Monthly Archives: March 2021

“WE ARE NOT LIKE THEM!”

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“WE ARE NOT LIKE THEM!”

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else for, at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, forbearance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed.” Romans 2:1-5.

So, who is Paul talking to now? Again, he highlighted people’s behaviour, not their clan or category. His words can apply to anyone in any religious group who acts like this.

The first group of people he indicted was the group who refused to acknowledge the true God. Instead, they created gods for themselves who would sanction their evil behaviour because their gods were just like them regardless of what they looked like. They were religious alright, but their “religion” was invented to suit them.

The second group was equally religious, but this lot, (obviously the Jews), claimed to worship God. The problem this time was not so much who they worshipped but what they thought and said about the idolaters. “We are not like them. We don’t worship idols. We worship the one true God.” They had had their experience of idolatry. It cost them their land, their temple and the indignity and suffering of exile in Babylon for almost two generations. They were fiercely loyal to their God, to a fault.

However, they were so contemptuous of non-Jews that they would have nothing to do with them. They regarded them in the same category as dogs simply because they were not Jews. Jesus came in for a great deal of criticism because He refused to bow to their arrogant attitudes. He interacted with anyone who had a need and anyone who came to Him.

“But, wait a minute,” said Paul. “You who are so contemptuous of idol-worshippers and sexually promiscuous people, what is your behaviour like behind closed doors?” They were quick to point fingers at others, but three fingers were pointing back at them. Even if they were not worshipping idols in public, they were guilty of a far worse form of idolatry – they worshipped themselves. They had set themselves up as the standard for right and wrong. They measured themselves against themselves and found themselves not guilty and everyone else guilty.

Once again, just like the idol worshippers whom they so despise, people who practise religion, that is, any belief system that attempts to reach the deity by self-effort, be it God or any god invented by human imagination, are equally guilty of failing to acknowledge God or give thanks to Him. Instead, they acknowledge themselves and set up their own system of so-called worship, using rules and ritual to reach their god.

Even believers in Jesus can be guilty of this form of idolatry. This was the issue Paul battled in his letter to the Galatians upon which Romans is based. The Judaisers were adding their bit to the good news about Jesus. His sacrificial death was not enough to save Gentiles, so they said. Gentiles needed to be circumcised to gain entry to Judaism first. Jesus plus! They thought they knew better than God.

“Jesus plus” is still being peddled today; Jesus plus the baptism of the Holy Spirit; Jesus plus tongues; Jesus plus baptism; Jesus plus good works; Jesus plus self-inflicted punishment; Jesus plus discipline, etc. None of these extras add to the efficacy of His death to rescue and redeem guilty sinners.

The problem with those who treat offenders with contempt and judge them by their standards is that their heart attitude is far more heinous in God’s eyes than the things they judge in others. It was pride that brought Lucifer down. Pride excludes people from grace. Pride blinds our eyes to the goodness of God, the very thing that should bring us to repentance.

Strangely enough, accusation and condemnation do not bring us to repentance. They only drive us into guilt or defensiveness. It is the kindness and mercy of God towards us that makes us change our mind about Him and draws us to Him. There is only wrath for us until we realise just how good God really is.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ROTTEN THROUGH AND THROUGH

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ROTTEN THROUGH AND THROUGH

“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve those who practise them.” Romans 1:28-32.

What am I reading, the Bible or the newspaper? Who is Paul writing about, the people then or now? Nothing has changed, has it? What a description of dehumanised people and a dehumanised society!

In my country, the decision was made by parliament to write into our constitution that we are a secular country. God is no longer welcome or acknowledged. The results are obvious; many wicked practices have been written into our law books as legal; abortion and homosexual marriages, for example; human rights now tip in favour of the criminal and the lawless ones; parents are losing their right to discipline their children and there is now a move to disallow parents the right to have a say in their children’s education.

Lawbreakers, thieves, fraudsters and corrupt public servants simply disappear from one portfolio and turn up somewhere else, as arrogant as ever. Convicted criminals who happen to be public figures are let out of jail on trumped up health issues.  They quietly move back into society as though nothing happened.

The prophet Habakkuk had the same complaint about society in his day. He took his problem to God: “Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” Habakkuk 1:4.

Although God seems silent and inactive; He is actually righteous and just by simply allowing the wicked to go their own way. Their judgment is written into their choices and actions. God does not have to do anything because they have done it to themselves. They have become incapable of living decent human lives. Their minds have become so depraved and perverted that they call right “wrong” and wrong “right” and applaud those who do what they do.

There is no place in God’s presence for those who think and behave contrary to the nature of God. They are rotten and putrefying in their sin and the only place that will accommodate them in the end will be the rubbish dump. They enjoy their wickedness now, but they have no idea what it will be like to live forever in complete darkness, physical and moral darkness so dark that they cannot even see a finger in front of their faces and can only think evil thoughts always.

