June 20

DEUTERONOMY 25
It was unfair, unjust. I had just received my first six week report card for the second reporting period of the semester. I had an “F”. I had moved to the school system at the beginning of the second reporting period. I was certain that the 7th grade library science teacher had told me that I was not liable for the first six weeks material. Apparently I heard her wrong. While I had done “A” work for the second reporting period, any seventh grade math student knows that 100% averaged with 0% equals 50%. But it wasn’t fair. How could I be held responsible for class work assigned when I was not enrolled, and what is more; I was certain that she told me I did not have to make up the first six weeks class work. It wasn’t beyond my ability. Most of the work was just busy work. It was the first time that I ever challenged a teacher with such emotion. I am fortunate that I was not sent to the office. My volume level was way too high for the proper manner to address one in authority. Fortunately, for me I brought myself under control before I used the words that had come to mind to describe her to her face. But she had mercy and a little grace. She told me that I could still complete the work, and if I handed it in by Monday, she would not penalize me for being late. I had gone a full six weeks without handing in any of the first six weeks assignments. Nor had she ever given me the handouts that were required in order to finish the assignments. You would think she would have said something before this point. It was unfair, unjust. But she was the one in authority, and I could do nothing about it. I did the work during the weekend, handed it in on Monday, and eventually received an “A” on the semester report. (I had some tough explaining to do to my parents, especially since the teacher was an acquaintance of my mother in the Business and Professional Women’s club.)
There is something in everyone that cries out for justice. Perhaps it is part of what Solomon was talking about when he said that God had set “eternity in their hearts.” That life is not fair is the theme of many works of literature and many movies. One of my favorite movies is Labyrinth. A recurring line of the heroine is, “It’s not fair!” In today’s passage we have a number of situations where God is teaching that His people should be just in all their dealings. The court system was provided so that justice would prevail. The ox was not to be muzzled while it ground the grain; the laborer is worthy of his wage. Weights and measurements were to be perfect and just. Even Amalek who unjustly attacked the nation of Israel was to be dealt with severely in justice. Our God is indeed a just God and demands that we live our affairs in a just manner.
But wait; He is also merciful. If divine justice were immediately carried out in each of us, we would all be immediately slain. Look at a couple of items of mercy within this passage that temper the justice of God. When a man is guilty of a crime so that in the execution of justice he is truly worthy of being beaten, he was not to be beaten in such a way that his value as a human is diminished in the eyes of others. (Now there is a difficult balancing act.)
But right in the middle of this talk of justice is instruction that is hard to handle for the western mind. It is the law of levirate marriage. What does this have to do with justice and mercy. This is one of those Scriptural pictures of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. In their culture, the land (and hence, the ability to succeed economically) traveled through the male’s side of the family. If a woman married and had no sons, and her husband died, there would be no heir to the land and there would be no one to care for the woman economically. The unmarried brother, Kinsman Redeemer, needed to marry the dead brother’s wife for the continuance of the family name and for the economic security of the woman. The requirement for the Kinsman Redeemer was to be the closest relative and to have the ability to provide and the desire to provide. Jesus is our Kinsman Redeemer. Justice demanded that in Adam we all died. As God, He became man. As man, He is our closest relative. As God and man, he had the ability to pay the penalty of our sin for only as a man could He die; only as God could He be pure and able to pay the penalty of our sin. Finally, He had the desire to pay the penalty. What a picture of mercy! His justice demands our death. His mercy pays the penalty Himself. Is it fair? What glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

