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Archive for the ‘Obedience’ Category

What shall we call it, careless following?

Posted in Consequences, Implications, Obedience, Piety, tagged , , on January 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Even in the midst of victory through repentance and calling upon God written about in 1 Samuel 4, I see so much ignorance about God and His ways. it is not the obvious foolishness that lost the ark to the Philistines (1) or the evil neglect and conduct of Eli and his sons (2), nor even the “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25) syndrome of the era between Joshua and Samuel. This is somewhat more subtle. Why is the ark at Abinadab’s house for 20 years and Israel pining after God rather than erecting the tabernacle and having the Levites install it there? I s Abinadab a Levite?

In our freedom in Christ and nonchalant worship and careless piety and overconfidence in our knowledge of God and our arrogance in “speaking things into existence”, what blessing, victory, and influence are we missing? What 1 Samuel 8 (3) scenario are we failing to avoid in our self-assurance and lack of seeking God’s counsel and following what He has already prescribed and warned about in His Word? (4)

  1. 1 Samuel 5
  2. 1 Samuel 2:22ff
  3. “Give us a king to judge us.” 1 Samuel 8:6
  4. Example: How the ark should be carried: Numbers 1:50, 2 Samuel 6:6-8, 1 Chronicles 15:2

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“R” Theology

Posted in Doctrine, General, Obedience, Piety, Sanctification, theology, tagged , , , , on November 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

The elder preached from Nehemiah 8 last Sunday. Ezra read the book of the Law to all Israel. They and we need it regularly read and preached to us because we dismiss or diminish its authority and efficaciousness (1) in our lives. He further pointed out that this passage is very frequently used to promote and instruct on expositional preaching. To read, explain, and exhort with the Word is the pattern for expository preaching. The passage also speaks of God’s people’s 1) need of the Word, 2) requiring the leadership to read the Word, 3) requirement to obey the Word, 4) need to speak with a unified voice from preachers, teachers, to all church members and parents on the truth of the Word, 5) need to understand the Word, and 6) response to the Word.

It was on the sixth point that my mind started musing as he unpacked it. In good preacher language, he proceeded to alliterate the process of God returning His people to Himself in “r’s”. The “r’s” caught my attention for two reasons. Firstly, I have been ruminating on the very idea for quite some time. Secondly, he said one minor thing that I disagreed with based on that rumination, namely that rejoicing is the endpoint. To be fair, when I asked him about it afterwards, he agreed with me, saying that it was effectively an intermediate endpoint since he could not preach the whole of Nehemiah in one sermon. So, his sermon helped me to complete the following diagram which had a few holes beforehand.

A continuing reverence for God and His Word will not prevent the need for repentance but it will reduce the depth of repentance needed as you keep short accounts and avoid presumptuous, chronic, and devastating sins. Also, as regular disclaimer for my diagrams, this is not the only way God may draw you back to Himself. It may be in a different order with additional or less steps. These are merely major signposts of restoration (2). Without spoiling the diagram by over-explanation, I offer this one clarification. One, saved or unsaved, may recognize (3) the message of revelation to their heart but not repent. He/she may never or just delay repentance as he/she resists the work of the Holy Spirit. So with all of the steps, the time across the arrows may vary greatly. May God bless us as we seek to draw nearer to the burning center (4) of His presence.

  1. efficaciousness- successful in producing a desired or intended result; effectiveness- the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result; success
  2. That could have been the title!
  3. We call it conviction (of sin).
  4. Allusion to “The Burning Center” by John Piper

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Weapons of Righteousness

Posted in Discipline, Faith, General, God's Word, Metaphor, Obedience, Piety, Sanctification, Struggling, Sustaining, tagged , , , on April 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

In Sunday School we have been studying Romans chapter 6. Some weeks we don’t even get through one verse. We were looking at verse 13: “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” The word translated “instruments” is frequently translated “weapons”, so Paul is using a metaphor that has the parts of your body likened to weapons of warfare. One of the drills in military procedures, particularly since the inception of the firearm, is “Present arms!”. The soldier is displaying his weapon for inspection, drill, and show of allegiance. Also, there is a significant parallelism here, and I find it easier to see if I diagram it. My pastor pointed out that presentation of your members to God is not doing good deeds, which leads to a self-righteous moralism, as opposed to sinning. Rather, we present our members to God, which means sin is everything that is not God and counter to Him. This verse is very practical when it comes to growing in sanctification. This idea is why we must put on the armor of God described in Ephesians 6:10ff. We are at war with the world, the flesh, and the devil, but “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).

