February 19

EXODUS 2
Frequently in this world, the glory of God must shine through the inhumanity of man. Can you even imagine having to hide your newborn from the government officials lest they kill him? What irony that God performs here that he should let the inhumanity continue but provide a deliverer in such a way that that deliverer is raised up in Pharaoh’s household by Pharaoh’s daughter, such that the deliverer brings a downfall to firstborn of the Pharaoh’s own household.
It is also ironic that we frequently think that we are doing God a favor in aiding his process of deliverance. Observe Moses, raised in Pharaoh’s household, yet nursed by his biological mother. Surely he kept some kind of contact with her after being weaned. Surely, she told him stories about his brethren. Surely, he felt like God had raised him up to be a deliverer. So, he murders a man, as if this one death might begin a revolution to set his brothers free. Indeed it would take death to set them free, but man taking it into his own hands was not what God had in mind. Had Moses been successful in leading the rebellion, then for all eternity we would have honored Moses as the deliverer. He wasn’t the deliverer. The LORD was their deliverer. Yes, Moses was used of Him, but only God could do it as it was done. Only God could do it in such a way that it would be a type of how He would ultimately deliver the whole world. So, Moses spends 40 years being raised in Pharaoh’s household learning that he was somebody. With his act of murder He spends 40 years in the desert learning that he was nobody. As we will see in the upcoming weeks, he learns the next 40 years that God takes nobodies and performs mighty works through them so that He will receive all the glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

PSALM 50
“You thought I was altogether like you.” It is a principle about ourselves and all humans that we must grasp. You see, we all tend to create God in our own image. We feel that we must be able to understand Him. We insist that He views things as we do; He feels as we do; He must do things the way we do them; His sense of justice must be like ours. We instinctively think that His standard of righteousness must be just like ours. By that standard, o sure, I am a sinner, but His justice will be satisfied with a sacrifice. A bull or a goat is something we can quantify, as if God could be quantified. We used to have a joke in seminary that our final examine would be to define God and give three examples. Can God be quantified?
The purpose of the Old Testament Sacrifices was to teach of the awfulness of sin and look forward to the demand of God’s righteousness for forgiveness of sin as it was carried out on the cross. When I look at the cross, I see how much God hates sin. A simple sacrifice of a goat or bull does not express the awfulness unless I can identify with the animal as a sentient being who is being sacrificed for my sin. The cross also speaks of His great love, that He would give His only begotten Son to redeem those who had committed so great sin that He hated so much. He owns all the cattle. For us to give Him back something which we own is of no significance to Him. He wants us to learn from the horrible situation. He wants us to come to Him and be delivered from our horrible sin! I need to learn this every day, lest I begin to once again think that He is like me.
Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

JOB 19
“You can’t take it with you!” If Job’s hope were rooted in this world, then indeed God had stripped Job’s hope from him. He took his wealth. He took his children. He took his health. Then He took the support of Job’s wife and friends. Job has nothing left to trust in but God. If Job’s hope were rooted in this world, then I would say, “Indeed God had stripped Job’s hope from him.” Rightly so, for we should hope only in God. He might give us what we consider the good things of this world, but ultimately our hope should be singularly in Him. When Job says, “He has stripped me of my glory. . . My hope He has uprooted like a tree,” is that evil? God permitted it, and God is not the author of evil. Then there must be something good about it! I am not saying that the acts of losing his wealth, children, health, wife and friends are good acts in and of themselves! But I am saying that God uses those acts, which are the free will of His creatures, to produce a greater good, which when seen from a distance will prompt us to say, “I am glad God did that in me!”
But Job is not completely stripped of hope. And it is here that he pronounces that great hope that is the hope of all who truly trust in Jesus, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” The Living Bible states that last sentence as, “What a glorious hope!” Job knows that one day he will stand in the presence of God as a friend. Incredible! Job had nothing in this world. He had only the hope of one day standing in the presence of God as a friend.
We were created for that. Our sin has separated us from that. One day we will exit this world. When we exit, we will take nothing from this world. We will be stripped of our wealth, our children, our health, our spouse and our friends. There is only one hope that we will stand in the presence of God as a friend. We can only enter that friendship through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. If living in this life is living for His glory, then dying is gain. If living in this life is living for my glory, then dying is irreparable loss, perdition. Oh God, keep me from living for me! I can’t take it with me. Let me send it on ahead! Your glory is all that matters! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

MARK 1:21-45
Going to Grandpa Chaffin’s house was always a special treat. He lived a six hour drive from us. So it wasn’t a trip we could make every weekend or even every month. He was somewhat fond of traveling. When he and grandma went places, they always took slides. So some evening while visiting them, they would break out the slide projector and show us places where they had been. I loved seeing the pictures of the far off places they had been, Petrified National Forest, locations of a few World Fairs, Florida Everglades and so on. Grandpa loved to tease. One night after the slides, he announced that he had a pet broom that he had trained. He brought it out and sat down in the dark end of the room where the screen had been. Without touching the broom he made it rise up off of the floor into his hand and move around. He did this for a little bit while I sat mesmerized wondering how he did it. Finally, when the light hit it just right, I saw it. He had tied black thread to the broom and to his hands and feet etc. He was wearing dark clothes and was sitting in a dark end of the room. You couldn’t see the thread, unless the light hit it just right. It looked as though the broom was moving on its own. But all along, it was he pulling the broom around with dark threads.
We live in a sin darkened world. The result of the darkness of sin upon the creation is physical illness and evil behavior. Sometimes things happen for which there is no physical explanation. Sometimes there is illness without physical explanation. Sometimes there is a bondage to sinful behavior that cannot be explained by physical or mental reasons. It is as though the elements or people are being pulled by an unseen thread and made to act in other wise bizarre ways. The Scripture declares that there is an unseen spiritual world that affects the seen world. In that world there is a struggle between the forces of Satan and the human race. These demons occasionally pull strings in the lives of people causing them to act in certain ways.
Jesus met one of these people in a most curious place, the synagogue of Capernaum. It is interesting that often these unseen forces are afflicting people in religious institutions. This demon recognized who Jesus was, even when no one else did. The demon began to whine in fear of the Lord. The powers of darkness often recognize the glory of our Lord before we do. Jesus, with a word, made the demon hush and set the man free. He brought His glory to bear upon the man. When He did, the demon had to fly. The glory of this Servant sets people free. This chapter is full of the results of the glory of the Lord. It sets the captive of the unseen world free. It heals the ills of the physical world. He cuts the treads of sin that keep us in bondage. We are not brooms to be jerked by the threads of the unseen world. He sets us free and heals us.
Why then don’t we see more freedom and more healing? Healing and freedom will not reach their fullness until we come into the presence of His glory at His return. This sin-wrecked world must first be cleansed of sin’s corrupting presence; then, the final freedom and healing will come. In the meantime, for His purposes, He gives us glimpses of the ultimate healing and freedom that is coming. We call them miracles. In the meantime we need to focus on His glory lest we slip back under the control of sin’s controlling threads. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John

This is the remains of the 3rd Century AD synagogue in Capernaum. It was built on the foundation of the 1st century synagogue. It is the foundation of the synagogue in which Jesus cast out the demon.