PROVERBS 20
Many times I have declared something to the effect of, “This is where God is leading me,” only to find that while the first step was where He was leading me, subsequent steps force me elsewhere. Am I so dense that I do not properly hear the voice of my Lord? It could be. It could be that I am so disobedient that I am not in tune with His voice. Then again the proverb says, “A man’s steps are of the LORD; How then can a man understand his own way?” It is that old “sovereignty of God/free will of man” debate. How can man truly have free will if God is truly sovereign? How can God be truly sovereign if man has free will? I think I have heard or read most of the arguments on both sides. It is not an argument that is unique to Christianity. It is an argument that exists in all religions. I have never been completely satisfied with any answers that I have read or heard. I simply have come to live with the tension that both are true.
I genuinely believe that I am free to decide. Yes, I understand that when I first chose to sin (whether in Adam or in my early childhood), I became enslaved to sin. To some degree, I lost the ability to choose, but never the less I chose Christ. Somehow Christ lets me do that. Yet somehow, He chose me first. Theologians have always struggled with how to explain it. Wesley talked of prevenient grace. Jonathan Edwards, of course, was embroiled in a debate over the issue that cost him a great deal. Both of these were men with intellect far greater than mine. If they cannot explain it, why should I think that I can explain it any better than they? I am not highly motivated to try to understand it. I simply declare, “God is sovereign, and I must choose. I can live with both.” Some of you may think that is a cop out. Maybe it is, but I don't care.
He sometimes directs me in one direction by using things or saying things that I do not fully grasp. Often He seems to me to just be silent. That is part of the adventure. It is part of the challenge. If I want to partake, then I must stay at His side. I must stay focused on Him. Usually He unfolds a little bit more of His glory as I wait on Him to reveal a little more of Himself. He does it in small increments so that I will stay at His side. I get into trouble when I get too far away or quit looking. My steps are of the Lord. I really don’t know for sure where I will be tomorrow, or in a year. That is part of the adventure of experiencing His glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

JEREMIAH 15
Man it was a nasty job! I was being initiated into a camping service organization. Since it was a service organization, part of the initiation of the was doing acts of service. A fellow initiate and I had been assigned to clean out the grease trap for the camp kitchen. The grease trap was where the solids of the kitchen sinks fell out before the water flowed to the septic system. In the words of Ludo, “Smells bad!” Yet we were called to cheerfully and silently clean out the trap. I have no desire to ever perform that job again!
Next to Jesus, Jeremiah had one of the lousiest jobs ever assigned to a man. He was called to call the nation to repentance. It was a nation that had not truly repented of the sin into which Manasseh had led the nation a full generation before Jeremiah. What was their sin? Listen to 2 Kings 21:2-9:

2 And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel. 3 For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; he raised up altars for Baal, and made a wooden image, as Ahab king of Israel had done; and he worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. 4He also built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My name.” 5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. 6 Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger. 7 He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the LORD had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever; 8 and I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers—only if they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.” 9 But they paid no attention, and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel.

They were old sins, entrenched by a generation of corporate practice, even religious practice. God called Jeremiah to rebuke the nation for their sin, and He called him to do it without interceding for them. The stench of the sin was worse than the stench of an opened grease trap or an open septic tank. But in the words of Sir Didymus, “I smell nothing! The air is fresh and fragrant!” The people did not smell the stench. It was a sweet perfume to them! They were deeply offended that Jeremiah should even consider that their behavior was sinful. But God had appointed them to death, sword, famine and captivity. What a lovely message! What a nasty job Jeremiah had! He was appointed to point out their sin and warn them of their impending death.
Jeremiah wasn’t very pleased with the job. He expressed woe concerning his mother because of it. Finally, he expressed to the Lord,” Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream, as waters that fail?” The Lord answers. He summarizes it by saying, “20bFor I am with you to save you and deliver you,” says the LORD. 21 “I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the grip of the terrible.” If Jeremiah were with us today, he would still say that it was a stinky job, but I know that he would also proclaim, “In the midst of the stench, I experienced the fragrant saving presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. If He asked me, I would do it again because His saving presence is so wonderful. He was a reliable stream that washed away the stench of my nation.” That is the Glory of my Jesus, He gives me the fragrance of His saving presence in the midst of a job that is a stench in our nostrils. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

ACTS 5:1-16
The glory of Jesus in the Jerusalem church was reaching a crescendo. Satan hates that. He is always looking for a place in the church to destroy the glory of Christ. He found it in Ananias & Sapphira. A&S were not focused on the glory of Christ but on what others thought of them--upon their own glory. They saw the esteem with which others held Joses called Barnabas. They wanted that same esteem from others.
They compulsively hung on to their glory rather than the glory of Christ. Jesus had already made it clear that those who wish to follow Him must give up all--especially their own glory. God will not share His glory with another. When the people of God are consumed with the glory of Christ, then His blessing is upon the church in power. When the people of God are consumed with their own glory, death is down the road.
Indeed our King is a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John