Hebrew people described hell as a boundary less place. Boundaries are never intended to be restrictive, but protective. When people deliberately overshoot the boundaries, they have to face the dangers that lie on the other side. To deny them does not make them any less real. God had clearly stated His boundaries and when they are ignored, the consequences come into play.

Why did Paul paint such a gloomy picture of his society and ours? For two reasons: firstly, because it was accurate and secondly, because it formed the backdrop to God’s amazing answer, His grace revealed through His righteousness. However, first of all, Paul had to show his readers that the whole world is guilty before God. There is not one sector of society or of the world that escapes God’s judgment. Before Paul can give them God’s answer, he has to ensure that they understand their plight.

No amount of religious fervour or rule-keeping can change the heart of a human being. Of what use is it to eat or not to eat certain foods since food only influences our bodies? What can the “holy” water do to cleanse a polluted conscience? It only touches the skin but leaves the soul unchanged. How can doing good alter our debit balance in God’s books? Even good works are done by people rotten with selfishness.

Paul is building up to a solution so breath-taking that only God could have thought it up!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DEHUMANISED

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DEHUMANISED

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Romans 1:26-27.

What a sordid picture! What people call love, God calls lust. What’s the difference?

Although lust can have the neutral meaning of desire, in the New Testament, according to its context it is most often used to mean a craving or “strong inordinate desire for sexual relations.” (www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/lust/).

However, lust does not only refer to the action. It begins in the mind with the desire. According to Jesus, “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality…All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” Mark 7:21.

James expanded on Jesus’ words. “…Each person is tempted when he is dragged away by his own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:14, 15.

The problem with sinful behaviour, and especially that which destroys another person, is that it dehumanises the ones who engage in it. Human beings were created to be like God, to have His nature and His capacity to be in perfect harmony with Himself and with one another. Anything that detracts from harmony robs those involved of their likeness to God and their true humanity. This is what the Bible calls “corruption” – moral perversion or depravity; putrefaction and decay.

Roman society in Paul’s day was rotten with sexual promiscuity and homosexuality. We should not be surprised because it was also full of idolatry. As Paul traversed the Roman Empire with the good news of Jesus, he encountered idol worship and the effects of it everywhere. Just as he said in his letter, when people refuse to acknowledge God, they have to invent gods for themselves who are to their liking because their gods accommodate human wickedness. Then their devotees can freely pursue their lusts with their gods’ approval because the gods are just like them.

Every false religion is a form of idolatry because human beings have expelled God from their thinking and set themselves up as the authority, creating gods in their own image. They become their own gods and then replicate themselves in their gods.

Sex is a powerful force in nature and in human beings. In the natural world, creatures need to reproduce to continue the species. They will fight to the death for the right to procreate. However, God created humans to reflect Him as the highest order of creation. Contrary to the evolutionist teaching, (which is just another attempt to oust God from His place as God and His right to rule His creation), humans have not evolved from animals. Human behaviour is sometimes so gross that even animal behaviour puts humans to shame. At least most of the animals use sex to do what they are supposed to do, to reproduce the next generation.

Humans, on the other hand, instead of using sex to express and foster unity between a husband and wife in a faithful monogamous union as God intended, as well as to give God godly offspring (Malachi 2:15), deliberately fracture themselves by using sex to satisfy lust in defiance of God’s purpose. When people connect sexually with a multiplicity of men and women, both homosexually and heterosexually with no regard to the spiritual union they create, they unwittingly fragment themselves.

“Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? “The two shall become one flesh.” …Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against his own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:16, 18.

Is it any wonder that such people become desperately unhappy because they have left bits of themselves all over and don’t even know who they are?

And all that because they refuse to acknowledge God and honour Him as God. Sadly, in the name of freedom, the only freedom they have is to destroy themselves, and God allows them to do it because it’s their choice.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THEY EXCHANGED THE TRUTH FOR WHAT?

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THEY EXCHANGED THE TRUTH FOR WHAT?

“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served the created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:22-25.

What is the next downward step after ingratitude? Idolatry!

What is idolatry? In its most glaring form, it is the worship of man-made gods. Man in hisSINFUL  simplicity or ignorance gives created things (or even dead people) the credit for having the power to affect their lives. The problem with this kind of idolatry is that human beings cannot conceive of a god who is any different from themselves. So, the gods they create are cruel, unpredictable and downright wicked and are motivated by evil spirits who must be persuaded not to harm their worshippers. Imagine that!

But there is a far more subtle form of idolatry that is rife in the world. We may look down on people who are foolish enough to put their faith in inanimate creatures (anyone in his right mind knows that a block of wood or stone has not power to intervene in a person’s life, even if that object has the shape of a creature), but behind the worship of that idol is the determination to do whatever they want. So, who is the real god? They are!

