Tag Archives: wake up

Payback Time Is Coming

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PAYBACK TME IS COMING

Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying, ‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion? How long must this go on?’ Will not your creditors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their prey. Because you have plundered many nations, the people who are left will plunder you. For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. (Hab. 2: 6-8).

Who says that God is indifferent to what goes on in the world?

I wish that the greedy politicians and civil servants, yes, even the criminals who prey on the public in my country would read this pronouncement! Would they be so quick to plunder the national coffers and then charge exorbitant amounts for passports and licences, and every other government service that the citizens have no option but to pay for, to recoup what they have stolen and will steal again? Would the lawless ones be so quick to prey on the householder and the man in the street  and take not only his goods, but often also his life if they knew what was coming to them?

Habakkuk was reassured that God was not sitting on His hands, as he thought. There is a day of reckoning coming – perhaps not always in this life, although the consequences of sin will eventually catch up on the perpetrators – but as certain as night follows day. People may think that, because they get away with their wickedness for a while, the day of reckoning is not coming. God always takes the long look. Death is not the end as some believe or hope but the doorway into the final phase, the destiny of every human being in a place for which they have prepared in this life.

David realised this when he wrote:

But to the wicked person God says . . . ‘When you see a thief, you join with him . . . When you did these things and I kept silent. You thought I was exactly like you. But now I arraign you and set my accusations before you.’ (Psa. 50: 16a; 18; 21).

I cannot help but think of what the Nazis did to the Jews in Europe during WW2. What was the motivation for the slaughter of six million Jews in the death camps in Poland and Germany? Was it pure hatred for the people of God or was it something more sinister than that?

One wonders whether it was not pure greed – many of the Jews were wealthy people. Think of the plunder the Nazis took from the hapless people who were stripped of clothing and jewellery and sent to the gas chambers naked. Who benefitted from the wealth that was stolen? How can it be that this terrible blight on the human race is even being expunged from the history books and from the memory and denied that it even happened?

God’s answer to these things is “Woe!” He has not forgotten. When Paul wrote to the Romans, he assured them that it was not their place to take revenge on wrongdoers because vengeance belongs to God and He will repay.

Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. (Rom 12: 19).

Perhaps one of the scariest things in the Bible is the perfect justice of God. He gave mankind the freedom to choose, and the warning that what he chooses will define who he is and where he is going. He gives us the option to choose to obey Him and to enjoy the benefits of relationship with Him or to go our own way and take the consequences. More than that, He even confirms the choices we make.

Think of Pharaoh, for example. He chose to reject God’s instruction to let His people go. Five times Pharaoh hardened his heart in spite of the ever-increasing intensity of the plagues that hit his people. Then five times God hardened his heart. Is that not fair or what! God gave him exactly what he chose – and the consequences were horrific.

No one will escape the end result of his choices. Just imagine – a person who is greedy and steals what belongs to others will forever burn with unfulfilled passion for greed and dishonesty. An adulterer, a sexually promiscuous person, a homosexual will forever burn with unfulfilled sexual passion. A murderer will burn with a passion to kill. They will become what they chose to be.

That is the awesome perfection of God’s justice. He does not have to do anything but allow every person to be forever what he chose to be in this life.

They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness (2 Thess. 2: 10b-11).

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

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How You Live Does Matter

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HOW YOU LIVE DOES MATTER

“And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light.

“Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissention and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” Romans 13:11-14.

Swimming against the current is hard work. Have you ever watched the salmon navigating fast-flowing streams to reach their spawning ground? The life of a believer in Jesus is a bit like that!

Paul’s well-thought-out and thorough explanation of the gospel inevitably leads to an appeal for a response from his readers. Why did God do all this for us? He had a far greater purpose than simply rescuing us from hell and taking us to heaven. If that were all He were interested in, He would have taken us out of here the moment we put our faith in the Saviour.

He does not disqualify those who make a last-minute decision. The thief on the cross who recognised who Jesus was and submitted to Him in his dying moments, assures us that God is merciful to repentant sinners even at the eleventh hour. But He has a far greater plan than that.

For us to experience in fullest measure the salvation of God, we must dig deeper than mere forgiveness, as crucial as that is. God’s forgiveness opens the door to His rich treasury of benefits the cross of Jesus provides for us. Not the least is access to our inheritance.

Every child receives an inheritance from his father – even though he or she may never have known him or enjoyed a relationship with him. We inherit our father’s nature and disposition towards evil and we possess our inheritance by confirming that nature in our choices and behaviour.

In the same way, when we are born of God, every son or daughter receives an inheritance from our heavenly Father. “But how,” you ask, “do we know what our inheritance is and how do we possess it?” We find clues here and there in the New Testament, summed up in Peter’s second letter.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” 2 Peter 1;3, 4.

Through believing and appropriating God’s promises, we learn to overcome the old sinful disposition inherited from our fathers, and increasingly grow towards the disposition of our elder brother, Jesus. How does this happen?

God orchestrates and permits uncomfortable or difficult circumstances in our lives in order to test us and to expose the corruption in us so that we can lay hold of His promises, not for material things but for transformation into the image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29). Why does He do this?

Since God is perfect, He has no sin and therefore He cannot die because sin leads to death. He has promised us eternal life but, in order to receive that promise, we must learn to overcome sin and become partakers of His divine nature. What we do in this life matters because it is the preparation for eternal life which is the result of holiness.

“When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become the slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:20-23.

So Paul urges: “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now, much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12, 13, which is eternal life.

Acknowledgement

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