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Hear, Heed, Highlight

Posted in Blessing, Consequences, God Thoughts, God's Word, Obedience, Wisdom on March 7, 2022| Leave a Comment »

As I listened to the pastor preaching on the parable of the Lamp in Luke 8, my heart was stirred to further consider the truths of the passage. In the Gospels, Jesus is constantly urging His listeners to hear Him or else affirming the value of doing so. Following are two examples where He does the latter, revealing the relationship to God and blessing that comes from listening to His Word.

“But He answered and said to them, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.” Luke 8:21

“But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Luke 11:28

What does Jesus mean by hearing? Certainly He does not mean merely receiving vibrations of air into one’s ears or even registering their reception or even focus on the communication. Jesus warns against this type of hearing in the preceding parable in Luke 8. “His disciples began questioning Him as to what this parable meant. And He said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, ‘so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. [Isaiah 6:9]'”” (Luke 8:9-10) Jesus is defining ‘hearing’ as understanding and acting on what you understand. In the continuation of Isaiah call in chapter 6 of that book, God continues with what Jesus has quoted above (v.10):

“Render the hearts of this people insensitive,
Their ears dull, and their eyes dim,
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
Understand with their hearts,
And return and be healed.”

‘Return’ is an action of faith. Jesus makes a hard connection between hearing and heeding in the Word, His Word, God’s Word. You “hear…and do it” (Luke 8:21) and you “hear… and observe it.” (Luke 11:28) When you hear and heed, then you will highlight the goodness and power of God to change your life. You will be His “mother” and “brother” and “by this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) In John 15:7-9, Jesus calls this hearing, heeding “abid[ing”, which then results in highlighting the Father (glorified by this”) by “bear[ing] much fruit”.

Of course, this brings much blessing (Proverbs 4:4, John 14:21) to the one who truly hears, faithfully heeds, and graciously highlights the goodness of God.

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Partial Obedience

Posted in Connotations, Consequences, General, God Thoughts, Implications, Obedience, Problems, tagged , , on January 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Partial obedience precipitates lasting consequences.

Do you remember Saul’s debacle with Amalek (1)? In First Samuel 15:1-3 the Lord spoke to Saul through His prophet: “Then Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

He did not kill all the people of Amalek nor their livestock. It came back to haunt him and all Israel.

My pastor was teaching from I Samuel 30 and 31. Amalekites burned Ziklag and took David’s and his men’s possessions and women and children. David attempted to kill every Amalekite (2), for it says he fought from twilight until dusk of the next day. But 400 young men escaped on camels. Now there must have been at least some Amalek women and children at home and other men, too, but this band of young men could certainly repopulate Amalek in time.

Then comes I Samuel 31 and II Samuel 1. Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle by horrible means and their bodies hung from the walls of Beth-shan. When a messenger tells David what has happened, David has him cut down for killing God’s Anointed, Saul (3). The messenger, euthanizer was an Amalekite. So, Saul’s failure to fully obey God in the beginning came back to cause him problem in the end.

And the difficulty did not end there. One Amalekite, Haman the Agagite (4) set out to destroy all Jews in the time of Esther. His designs were foiled by Mordecai and Esther (Esther 9), but he came close to succeeding.

Partial obedience seems like full obedience to the half-hearted disciple. This word is hard. Sinner that I am, I have been there working my half-hearted obedience. And God says, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.” (I Samuel 15:22-23) Oh, God give me a whole heart like David’s, so that I may be as him, a man after God’s heart. (Acts 13:22)

  1. Amalek was the grandson of Esau, so Amalekites were Edomites. (I Chronicles 1:36)
  2. Amalek was stubborn in resistance to God and His people. God hardened their hearts and, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” Moses built an altar and named it The Lord is My Banner; and he said, “The Lord has sworn; the Lord will have war against Amalek from generation to generation.”” (Exodus 17:14-16) When Balaam prophesied the final time before Balak, he repeated the idea of Moses’ prophecy, “And he looked at Amalek and took up his discourse and said, “Amalek was the first of the nations, but his end shall be destruction.”” (Numbers 24:20)
  3. Neither the Philistines’ arrows nor Saul’s own sword, but the Amalekite at Saul’s request killed him.
  4. Agagites were descendants of Agag, king of Amalek, at the time of Samuel and Saul. Saul foolishly spared him but Samuel cut him down. (I Samuel 15:8,33)

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