Have you noticed how sexual promiscuity or perversion is associated with idol worship? It was very much so in Paul’s day. Many of the so-called gods were conceived in lust and were worshipped in sexual orgies, temple prostitution and even worse, publicly having intercourse with animals. Take the “red light” district of Caesarea Philippi in northern Israel where the goat-god Pan was worshipped in orgies involving goats.

Why is there such a focus on illicit sex as a form of worship? Paul gives us the answer. God! God created man in His own image. Marriage was the first human institution after creation. Why? Because the permanent union between a man and a woman in a loving relationship is the best reflection of God’s nature. God is three-in-one, three Persons in a union of love and oneness in their nature and purpose.

God made Adam male and fashioned the female from a part of his body. He separated the woman from Adam and then brought her back to him to be united with him in a sexual union that mirrored the oneness they were to express in their lives together; one man and one woman for life. They were to satisfy each other’s needs through their mutual submission and the intimacy of their lives together. Paul said that this was God’s way of showing the world what Christ’s union with His church should look like.

Where do we see, in the sexual “freedom” that is destroying the world, the picture of God’s nature that marriage was intended to reflect? Satan, in his desire to get the attention and to be worshipped, has distorted one of God’s most beautiful gifts to man and, in the process, brought destruction and chaos into the life of every person who lives that way.

But why did this happen? Paul said it was an exchange. We can’t have God’s way and our way. So, because people want their way, they threw God out and replaced Him with themselves, creating gods like themselves, so that they could do what they wanted in the name of religion. Religion is a cover-up for whatever people want to do.

Some people thirst for power, so they subscribe to a religion which gives them the power to force others, even family members, to do it their way or face persecution or death. Others have perverted sexual appetites which they satisfy in the name of “worship”, but behind it all, is God who, by giving them what they lust for, is actually bringing judgment on them.

Have you ever thought about this? God is so just that He allows people to do exactly what they want, and in the doing, they bring the consequences of their actions down on themselves. Now that’s fair, isn’t it? God has not written His warnings in small print. He always tells the whole truth. Satan is the one who hides the consequences of his hideous suggestions until it’s too late to go back. Then he packs on the guilt and shame!

So why do people make the exchange? Jesus told us why? “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19, 20.

What better way to hide evil behaviour? In their religion!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

IT BEGINS WITH INGRATITUDE

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IT BEGINS WITH INGRATITUDE

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:18-21.

Well, at least Paul was not afraid to call a spade a spade!

If he wrote this letter to explain to the Roman believers the righteousness of God in providing salvation, why did he start by painting such a bleak picture of human behaviour? Who is he talking about?

Paul spent half of chapter one, the whole of chapter two and half of chapter three taking pains to show his readers that everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is guilty before God. There is not a single righteous person who can escape God’s wrath against sin because of their good behaviour.

What did Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit have to say?

First of all, there is a whole group of people who ignore or deny the clear evidence of a Creator, which is written on every leaf and blade of grass and on every star in the sky. They choose to live as though He does not exist; they never give Him the time of the day let alone acknowledge His goodness by thanking Him for the very breath they breathe.

The road to ruin begins with ingratitude. Anyone who fails to acknowledge God by being ungrateful for what they are and have is in danger of taking the road to perverted values and a perverse lifestyle. Ingratitude makes God angry. Ungrateful people are self-centred and discontented. Ingratitude kept the children of Israel who were delivered from slavery in Egypt, out of the Promised Land.

Ingratitude is the first step towards muddle-headed thinking and mental “darkness”. What is darkness? Darkness is the absence of light, and in this case, the light of understanding. When people throw God out of their lives by refusing to acknowledge Him or His goodness, they lose their ability to think straight.

The light of understanding has only one source – God. David knew that, and he wrote about it in the Psalms.

“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” Psalm 36:9

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” Psalm 119:105

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Psalm 119:130.

God is the source of light, truth and understanding. Without Him, we are left to make sense of our lives on our own and, unfortunately for us, we cannot make sense of anything because we have thrown out the “glue” that holds it all together. All we can do is think up nonsense which has not connection with reality. How pathetic we are to think that if we believe what we made up, that makes it true!

There is a terrible downward path to destruction for people who choose to disregard God and go their own way. Unfortunately for them, they do not know that it is not God who chooses their end; they do because their empty and futile lives are only fit for one thing — the rubbish dump. God did not plan their lives to be useless and worthless, and it makes Him angry to see wasted potential when He had so many good things in store for them.

The problem with denying God’s existence is that we have to replace Him with someone or something because we all feel incomplete in ourselves. We all need someone bigger than ourselves on which to depend. When God is no longer there, and we have muddled brains, who or what are we going to put in His place?

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.