither a politician, neither is he to be a lord over God’s heritage. With Divine guidance, a pastor is meant to nurture new babes in Christ into spiritual maturity.
- He teaches the flock over which God has given him the oversight.
- He cares what happens to every one of the flock.
- He prays daily for those in need.
- He visits the sick.
- He prays in the altar with the wayward and the sinful.
- He goes a fast with those that need a miracle.
- He prays for God to give him a word of comfort for those in pain.
- He speaks to the wayward and directs them back onto the right way.
- He gives his life for those God has given to him.
- He doesn’t preach the love of God with a closed fist.
- He doesn’t try to run see how many he can run off, but how many he can get in.
- He doesn’t throw souls away.
- He will even be standing beside every one God has given to him in the Judgment giving an account.
- He is to all who hear him, a nursing father.
Thank God For Our Pastor, Our ‘Other Father’
6. As A Dad, Are You A Nursing Father?
Heaven gave you precious little lives to provide and to care for. A father is deemed to be a good father when he loves his children and provides a good home life and example for them.
- A father protects his children from all harm.
- He guides their little minds and their lives in the ways of right.
- He shows them how to live for God.
- He displays tenderness and affection to their mother and to them, and thereby defines to his children the role of a nursing father.
As A Nursing Father
- He walks the floor with his fretting baby at night.
- As a nursing father, he provides for his family, regardless of how well he feels.
- As a nursing father, he willing sacrifices for his family.
- As a nursing father, he cries with his hurting children.
- As a nursing father, he comforts and holds his babies when they need him to.
- As a nursing father, he sometimes has to say no, to protect them.
- As a nursing father, he provides reassurance of love, even in correction. (Especially in correction.)
- As a nursing father, he is not harsh, but loving, not weak, but gentle.
- As a nursing father, he is firm, but not mean.
- As a nursing father, he provides protection and safety for his home.
Some fathers do not become involved in their children’s lives. What a loss and what a shame!
The Commandment To Be A Nursing (Nurturing) Father
Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Love them babies like your heavenly father loves you. Life’s greatest joy of fatherhood is the loving and the nurturing.
Thank God For Nurturing Fathers!
“Lest They Be Discouraged”
“Lest They Be Discouraged”
Every one is grateful for a kind word of encouragement. Dreams and ideals can be very fragile and easily destroyed, especially in the early stages of life.
Most find it easy to gravitate towards those who look favorably upon us. Not many can thrive in an environment of constant criticism, hostility and contempt.
I have never met a person sick enough to rejoice over discouraging someone from accomplishing that which is good. Neither can I believe a good father would be happy he made his child so discouraged they quit going to church.
My mind cannot imagine a Spirit-filled father treating his children so horrible that they lose all desire to go to church because of him.
No generation of believers has evidently been exempt from stupid acting fathers. It was a problem big enough to be mentioned In Paul’s writings to the Colossians and the Ephesians.
Colossians 3:21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
No father in his right mind would say he chose to talk his child out of living for God. Evidently then, when strength turns into harshness, un-repairable damage could be done.
Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
There Is No Room In The Kingdom Of God For Harshness.
- Not in the pulpit
- Not in the church or out
- Not between husbands and wives
- Not between fathers and their children
Dads? We don’t show strength by being harsh (strict is what we might think) Harshness isn’t wisdom, it isn’t love, it isn’t mercy, it isn’t the fruit of the Spirit, it isn’t productive, and It isn’t pleasing to God.
Harshness kills love, it kills respect, it kills hope, it kills family structure, and it kills every pleasant memory of childhood.
One time, when my oldest children sons were up in their teens, I made a strict ruling in my home. Within two days I saw the hurt that my ruling had caused for all of my children.
I began to meditate and pray about the problem and felt the Lord impress me to repent to my children. My first reaction was to be repulsed at the thought. I could only imagine what negative thoughts my children would think of me if I did that. My very next thought was… “What will they think of me if I don’t repent?”
I called a family meeting and we all sat down in the living room. I looked at my five beautiful children and wife, and I began to be filled with great sorrow for what damage I had already done. Things would only get worse if I didn’t humble myself and repent now.
I began if sorrowful tones: “I made a bad ruling two days ago that has brought much pain to my family. I am changing that ruling right now. I was very wrong. What I did has hurt you, the very ones I love.
I am so sorry! Would you please forgive me? I never want to make a decision again that would ever bring pain to any of you. I love you!
- Next came tears in the room.
- Next came the hugs and smooches.
- Next came sweet comments, some said aloud and some whispered in my ear.
- Next came a room filled with seven teary-eyed smiling people expressing love for each other.
The Fruit Of The Spirit Includes Gentleness
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Galatians 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
God’s Wisdom Is Peaceable And Gentle
James 3:16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
James 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
James 3:18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
Godly dads don’t discourage their children in living for God. Godly dads live so that they create a craving in their family’s hearts to live for the Lord too.
If a man yields his strengths to God’s ways, submitting himself and his emotions. Then will he manifest the Fruits of the Spirit, transforming his home into a place of comfort, peace and delight.
