Tag: Providence Reformed Church

The Lord is Your Home

pastortravislv

Psalm 90:1-2

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place

in all generations.

2 Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

As this psalm opens, we are immediately struck with two verses that magnify for us the greatness, the eternality, and the glorious presence of God. The prayer/song opens with Moses declaring that God has been his people’s dwelling place in all generations. God is home for his people.

Remember that the people of God were very likely traveling through a wilderness, living in tents, and longing for a permanent home when this was sung. For forty years, the people of Israel wandered the desert. And it was in that time that God inspired their leader to say that God has been the dwelling place of his people.

This is true even now. Whether you have a large house or you sleep in your car, if you know God, the Lord is your home. This is true whether your life is easy or hard right now, God is your home. For the people of God alive right now and for those who have gone on before us, God is our home. When we die, heaven is home. But heaven is only our home because it is the place where God is. If God is not there, heaven is not heaven.

And this has been true of God for all generations. Though people have come and gone, though lives have begun and ended, the truth has always remained that God is home for his children. He does not move away. He does not leave us alone and exposed. He is our safety and shelter.

Then verse 2 takes an even bigger look at God. Before the mountains were born and before the earth came into being, God is God. Not only has he not changed over our lifetime, not only has he been the same through all generations, not only is God the same for more than the age of the mountains, even from before creation, God is God.

The best way it could be said is how Moses says it in the end of verse 2: From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. When God revealed himself to Moses by name, God called himself “I Am.” God is. He always is. He has always been and will always be. God is the one absolute constant beyond time and beyond creation. God is God. If you could draw a line back into the past, beyond where time began, God is. If you could draw a line into the future, beyond where time ceases to exist, God is. From everlasting, to everlasting, God is the I Am.

What should we do at this point? Christians, we should marvel. God is our God. God is our home. He is older than time itself. HE will be present forever. We are like wandering vagabonds, just passing through this world which is not our home. But God is our home, and he is eternal. Let this draw you to worship.

When a person first sees the ocean, he is amazed. When a person first sees the Grand Canyon she is in awe. Magnify that wonder by a million billion times, and you will start responding to the vastness of God in the right way. Wonder at God. Praise him for his glorious being.

Just Because You Say You Heard from god Does not Mean I have to Believe You

pastortravislv

How do you know if something is the command or desire of God? This is a big question, a significant question. Many people refuse to ask it, but the failure to have a standard here is utterly destructive.

If a person tells you that God wants them to do something, what do you do? Do you immediately assume they must have heard from God? Why? What would make you take their word for it?

If someone tells you that something is truth, do you automatically believe them? Why? Do a person’s feelings form in your mind an unquestionable argument? Why?

To live and survive in the world we are in, you and I need to be a thinking people. We need to actually be willing to at least ask a couple of questions about the knowledge claims that others make. WE need to be wise enough to question even the passionate beliefs of others. Doing so is not mean. Instead, doing so is required for us to lovingly point people to the Lord.

If a person tells you that they believe God is pleased with what they are doing, you have to ask why. What makes them think that the Lord has approved their choices? If they tell you that they know God has approved their choices simply because they feel approved of, that is not a satisfactory answer. After all, people of other religions may say the same thing.

Let’s make this simple. Imagine that I say to you that I feel, deep down in my heart, that the sky is yellow. Does that make my claim so? It depends, of course, on whether or not color is a real thing. If color is a real thing, then my claim about the color of the sky can be either correct or incorrect. But how strongly I feel about the color makes no difference. The actual color, the measurable color, that is the thing that matters.

Let’s see an example from Scripture. During the days of Hezekiah, the king of Assyria send an army to Judea. And he claimed that he was doing so based on the command of the Lord. Notice the two claims in these verses.

2 Kings 18:22, 25 — 22 But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? … 25 Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”

The Assyrians claimed first that Hezekiah had displeased the Lord by tearing down the high places in Judea. That is a truth claim. We must ask, “Is it true?” It depends. Is there any source of truth to which we can appeal to find out? Yes. The Bible has been clear all through 2 Kings that the high places dishonored the Lord. God did not command the people to build them. Instead, the high places were a mimicry of pagan religions. The high places were often places for evil, pagan, religious rituals to take place. No, God was not mad at Hezekiah for taking down the high places. God’s word tells us that the high places were sin. Thus, the claim of the Assyrian leader goes against objective truth as established by Scripture.

