The Offense of Fearing Man

 

Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.” (1 Samuel 15:24)

Why did Saul obey the people instead of God? Because he feared the people instead of God. He feared the human consequences of obedience more than he feared the divine consequences of disobedience. He feared the displeasure of the people more than the displeasure of God. And that is a great insult to God.

In fact, Isaiah says it is a kind of pride to be afraid of what man can do while we disregard the promises of God. He quotes God with this piercing question: “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker?” (Isaiah 51:12–13).

Fear of man may not feel like pride, but that’s what God says it is, “Who do you think you are to fear man and forget me your Maker!”

The point is this: If you fear man, you have begun to deny the holiness, the worth of God and his Son, Jesus. God is infinitely stronger than man. He is infinitely wiser and infinitely more full of reward and joy.

To turn from him out of fear of what man can do is to discount all that God promises to be for those who fear him. It is a great insult. And in such an insult God can take no pleasure.

On the other hand, when we hear God’s promises and trust him with courage, fearing the reproach brought upon God by our unbelief, then he is greatly honored. And in that he has much pleasure.

How to Plead for Unbelievers

 

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)

Paul prays that God would convert Israel. He prays for her salvation! He does not pray for ineffectual influences, but for effectual influences. And that is how we should pray too.

We should take the new covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and our neighbors and on all the mission fields of the world.

God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 11:19)
Circumcise their heart so that they love you! (Deuteronomy 30:6)
Father, put your Spirit within them and cause them to walk in your statutes. (Ezekiel 36:27)
Grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil. (2 Timothy 2:25–26)
Open their hearts so that they believe the gospel! (Acts 16:14)

When we believe in the sovereignty of God — in the right and power of God to elect and then bring hardened sinners to faith and salvation — then we will be able to pray with no inconsistency, and with the confidence of great biblical promises for the conversion of the lost.

Thus, God has pleasure in this kind of praying because it ascribes to him the right and honor to be the free and sovereign God that he is in election and salvation.

SENSE KNOWLEDGE —THE GREATEST ENEMY OF OUR FAITH!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY JUNE 18, 2021.

SUBJECT : SENSE KNOWLEDGE —THE GREATEST ENEMY OF OUR FAITH!

Memory verse: "Therefore they said to Him, 'What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will you do?" (John 6 vs 30.)

READ: John 20 vs 24 - 29: 

20:24: Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 

20:25: The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them,  “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

20:26: And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!”

20:27: Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your fingers here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

20:28: And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

20:29: Jesus said to him, 'Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet they believed."

INTIMATION:

One of the greatest dangers that we face as believers is sense knowledge faith. Until we see or feel we are not convinced. That is no faith: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11 vs 1). God demands that we accept His Word as it is, the very Word of God; and that we act upon it, independent of any feelings or any evidence that the eyes can see or the ears hear or hands can touch or mouth can taste or nose can smell. Most believers are engulfed in Thomas' kind of faith; "Unless I see and touch, I will not believe." That is sense knowledge faith (sense of sight and touch). The Jews then had faith in what they see and hear or feel. 

Up to now, that enemy continues to be bane of many Christians. For instance, someone comes to a pastor, sick and in great pain. When the pastor prays for him, using the Word in Isaiah 53 vs 4 - 5, the pain leaves him instantly,  he says, "Thank God I am healed." When he is asked, "How do you know you are healed?" And he replies, "The pain is gone." 

Can you understand that? He has no faith in the Word. It is meaningless to him. He only believed he is healed because the pain is gone, not that the Word said he is healed. Had he believed the Word, instead of going to the pastor, he would have looked up and said, "Father, you laid this disease on Jesus, and it is unseemly for me to bear it. I dishonor You in bearing it. So, in the name of Jesus, I command it to leave me, and I command Satan to take it with him. I have no use for it, I refuse to have it." In trusting the Word, and Jesus’ name, he gets his personal deliverance. He honors the Word, and the Name. He honors the Father and Jesus. He has learned to take his place in Christ.

The instance given above indicates that the person is healed either by the faith of the pastor, or better still by his faith in the pastor's faith. Such persons are like the one in James 5 vs 14 who calls for the elders to come and pray over him and anoint him with oil, and prayer of the elders heals him. The only faith he had was in the elders. This is typical of sense knowledge faith. He can see the elders, he can hear them pray, can feel their hands upon his head, and the anointing with the oil. 

