2015-10-30
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week I was directed by the Holy Spirit to write about King Hoshea of Israel, King Hezekiah of Judah, and Emperor Sennacarib of Assyria, all of whom were contemporaries of each other. Things that led to the Assyrian Captivity of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and the Babylonian Captivity of Judah (from 602 and 586 BC) were bogus alliances made between these Israeli kingdoms and their enemies. Politics, even in our modern day, are often a series of ill-conceived alliances, power plays, and greed. These are the most common causes of a country’s loss of God’s blessings.
Where Israel, a kingdom divided against God’s will, is concerned, there was plenty of warning about the negative consequences of such alliances. There were warnings and denouncements that came from the OT prophets. God Himself made it clear that the worship of other gods than Himself is evil. This was particularly true of Baal worship, the religion of Assyria and other countries at the time Israel was divided. Baal and his evil wife, Ashera, taught the burning of babies (as sacrifices) on stakes near their altars, public demonstrations of sexual immorality in their temples, and a blood-thirsty lack of respect for human life. Idols in the form of animals were worshipped by Egyptians-Isis, Osiris, and Horus, for example. All of these practices were abhorrent to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob [RO 1: 18-25]. IS 10: 5-6, “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of My anger to whose hand is the club of My wrath! I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a nation that angers Me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.” This is God’s judgment against Assyria. In his allegory against an unfaithful Jerusalem, Ezekiel writes, in EZK 16: 28, “You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that you were not satisfied.” The prophet, Hosea, warns that the kingdom of Israel will reap the whirlwind, in HO 8: 9, “For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has sold herself to lovers.” Hunting and making war were Assyria’s favorite pursuits.
Can we relate to the guilt and shame David felt after the prophet, Nathan, reminded him of his plot to have Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, killed on the battlefield and adultery with her [2 SAM 11: 1-12: 14]? It led David to write one of the most powerful and poignant confessions found in the Scriptures in PS 51: 1-2, 10-12, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love; according to Your great compassion blot out my transgression. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin…Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take the Holy Spirit from me. Restore me to the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” As for the citizens of the northern kingdom, we have no way to know if they realized how evil their idolatry was until they were suffering it’s consequences—things like the 2700 of them being deported during the reign of Shalmaneser V to Assyria, never again to see their homeland.
Our God is a forgiving God; we know this because of His sending the Lord Jesus to the cross, so that we who believe in Him might have salvation [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25], justification [RO 4: 3], and eternal forgiveness [1 JN 1: 9]. Being forgiven for a sin may not be guaranteed, but God is just and adjudicates our sin with due consideration of the circumstances. Only one sin is unforgivable; that is the sin of serial rejection of Him, a sin against the Holy Spirit [LK 12: 10; MT 12: 31; MK 3: 29]. To best exemplify this, the Pharisees attributed Christ’s healing power to Satan rather than the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is a sweet thing and very much in God’s teaching. COL 3: 12-15, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another, as the Lord forgave you. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one Body you are called to peace. And be thankful.”
Satan is a wily being, and we’re not always aware of his plan to oppose God’s teaching in us until it’s too late [1 COR 2: 11]. We are taught in 1 COR 2: 7 to be forgiving, so as to not cause excessive sorrow in those who do wrong against us. More splits in families and/or friendships can be attributed to refusal to forgive wrongdoing and holding grudges than almost anything else. Grudge-holding is never constructive behavior. One example of how this works came up when a woman contacted a famous pastor who was making the first of two ship’s stops at a Greek island where she was living. She explained that everything she tried to do that was good didn’t work and expressed her utter frustration. The pastor asked her if she was holding ill will toward anyone in her close circle of influence. What an insightful question this was! He promised to speak to her again on the ship’s second stop and encouraged her to consider the answer to this question prayerfully in the three weeks that would intervene. She did this, and it occurred to her that she and her mother were not speaking due to a grudge she was holding. When the pastor returned and they spoke, she was smiling and told him she had forgiven her mother. All those former frustrations were gone from her!
PRAYER: O Lord, Your power to right wrongs in our lives when we openly confess them before You is nothing short of amazing! In the example above, we can know that the Holy Spirit reminded this woman that she was holding a grudge against her mother and gave her the honesty and courage to speak in a forgiving way with her mother. We stand before Your mighty throne humbled by Your use of Your power for good and Your unmatched wisdom. Your caring heart is revealed to us through the lessons we can learn from history, the way You present Your wisdom to us, and the courage You alone can give us to right wrongful behavior. We have seen that serial blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the only sin that can’t be forgiven. So many others can be. What justice and equality You provide! You have told us, in PS 37: 1-2, “Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.” We know that the process of sanctification is a two-way one that is an essential part of our covenant relationship with You. We promise to reveal, genuinely confess, and expunge our sins—even the subtle ones. In turn, You are forgiving and restore us to good standing with You. Though painful at times, this part of our covenant with You moves us forward in our spiritual maturity. Forgiveness restores relationships and is soul-healing. We thank You for caring so much; we praise You for Who You are and what You do. In Christ’s holy/mighty name we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: We’ve seen here how the era of God’s teaching doesn’t matter, since it is consistent and applicable in the past, present, and forevermore. That is why I can discuss the events of any time in history, and with regard to our covenant relationship with God, the principles apply. Next week, I will return to some verses in the OT teaching forgiveness and my readers will see this in action. The Holy Spirit instructs me to write about God’s forgiveness in the past and then, go on to our own personal covenant renewal in the present. We need to acknowledge our Lord Jesus with every fiber of our being. We can do this with such humble questions as found in MK 4: 41 asked by Christ’s disciples from a boat on a windy day. “[The disciples] were terrified and asked each other, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and waves obey Him!’” Of course this reference to Jesus helps us to recognize His connection to God and superior power. Moreover, we acknowledge His wisdom in teaching us to participate in the process of sanctification and to make the changes in our lives necessary to gradually be purified from our sinfulness. We can join with each other in this prayer from PS 19: 12-13. “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.” We can say this, fully knowing that our God is merciful. He is a God of second chances in most cases. We must be honest and open with God and with ourselves in this process. Also, we must not forget how loving our God is toward us. He has many names (in Hebrew), names which reveal to us His attributes and His deeds. There is nothing accidental about this. He wants us to know Him better, and the best way to do that is to pray often, listening for His input, and to spend time every day studying His word and meditating over the messages and lessons He has for us [PS 86: 5, 7, 11, 13, and 15; 2 TIM 3: 16-17]. Praise and thanks be to the Lord!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 14: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2015. All Rights Reserved.
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