In verse 25, the Assyrian king says that God sent his army. “God told me to come and do this.” Is that true? First, we do not know for sure, as there might be more than one reason God would send in this army. God could well have told the king to go to Judea, but God’s purpose may be to gain glory by the overthrow of that Assyrian army, which will happen as we read further. But it is a certainty that God did not command the
Assyrian king to come and conquer Israel, promising him victory. That was not what God did. And we can know this from a look at truth that is outside of the man’s internal claim.

What we must see is that, when a person claims to know what God is saying or what God wants, we must hold that subjective claim up against the light of objective truth. The Bible is the word of God. The Bible is where we turn to see what God has commanded. Anytime someone tells us that God wants them to do what his word clearly commands that people not do, we know that person is mistaken at best, lying at worst.

What about when someone claims a “leading” from God that is not related to a Scriptural command, when what they are saying God wants them to do is in line with his word? That does not mean we have to assume they have a message from God. But, if their desire is in line with the objective revelation of God, we also do not have to battle them. If a person wants a thing that God has said is OK in his word, we do not need to oppose them, unless there is something else in their plan that is clearly unwise.

We could talk about this forever, but we need to gain a truth from what we see in the word in 2 Kings 18. Just because a person claims they are doing something for God or in God’s name or even according to a personal call from
God does not mean they really are. A person’s subjective experience does not equal the weight of objective revelation from God in his word. We are first and foremost submitted to the word of God as his infallible, inspired revelation.

When a Tool Becomes an Idol

pastortravislv

When Moses and the Israelites were wandering the wilderness, they faced the judgment of God for grumbling. The Lord once sent fiery serpents into the camp to bite the rebels. But, the Lord also provided a solution to the problem. He commanded Moses to craft a bronze serpent, set it on a pole, and command the people to look at it to be healed. Jesus later used that imagery to help us understand the concept of salvation by grace through faith in him.

Once the serpent problem was over, however, the people of Israel did not get rid of the bronze serpent. Instead, they continued to keep it with them. Eventually, the people actually began to dishonor the Lord and use the snake to do so.

We find out about how messed up this all was when we read about the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah in 2 Kings 18:3-4 – 3 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. 4 He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).

Hezekiah had to destroy the bronze serpent, because—get this—the people had begun to worship it as an idol. A simple thing that the Lord used to call the people to turn from their sin and trust in him became, in the hands of sinful men, a tool for disobeying the very first of God’s commandments.

We should remember that this is human nature. Sin is often the taking of a good thing that God has given us and then twisting or perverting it to make it into something that brings upon us the wrath of God. People do this in just about every area of life. It can be done with food or drink, marriage and sexuality, denominations and organizations.

So, as your day moves forward, ask yourself where you might be tempted to take a good thing that the Lord has allowed you and twist it into something that dishonors the Lord. Where are you holding onto a thing that was a tool and making it something it was never intended to be? Where are you bowing to a creation rather than the Creator?

I think I have to give some examples for this to work, though I am hesitant, because often we hear examples, do not hear our particular thing, and then excuse our sin because the preacher did not mention us specifically. Please do not do that.

How about family or children? Children are good, a gift from God. But what happens when a parent makes an idol of the little ones? Can you not see how a parent might take a good gift from God and then allow that gift from God to usurp the place of God in their life? This is dangerous.

How about an organization. There are some great ministries out there. Many of them have been useful to the church in years past as they have been solid voices for the word of God. Many have brought solid, biblical teaching to places that individual churches may never get to go. But, what happens when those ministries become enamored with their own success? What happens when they take on issues that are not gospel issues? What happens when they start doing things to make the organization look good more than to make Jesus be glorified?

Friends, may we be careful to keep the Lord and his word primary in all that we do. May we never take a good gift from him and elevate it to a place where we dishonor him with the gift he has given us. May we not make an idol out of a tool from the Lord.

We Fail When We Start from the Wrong Place

pastortravislv

I was recently listening to a podcast that discussed issues related to apologetics, and in an interesting combination, the issue of addiction and counseling. The speaker shared with us a reminder that is tremendously significant for Christians who want to help others either with the gospel or with counsel. If our conversation does not begin with a biblical understanding of humanity and the human condition, or if our conversation does not begin with a biblical understanding of the reality of the world we live in, our conversation will not lead where we want it to go. Or, if our conversation does get us where we want to go, it will be in spite of and not because of our strategy.