Have your own faith in God. Believe the Word without reservations, speak out Your believe with full assurance, and in Jesus’ Name claim the promise in the Word, and you will have what you say!

Prayer: Abba Father, You mean what you say, and say what You mean. Your Word is forever settled in heaven. My complete confidence is in You and Your Word, and no lies from the pit of hell can take away my confidence in you, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

What Kind of Prayer Pleases God?

 

“This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)

The first mark of the upright heart is that it trembles at the word of the Lord.

Isaiah 66 deals with the problem of some who worship in a way that pleases God and some who worship in a way that doesn’t. Verse 3 describes the wicked who bring their sacrifices, “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man.” Their sacrifices are an abomination to God — on a par with murder. Why?

In verse 4 God explains, “When I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen.” Their sacrifices were abominations to God because the people were deaf to his voice. But what about those whose prayers God heard? God says in verse 2, “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

I conclude from this that the first mark of the upright, whose prayers are a delight to God, is that they tremble at God’s word. These are the people to whom the Lord will look.

So, the prayer of the upright that delights God comes from a heart that at first feels precarious in the presence of God. It trembles at the hearing of God’s word, because it feels so far from God’s ideal and so vulnerable to his judgment and so helpless and so sorry for its failings.

This is just what David said in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” The first thing that makes a prayer acceptable to God is the brokenness and humility of the one who prays. They tremble at his word.

THE DON’TS IN PRAYER!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY JUNE, 17, 2021.

SUBJECT : THE DON’TS IN PRAYER!

Memory verse: "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10 vs 23.)

READ: Mark 11 vs 23 - 25: 

11:23: For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

11:24: Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

11:25: And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.

INTIMATION: 

Here are some “Don'ts” in prayer:

1. Don't try to believe only, believe and act on the Word. It’s in acting that God confirms His word. “...For I am ready to perform My word,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 1 vs 12). Do your own believing. Have your own faith as you have your own clothes. Act on the Word for yourself.

2. Don't have a double confession so that one moment you confess, "Yes, He heard my prayer. I am healed," and thereafter you say "Let me wait for a week, if the signs didn't return, I will then confess I am healed." Or "I am sure God will supply my needs according to His riches in glory," and subsequently you begin to question how it is going to come and what you ought to do to get it; then you say, "I am not sure I the will get it." Your latter confession destroys the first. A wrong confession destroys prayer and destroys faith. 

3. Don't trust in other people's faith. Have your own faith. Your case is vital to you. It may not be vital to this other party to whose faith you look up to. He may have troubles that are unresolved, inward struggles that have never been settled. His faith may be at a low sub when you appeal to him or her for aid.

4. Don't talk doubt or unbelief. Never admit that you are a "Doubting Thomas;" that is an insult to your Father. For instance, He has born your griefs and carried your sorrows (your infirmities and diseases), and with His stripes you are healed (Isaiah 53 vs 5). Therefore, don’t talk of your sickness, but rather talk of your healing according to the word of God.

5. Don’t talk about failure. Meditate on the Word, and it's absolute integrity. Talk of your utter confidence in it; of your ability to act on it; and hold fast to your confession and of its truthfulness.

6. Don’t talk about fear. He has not given you the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind (Second Timothy 1 vs 7). Fear is the strongest weapon of the devil. Stand bold in your confession without wavering, no matter what you are confronted with.

7. Don’t engage in the altar of prayer with sin and iniquities in your heart. Confess your sins and He is faithful to forgive you. If you have anything against anyone forgive him or  her, so the your Father in heaven will likewise forgive you.

Prayer: Abba Father, You are the wonder working, and ever faithful God. Destroy any form of unbelief, fear, and doubt in me regarding Your Word, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

THE BACKGROUND OF TRUE FAITH!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY JUNE 16, 2021.

SUBJECT: THE BACKGROUND OF TRUE FAITH!

Memory verse: "That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." (First Corinthians 2 vs 5.)

READ: Second Corinthians 10 vs 3 -5:

10:3: For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 

10:4: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 

10:5: casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

INTIMATION:

True faith is not based upon reason nor upon things that men can see unless the thing they see is the Word of God. In accordance with our memory verse, our faith should not be based on wisdom (sense knowledge) of men but on God's ability. In the next two verses (6 & 7), Paul explained that fact further, saying,  "However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory."