Daddy? Go Make This A Very Happy Father’s Day For Your Family!
(You’re Kids Are Watching!)
Show Me In The Bible!
Show Me In The Bible!
Those who are argumentative about doctrine and standards sometimes say these very words. They know not what spirit they are of.
“Show Me In The Bible!” Really? You want to be shown in the Bible just where it says those very words, and then you’ll obey and comply? Otherwise you’re not changing?
I May Have A Hard Time Believing You. Here Is Why.
1. God Said To Adam And Eve:
Genesis 2:16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
- God said not to do it; Adam and Eve did it anyway.
2. Angels Personally Escorted Lot And His Family Away From Judgment, Warning Them To Not Look Back.
Gen 19:17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
- Lot’s wife looked back anyway.
3. God told Israel to possess the Promised Land
Deuteronomy 1:26 Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God:
- God said go possess the Promised Land and Israel didn’t obey.
4. Saul – Told By God To Smite And Destroy King Agag, The People And Cattle.
1 Samuel 15:9 But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
- Saul Didn’t.
I Am Not Convinced That Every Pentecostal Would Obey Some Things In The Bible Even If You Read The Chapter And Verse To Them.
If I Am Wrong, Then Why Is There Still A Running Debate On The Subjects Of:
- Jewelry – 1 Tim 2:9, 1 Pet 3:3
- Women Wearing Men’s Apparel – Deut. 22:5
- Women Not Cutting Their Hair – 1 Cor. 11
- Men Not Wearing Long Hair – 1 Cor. 11
- Setting Some Wicked Thing Before Your Eyes – Psa. 101:3
- Modesty – 1 Tim 2:9
- The Essentiality Of The New Birth; Acts 2:38 Repentance, Baptism In Jesus Name, Receiving The Holy Ghost, Evidenced By Speaking In Tongues.
- Pastoral Authority – Matt 16:19, Heb. 13:17
- Holiness – inside and out – Heb. 12:14, Lev. 20:7, Rom 12:1
To Some, It’s Not Even Enough That It Is Written In The Bible.
- Evidence seems clears to most pastors that just because God said it, does not mean everyone will obey.
- Some Christian Boys And Girls Still Date Sinners. Regardless of 2 Cor. 6:14
- Some People Still Stay Home From Church – Regardless Of What Heb. 11:25 Says.
- Some Still Don’t Pay Tithes Properly Or Faithfully In Spite Of Mal. 3:10
- Some Still Love The World. Even After Reading 1John 2:15
- Some Are Still Lovers Of Pleasure More Than Lovers Of God. Ignoring 2 Tim. 3:4
- Some Still Won’t Submit To Their Pastor And Obey. Even After Reading Heb. 13:17
The Last Days
2 Peter 2:10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
2 Peter 2:11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.
2 Peter 2:12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
2 Peter 2:13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
2 Peter 2:14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
2 Peter 2:15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
Remember The Man That Picked Up Sticks On The Sabbath Day?
Numbers 15:32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
Numbers 15:33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
Numbers 15:34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
Numbers 15:35 And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
Numbers 15:36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.
No place in the law did it mention that picking up sticks was a sin. It turned out that not only was it a sin, but a sin for which the sinner met with death so quick there was no opportunity for him to repent or atone for his sin.
- Had he killed someone? No
- Did he talk against God? No
- Did he curse Moses? No
- Was He immoral? No
- Did he worship an idol? No
- His only sin was picking up sticks on the Sabbath Day
Nothing In The Law Said, “Thou Shalt Not Pick Up Sticks On The Sabbath Day.” Evidently this man felt safe because no one could show him in the Bible where it said not to.
- Like the rest of Israel, he knew the basic Ten Commandments and the law of not building a fire on the Sabbath.
- Exodus 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
- Exodus 35:3 Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day.
That’s it! That’s the requirements he knew. If you had told him not to pick up sticks, he might have said, “Show me in the Law.” He felt justified and safe.
- This man looked for a loophole and thought he had found one.
- Nothing was mentioned about sticks.
- This man had not started any fire.
- He felt he was within the boundaries of keeping the sabbath day holy.
- He thought he was justified in his actions because nowhere did the law say anything about sticks.
- This Man Died For Doing Something That The Scriptures Never Warned Him About.
- He was not sinning in his mind, but he was sinning in God’s mind.
Those watching him pick up sticks took him to Moses and Aaron to see what they thought.
Even they were not sure, so they held him in confinement until they could ask God. God said this man should surely be put to death. Have all the people stone him with stones so that he dies.
I worry about people who are vocal and quick to voice their opinion against careful living and holiness.
These are some of the same folks who ask for chapter and verse. Even if they had chapter and verse, the chances are slim they would obey.
Be careful of what loophole you think you may have found. It may not be a loophole after all.
Don’t play with the Bible.
If God would kill a man for doing something that is not written down in black and white, how much more severe will he be on those who ignore what is written in His Word.
Between You And Me, You Better Put That Stick Down!