That thought came again to me as I was reading through Psalm 89. Verse 11 says, “The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.” In the middle of the psalmist discussing what was going on with the world around Judea and the throne of King David, he lays down this glorious truth that has to be our starting point for genuinely helpful thinking. The world belongs to God. God made it. God owns it.

Consider how different your thinking is when you start from that point. God created the universe. The earth and all that is in it belong to him. Consider the moral issues that people want to debate. They ask why this is not OK or how we can dare say that another thing is the only way. While we can argue back and forth for a long time, the answer is bound up in two truths. First, God owns us all. WE are made by him and for him. We owe him our allegiance. And second, God has revealed his ways to us in his word.

So, why is Jesus the only way? God made us and that is what God chose to do. Why are certain actions sin, even if the world around us says differently? God made us, and his word tells us that he calls such things sin.

I’m not here suggesting that we be nasty to people as we have these conversations. Nor am I suggesting that we will do well to refuse to engage in discussions that go further than these points. But I am suggesting that, for you and me as believers, if we start from a different place, if we start from a worldview that is other than the claim that God is our Creator who has spoken to us in his word, we will have a hard time ending up in a place of truth.

And for you and me as Christians, even outside of evangelism, apologetics, and counseling, we need to remember that those starting points are big for us too. Why worship? Why sing if we do not enjoy singing? Why read the Bible if we do not enjoy reading? Why attend church if we are not feeling up for it? The answer begins with the fact that God created the universe, God is our Lord, God owns everything. The answer continues through the fact that God has revealed how he will be worshipped in his word. And we submit to our God who has spoken in his word. That is our source of joy and life.

The World Changes Faster Than You Think

pastortravislv

One of the mistakes that we can make, a mistake that can keep us from realistic thinking, is the belief that the world will continue to be as things are right now. We live in an age of change. In truth, the world has always been able to change in a moment. There are events, big and significant happenings, that lead to reshaping nations. And when we do not remember that, in the hands of the Lord, nations rise and fall, we fail to remember how great and sovereign is our God.

Here is what I mean. We think, as Americans, that we live in a nation that will stand in the future as she has for the past nearly 242 years. We think that we will always be in a nation that is the dominant power, or one of the dominant powers in the world. But we forget that the US has not been a superpower for nearly as long as we think. It is only after World War II that our nation rose to its position of international prominence. It has been less than a century that our nation’s thoughts and actions have been supposedly important on the global scene. And we would be foolish to think that such power and influence and success is our national birthright, a privilege that cannot be lost.

Think how often in history that the entire course of the world has changed in a moment. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started a war that covered the globe and rewrote the maps. World War I led quickly to World War II. Had these wars not happened, consider the strength we might see in nations like Japan and Germany. With one political move in the second decade of the 20th century, the world moved to bring nations like the United States and the Soviet Union to power as they turned to massively change the fortunes of the Empire of Japan, Germany, and Italy. The world changes, and it does so quickly.

In case you are curious, this is all on my mind from a daily Bible reading in 2 Kings 9-11. There we see an event that changes the structure of two nations for years to come.

2 Kings 9:21 – Joram said, “Make ready.” And they made ready his chariot. Then Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah set out, each in his chariot, and went to meet Jehu, and met him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite.

That encounter did not go well for the two kings. Jehu shot Joram with an arrow and his men took down Ahaziah. In one day, two kings fell and their nations were changed. This led to Jehu destroying the temple of Baal and the prophets of Baal in the northern kingdom. Later, the same would happen in the south. And the world was different, vastly different. And The Bible tells us that this was according to the plan and power of God.

God changes the world, and sometimes he does so faster than we might expect. God brings down kingdoms we thought would stand forever. God brings down religions that believed they could stand against him forever. God changes the map. God brings forth nations we thought were long gone (Israel in 1948 as an example). God pulls down nations that we thought would always be superpowers (the Soviet Union in 1991 as an example).

Now, here is the thinking point for us. Why would we think that we stand on any soil more firm than did people of the past? The same God who establishes and who destroys nations is still God over all. In a day he can change the world. IN a moment he can topple a superpower. IN a moment he can bring a godless nation to repentance (Nineveh after Jonah). In a day, he can redraw the map.

