Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: evil

  • Reflections: Knowledge vs. Life

    Reflections: Knowledge vs. Life

    Man – adam, and woman made from man to be one with man and with God – Eve: now have knowledge of good and evil.

    NO more Paradise on earth – NO more Eden; no more garden of pleasure hedged in by the boundaries of righteousness. We must judge good and evil for ourselves (rather than simply obey God’s command).

    James 1:23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

    Man is no longer the perfect, sinless mirror image of the Living God. Sin has clouded our vision and our judgement.

    Yet the Lord is still near to those who will seek Him. Remember, the Lord God is a loving Father of all mankind; Creator of all that is good, corrector of all that is evil in the rebellious child.

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    Genesis 4: 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

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    The relationship has changed because of evil. Man is no longer naked in paradise, but revealed in our sinfulness to our Father of righteousness. And the loving Father advises those who would hear. Yes, obedience to God remains our option of doing what is good in the eyes of the Lord.

    Yet we fail. As in Adam, so also in Cain and in the deceitful hearts, sinful flesh and rebellious spirit of every Adam… the misled heart of every Eve.

    Our willingly broken relationship with God leads us further and further from Eden.

    Genesis 6: 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” …

    5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. …

    Do your intentions and choices of your heart ever grieve the heart of your heavenly Father?

    Genesis 6: 12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

    What is God’s judgement of the wickedness of these last days?

    Will God much longer endure sinful men without love and sinful women with callous hearts toward the love and righteousness of Christ Jesus?

    God continued in faithfulness to those faithful in love and worship of the Father of all that is good. The LORD gave man a new hedge of protection in the Law – the Law of Moses, as it is called – The Ten Commandments.

    Deuteronomy 4:  “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live…”

    6 Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ …

    11 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone…

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    The LORD no longer walks beside Moses or the leaders of God’s people. The LORD appears to the Hebrew people as an awesome and fearful sight! The LORD speaks from the darkness of what they cannot see and commands obedience.

    The people confirm their faith; they make their solemn promise – a covenant not unlike the covenant of marriage – with the Lord their God.

    Yet do they obey?

    Is it so hard for us to NOT commit adultery?

    Is it so difficult for us to follow even TEN clear Commandments of the LORD God?

    To be continued…

  • Redeeming the time because the days are evil

    Redeeming the time because the days are evil

    Ephesians 5

    15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

    17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

    Turn off the noise and media and message of the world (for a moment). Forget about the weather, a few people with threatening disease, the lottery, your sports team and all the commercials that tell you how sick you are (but they will sell you a cure), how we have something to make you feel younger, healthier, sexier, richer and more important…

    Forget (for a moment) all of the song lyrics and TV imagery of appeal to your lustful flesh for the purchase of the world as they would like you to see it.

    Forget (for a moment) that you have to get up, go to work, make money, buy groceries, get gasoline and find some way to pay for other essentials.

    Forget (for a moment) that you haven’t quite figured out why your loved ones act toward you and others and toward God on a daily basis differently than what you have taught and in some most un-Christlike and hurtful ways.

    Do not worry about these things (for a moment) and consider this story of Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer:

    Mark 10:17 Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”

    Consider the man’s request. The man ran up to Jesus, knelt before Him as an act of humility and respect. (Some of us should learn from his example of respect to Jesus, the man we claim as our teacher).

    The man asks a question to which we all want to know the answer (if we truly believe in the resurrection).  Our thoughts may proceed quickly something like this:

    You either die and that is all there is – your body and soul (if you have one) will perish. OR At the end of our bodily life, some other life for our soul remains.

    I do NOT want my soul to die. I may want this life to end. I may want to make this life better. But then what?

    And to Jesus, as the rich young ruler might think: You teach that I have a choice; at least, that is, until my God-appointed day do die, as all men will. And then what?

    Is there a way I can buy or earn this eternal life now?

    Admit it. You want something better, don’t you; and we all would like that ‘better life’ to last forever.

    Are the eternal hopes of the rich young ruler any different from your own?

     to be continued…

     

  • A Temporary Throne – 22

    A Temporary Throne – 22

     And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. – Genesis 6:5 KJV

    CHAPTER 22

    THE LORD confused the men who would make a name for themselves. Their babble was unintelligible to me (but I have never had understanding of other languages). When they confused the meaning of one another, they began to bicker and ultimately go their own ways. (Is it not also true of those of the same language?)

    Yet I saw that men traveled to the ends of earth to ‘make a name’ for themselves.

    God had remedied the result of the sin of the moment, but God could not cure the root of our original sin, that ‘the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.’

    And I saw their names and their aspirations on the tops of buildings and stadiums and on images of man, carved into stone and erected for the glory of men and not the glory of GOD.

    The buildings gathered men to glorify men like Pharaoh and Caesar. Men gathered to worship idols and colossus of men great in their own eyes: men who are not GOD. Statue and structure, large and small, glorified man and beast and the desires of every imagination of man’s heart, which is only evil.

    Buildings grew and strengthened with the knowledge of men, from the dust and water baked in God’s sun to the sand and ore of the earth forged in the heat of man’s own desire – desire to glorify the evil workings of his own sin-forged heart, which is only evil.

    I saw names of men, and not GOD, men like: Washington, Eiffel, Rockefeller, Sears, Trump and many more. I saw buildings standing in pride to the glory of men I do not know; buildings for companies of men invested in speculation of empire of riches taken from men, the imagination of whose hearts is only evil.

    The Lord showed me rise and fall of empire and building: from ancient Babylon and Thebes; to beyond London, New York, Taipei, and Dubai. All built to the glory of mankind, by secretive men and women, whose desires of their hearts from youth are only evil.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved by the author.