We cast down reasonings (arguments or imaginations), for men have deified reasonings. The great reasoners of the world and the great philosophers of the world have gained the ascendancy over the human mind. And that is human’s greatest undoing in working with God and walking in His ways. Philosophy has never given anything of any value to the body of Christ—the Church. What we call our Christian philosophers are often men who denied the miraculous and the supernatural, always wanting to explain it away through sense knowledge activities and reasonings.

But unfortunately, the ways of God are beyond finding out; it’s beyond man’s reasoning ability; “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out!” (Romans 21 vs 33.) It’s foolishness to start reasoning on God’s ways—His thinking and planning. His knowledge and wisdom are far greater than any human’s. 

God declares in Isaiah 55 vs 8 - 9, saying, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Therefore, we are to cast down imaginations or reasonings, everything that sense knowledge has exalted against the Word of God, and we are to bring into captivity our thinking so we will think God's thoughts instead of man's thoughts. So we will be inspired by the Word of God rather than by the word of men. And only in so doing that our faith life is solidly built in accordance with God’s ordinance.

Faith deals with facts. The Word of God has no speculations, no theories, just declarations of fact. When we come to recognize that spiritual things are as real as physical things, then we will be able to understand the background of the faith life. 

Prayer: Abba Father, forever You are God, and Your ways are supreme! Your ways are inexplicable—beyond our reasonings. O Lord, my absolute trust and confidence are in You. May I never imagine or reason anything that will dent my faith in You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Serve God with Your Thirst

 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:9)

What if you discovered (like the Pharisees did) that you had devoted your whole life to trying to please God, but all the while had been doing things that in God’s sight were abominations (Luke 16:14–15)?

Someone may question this and say, “I don’t think that’s possible; God wouldn’t reject a person who has been trying to please him.” But do you see what this questioner has done? He has based his conviction about what would please God on his idea of what God is like. That is precisely why we must begin with the character of God revealed in Scripture.

God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing. It constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs to be filled with a pump or bucket. So, the great question is: How do you serve a spring? And: How do you serve a watering trough? How do you glorify God the way he really is?

If you want to glorify the worth of a watering trough, you work hard to keep it full and useful. But if you want to glorify the worth of a spring, you do it by getting down on your hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell the people what you’ve found.

My hope as a desperate sinner hangs on this biblical truth: that God is the kind of God who will be pleased with the one thing I have to offer: my thirst. That’s why the sovereign freedom and self-sufficiency of God are so precious to me: they are the foundation of my hope that God is delighted not by the resourcefulness of bucket brigades, but by the bending down of broken sinners to drink at the fountain of grace.

By all means we should seek to please God, now and forever. But woe to us if our whole life proves to be based on a false view of what pleases God. The Lord is pleased not by those who treat him as a needy watering trough, but as an inexhaustible, all-satisfying spring. As Psalm 147:11 says, “The Lord takes pleasure . . . in those who hope in his steadfast love.”

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:9)

What if you discovered (like the Pharisees did) that you had devoted your whole life to trying to please God, but all the while had been doing things that in God’s sight were abominations (Luke 16:14–15)?

Someone may question this and say, “I don’t think that’s possible; God wouldn’t reject a person who has been trying to please him.” But do you see what this questioner has done? He has based his conviction about what would please God on his idea of what God is like. That is precisely why we must begin with the character of God revealed in Scripture.

God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing. It constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs to be filled with a pump or bucket. So, the great question is: How do you serve a spring? And: How do you serve a watering trough? How do you glorify God the way he really is?

If you want to glorify the worth of a watering trough, you work hard to keep it full and useful. But if you want to glorify the worth of a spring, you do it by getting down on your hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell the people what you’ve found.

My hope as a desperate sinner hangs on this biblical truth: that God is the kind of God who will be pleased with the one thing I have to offer: my thirst. That’s why the sovereign freedom and self-sufficiency of God are so precious to me: they are the foundation of my hope that God is delighted not by the resourcefulness of bucket brigades, but by the bending down of broken sinners to drink at the fountain of grace.

By all means we should seek to please God, now and forever. But woe to us if our whole life proves to be based on a false view of what pleases God. The Lord is pleased not by those who treat him as a needy watering trough, but as an inexhaustible, all-satisfying spring. As Psalm 147:11 says, “The Lord takes pleasure . . . in those who hope in his steadfast love.”