Friends, we must remember that the true King of kings is in heaven. We do not have the power to force or stay his hand. Our borders mean nothing to him. Our military might is nothing when compared to the Almighty. Our young nation, less than two-and-a-half centuries old, is not impressive to the Lord. We are as subject to his power as were the Kings of Israel and Judah.

So may we be humble. May we seek the Lord. May we realize that we must have the grace of God if our nation is to stand. May we repent. May we plead with the Lord for mercy. We have sinned against God as a people in countless ways. We need to bow to him and pray for pardon. And we need to know that God can change our nation. He can change us to honor him in obedience. He can change us by judging and destroying us, which is also to his honor. Let us remember that the Lord, he is God, and he is above all kings and all nations forever.

I Believe But I Do Not Believe

pastortravislv

During the time of Elisha, Israel was regularly at odds with Syria. In one instance, the Syrians besieged Samaria of the northern kingdom so that the people in the city were starving. The king of Israel sent to have Elisha put to death, but the prophet told the people that God would end the famine, tomorrow.

What God promised to do seemed unbelievable. How could the people get food enough to feed them all and return life to normal in a single day? It made no sense.

The King’s captain, a man who believed at some level in the Lord, questioned. He asked how such a thing could be.

2 Kings 7:1-2- 1 But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” 2 Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

All that Elisha prophesied took place. The Lord frightened off the Syrian army so that they ran leaving behind their supplies, their food. The next day, the people of Samaria came out , gathered up food, and things returned to normal. But the captain who did not believe was trampled in the gate by a crowd desperate for food.

What strikes me as I read this story this time through is how similar I can be to the captain. In general, my life shows that I believe the Lord, I really do. I believe God is and is powerful. I believe that God changes hearts and lives. I believe that God is great and greatly to be praised. I believe that the Lord will build his church and show himself glorious.

But then, like the captain, I may not believe as I should. It is easy, when faced with a difficult circumstance, to believe that the Lord will work things out. I know enough to say that God will work everything out, of course, but my heart gets heavy. I can fear. I can doubt. I can expect that God is not going to do something glorious.

The captain could not imagine how God could provide food for a city full of starving people with an enemy army surrounding it. He had no idea that God would feed the people with the supplies of the enemy. But God did it.

I wonder what we think it would just be impossible for God to do. Is there a person who is just too harsh, too stubborn, too hostile in your mind to ever be saved? Is it impossible that the Lord would bring life to a church that is struggling? Is it unthinkable that a conflict between brothers and sisters in Christ be resolved? Is it impossible for God to put an end to some of the evils that mar our land?

What I need is to believe and not disbelieve. I need to believe that the Lord, he is God. I need to believe that the Lord provides answers from directions I can never see until the answers are provided. I need to remember that God has access to the supplies of those who think they are against the Lord and his people. I need to remember that, at times, the best thing that I can do is lift up a cause or concern to the Lord and leave the problem in his hands. I need to pray and trust and believe.

And this belief must be in line with the word of God. I’m not here talking about believing that God will do things that his word does not say he will do. I’m not here talking about asking God to bless things that have nothing to do with the Lord or his kingdom. I’m surely not talking about asking the Lord to bless a gimmick or stunt that a church does to draw attendance. I’m talking about believing the Lord able to do the impossible according to his power and word. I’m talking about believing that the Lord changes the hearts of people, even rulers, to his glory when he desires. I’m talking about the Lord building his church, and the gates of hell not prevailing against her. I’m talking about believing God to be God as he has revealed himself in his word.

A Miraculous Feeding and a Pointer to Jesus

pastortravislv

In Luke 24, the risen Lord Jesus had a conversation with 2 disciples on a roadway. In that conversation, Jesus explained to the men how the whole of the Old Testament points toward him. Many Christians have said that it would have been so wonderful to have listened to that conversation. And I agree. I would love to have heard Jesus telling us how certain events in the Old Testament, even certain narratives, are actually hints about him and his glory.

I thought of this passage in my daily reading as I came across a short little story in the life of Elisha. In the early chapters of 2 Kings, we get to see how the Spirit of God is on Elisha just as the Spirit was on Elijah. And God repeatedly shows in chapter 4 his presence in the ministry of Elisha through the miraculous.

1 Kings 4:42-44 – 42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’ ” 44 So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

Here we have a miracle. There is a fairly large crowd, and an amount of food that is too small for them. There are loaves of bread, but not enough to satisfy the men. But Elisha orders the food to be passed out. And when it happens, there is enough for every man to eat and be satisfied. And there is some left over.

That miracle, in 2 Kings, shows that the Lord is with Elisha. It shows that the miraculous power of God is on him. And it is one of those hidden gems in the Old Testament where, once we have seen Jesus, we will realize that he is greater than all who went before him.

Of course we know that Jesus did a miracle like this one, but on a much grander scale. Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000 men, not counting women and children. He did so with only 5 loaves and 2 small fish. And in doing so, Jesus showed himself to be great. That miracle from Jesus showed that he has the Spirit of God, like Elijah and Elisha, but far more. Of course, it also shows that Jesus is the God who provides bread in the wilderness just like God provided the manna during the exodus.

Altogether, the beauty I see here is the reminder that the Bible is telling God’s story. The Bible is all about Jesus. Even the miracles of the prophets, even the ones we tend to forget, point us to the presence and power of God. These miracles remind us of the greater glory of Jesus.

A Brief Introduction to Hebrew Poetry

pastortravislv

The following comes from multiple sources including my Old Testament Survey seminary notes. Since we are working through some Psalms on Sunday nights, perhaps this will be interesting to others.

Scholars estimate that between one-third and one-half of the Bible is written in poetry; yet very few Christians seem to give much consideration to this style.

Recognizing Poetry

Poetic passages are often recognized by scholars because of two main components:

  • Figurative language – Poetic passages use more figures of speech, similes, and metaphors than do prose passages. While prose passages will use figures of speech, the complexity and frequency of figures of speech are greater in poetry.
  • Parallelism – Poetic passages are often written with short lines that play off of each other. These can occur in groups of 2, 3, or even 4 lines of poetic text. The point is that elements of one or more lines are balanced, repeated, or expanded in the following lines.

Types of Parallelism

In the 19th century, Robert Lowth listed three categories of Hebrew parallelism which have been used to help people think through Hebrew poetry. Though Lowth’s categories have been modified and at times rejected by scholars as far too simplistic, they offer a helpful starting point for modern Bible readers. Lowth’s categories include:

  • Synonymous parallelism – The parallel lines say essentially the same thing with different words. Be careful not to assume that the second line is an exact restatement. Often the second line will help to clarify the reader’s understanding of the first.

Example: Proverbs 9:7

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse,
and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

  • Antithetical parallelism – The second line of the pair teaches us with opposites from the first line. This is not to say that the first line is being contradicted, but that another angle of the truth is being examined. For example, if the first line of a parallel offers a blessing for right actions, the second line might offer a curse for evil actions.

Example: Proverbs 9:8

Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

  • Synthetic (or formal) parallelism – The second line does not repeat the first, but expands

on the thought of the first. This might include a line that completes the thought of another. It might repeat part of the first line while expanding with thoughts not in the first line. This category is a sort-of catch-all category in which lines are obviously intended to go together in a poetic way which are neither synonymous nor antithetical.

Example: Psalm 46:1

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.

Features of Poetry

Hebrew poetry can have a great variety of features that distinguish it. Only 1 follows:

  • Chiasm – Not a type of parallelism but more a technique, a chiasm parallels a previous line in a reverse (a, b, c, c, b, a) order. The name derives from the Greek letter chi, which looks like our letter X. Chiasms can occur with the points of two lines or the balancing of opposite lines in a larger section of Scripture.

Example: Isaiah 11:13b

Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah,
and Judah shall not harass Ephraim.

Why Notice Poetry?

  • Strong emotion – Writing in poetry indicates a level of emotion from the author that may not be present in prose. We should recognize this in order to take the passage of Scripture with the emotion intended by its author.
  • Figurative language – Because poetry often uses figurative language, we should be sure to recognize poetry in order to better interpret the meaning of the text.
  • Memorization – It is likely that texts were written in poetic couplet in order to aid in their being committed to memory.
  • Prevalence – Scholars estimate that between ½ and 1/3 of Scripture is written in poetry. Since so much of God’s word is in this style, we must take it seriously.
  • Beauty – Poetry enhances the beauty and emotional connection of the text.

See George L. Klein, “Poetry” in Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996).;

Some Notes on the Psalms

pastortravislv

Since we are working through some Psalms on Sunday nights over the summer, I thought it would be nice to share some basic notes on this sweet book of the Bible.

· The Book of Psalms served as text for worship in the Hebrew culture.

· While in our culture, worship songs tend to focus only on the positive elements of the Christian life, the Psalms focus on every possible level of emotion. From joy to rage, celebration to utter distress, the Psalms cover everything we may feel or go through.

From Dr. Daniel I. Block’s Old Testament notes on Psalms: But unlike much of contemporary worship (which is concerned primarily to get people to praise God), the Psalter is much more realistic and contains songs and poems reflecting every conceivable human emotion: grief and delight, anxiety and hope, doubt and trust, anger and joy. For this reason most believers find it the most precious book of the Old Testament, if not the entire Bible. We can identify with the psalmist when he is on the top of the mountain, but we also relate when he walks through the darkest valley.

· Psalms are independent poetic compositions, and should therefore not be referred to as chapters. You read Psalm 1 or Psalm 145, but you do not read Psalms, chapter 1 or Psalms, chapter 145.

· The Psalter, collection of Psalms, were divided by the Hebrews up into five major books:

o Book 1: Psalms 1-41

o Book 2: Psalms 42-72

o Book 3: Psalms 73-89

o Book 4: Psalms 90-106

o Book 5: Psalms 107-150

· While some psalms can be grouped together based on their subject matter, for the most part, the order and organization of the psalms is mysterious. We do not know why they are in the order they are.

· Many psalms have a title or other notation made in the original language. Sometimes that title gives information about the author, the purpose, the type, or the music to be used for a particular psalm. But we must be careful. Simply because a Psalm’s title tells us that it is “A Psalm of David” does not necessarily mean that David wrote it. “Of David” could mean that the psalm was written by David, for David, in memory of David, about David, or simply like the kind of thing David would have written. Thus, the titles may be helpful, but we ought not spend too much focus on them.

No dispensation for Disobedience

pastortravislv

“I know this is wrong, but…” “I know the Bible says, but in my case…” “I know that Scripture says not to, but I’ve been praying about it, and…”

WE love to look for ways to get around clear commands of God. In general, we are pro-Scripture. But what do we do when those verses call us to sacrifice? What do we do when those verses show us that the thing we want to do, the thing we desire, is wrong? How often do we look for a loophole? How often do we try to find a way to excuse what we want, in our circumstances?

I can think of a woman, a believer, who was in a marriage that had become frustrating. She was not abused. Her husband had not committed adultery. She just was not getting all she wanted out of the marriage. The wife let others around her know that, she had prayed about the situation, and God had given her a peace about divorcing her husband to marry another man she thought would satisfy her more. She claimed that the Lord had told her, in prayer, that his commands about marriage, divorce, and remarriage simply did not apply, and he was giving her special permission to do something else.

In many cases, we want such a dispensation for disobedience. We want to be able to go our own way and have God tell us, “Oh, it’s OK for you.”

This all came to mind in my reading through 1 Kings 13. There is a really odd little passage here about an unnamed prophet who went from the southern to the northern kingdom to prophesy against Jeroboam. God gave that prophet a clear command not to eat or drink within the borders of the northern kingdom. But then along came another man who said he had heard something different.

1 Kings 13:15-18 –

15 Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat bread.” 16 And he said, “I may not return with you, or go in with you, neither will I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place, 17 for it was said to me by the word of the Lord, ‘You shall neither eat bread nor drink water there, nor return by the way that you came.’ ” 18 And he said to him, “I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.’ ” But he lied to him.

The unnamed man of God knew he was not allowed to eat while on this mission. The other prophet flat lied. The unnamed man of God knew what his marching orders were. But he decided that he would rather have his restrictions lifted. So he chose to believe a lie.

What happened next? The unnamed man of God was killed by a lion as a result of his disobedience. And we all feel it was not fair. But we have to learn that God is showing us all that his actual commands are binding. His word is our command. And we do not get a special dispensation from him to disobey him when we find it convenient.

Thankfully, we live in the era of a closed canon of Scripture. That means that God is never, no not ever, going to speak to a Christian a command that contradicts anything that he has already commanded in his word. During the days of the unnamed man of God, new revelations were still forthcoming. It would have been tremendously hard to know if someone might have a new word from God. But, thanks be to God, we are not getting new words from God today. His perfect, completed, inspired words have already been written. Our job is to know, love, and obey those written words of Scripture, and not let anybody throw us off by claiming that God has given them permission to disobey the word.