Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: prophets

  • Running from God

    Running from God

    Are you running from God? I have.

    Do you run after Satan? I have.

    Do you walk with Jesus and then run away some other direction?

    I have. Even the most faithful followers of God and closest Disciples of Jesus have turned tail and run from the adversity we imagined is on the road ahead.

    The seeker-friendly easy-grace gospel would easily fill our mega-churches will non-believers, like the brother in Jesus’ parable who said he would do the will of his father, but then did not do it, as opposed to the brother (or sister, if you are) who says, “NO. I can NOT do that,” yet later repents to do the will of the Father.

    [If you are unfamiliar with this parable Jesus taught in Jerusalem during the events of Holy Week, read Matthew 21.]

    No doubt in this Lenten season of preparation of consideration of the Cross, you will remember later incidents during Holy Week of twelve apostles who ran and hid: an apostle and friend entrusted with the treasury of the whole group showing ‘faithfulness’ by complaint of the wasting of the oil of love and anointing poured forth generously on our Lord by a repentant woman. We all remember a bold proclamation that, “I will never deny you,” from a rock of leadership; the ironic tragedy of all of Jesus’ friends sleeping in Gethsemane and running away in helplessness from the authorities of the Law.

    We are too harsh on Peter and the others, as if we ourselves do not tend to run away every Monday (or even Sunday the minute the sermon finally finishes).

    God has always used reluctant, yet zealous believers. Take Saul of Tarsus (Paul), for instance.

    And who cannot recall a voyage of God’s Prophet, running in the direction away from Nineveh (in modern day Iraq) to a ship crossing the Mediterranean, before falling into the depths of helplessness in the belly of a fish at the bottom of the sea?

    Most of God’s Prophets suffered as God warned Israel and Judah of the destruction to come because of the evil done by the people with God’s Name.

    Is it appropriate witness of GOD for the people of His Name to always do evil?

    Is it right for a witness claiming the Name of Christ (a christian) to show unbelievers evil? Are we not commanded to bear fruit of Christ’s overflowing love, His unfailing faithfulness to the redeemed?

    “I will repay,” says the LORD.

    Therefore, do not fear. For what can a mere man (even an evil woman) bring upon you that does not pale by comparison to the wrath of the vengeance of the Living God?

    What terrible judgment must await the one who has dismissed the Blood of the Cross and run toward the pit of perdition.

    To be continued…

     

  • Put away your revelries

    Put away your revelries

    and cleanse your whitewashed walls;

    for the church is a soiled bride

    and christians no witness of waiting,

    no longer virgin and spotless,

    uncovered in view of the world

    naked before the eyes of the LORD.

    Ezekiel 16

    7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

    8 “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.

    15 “But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. 16 You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be.

    23 “And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares the Lord God), 24 you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square. 25 At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring.

    32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. 34 So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different.

    35 “Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord: 36 Thus says the Lord God, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, 37 therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. 38 And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. 39 And I will give you into their hands, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places. They shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels and leave you naked and bare.

    52 Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have intervened on behalf of your sisters. Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

    59 “For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant…

    62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.”

    in-sicknessNumbers 30:13 Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.

     Matthew 19

    6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

    “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

     Jeremiah 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

    WHY do you celebrate? Why do you claim your fellowship is with Christ?

    Is the LORD not angered by your licentiousness? Is the LORD not jealous for the love of the Bride of His promise?

    Woe to you, churches! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.

    Why do you celebrate year’s end? Why do you call communion worship? Are these not an abomination of hidden sin?

    Is your adultery not against the cleansing Blood of the Bridegroom of righteousness? Where is your account of Christ’s righteousness? Where is your evidence of Christ’s love?

    Run. Run to hide from the wrath of the Bridegroom; for He will return to find you faithless!

     Ephesians 5:  31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

    Beloved church, Bride of Christ Jesus, are we not whitewashed tombs? Are we not divorcing one another? Are we not unrepentant of our sin which we witness boldly before our worldly neighbors?

    How then will we win others to Jesus Christ, if we can not even hold our own sisters and brothers in the Lord to His Holy standard?

    Do we not impugn the Blood of Jesus sacrificed for the sins we commit over and again in witness against the Bridegroom of the Church?

    For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

    Why then, do we, Christ’s Church, act no differently than the world of unbelievers?

    Joel 1

    2 Hear this, you elders;
    give ear, all inhabitants of the land!

    5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep,
    and wail, all you drinkers of wine,
    because of the sweet wine,
    for it is cut off from your mouth.

    8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth
    for the bridegroom of her youth.

    13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;
    wail, O ministers of the altar.
    Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,
    O ministers of my God!
    Because grain offering and drink offering
    are withheld from the house of your God.
    14 Consecrate a fast;
    call a solemn assembly.
    Gather the elders
    and all the inhabitants of the land
    to the house of the Lord your God,
    and cry out to the Lord.
    15 Alas for the day!
    For the day of the Lord is near,
    and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

    Joel 2: 12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
    13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
    Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
    and he relents over disaster.

    Was your Baptism in Christ permanent change?

    or just one more bath for the sin of your filthiness?

    Is your word and your vow truth before God

    or a lie for the world?

    Put away your revelries, dear believer, IF in truth you worship the Lord your God and look to the coming of the Bridegroom of the Church, Christ Jesus, as your Lord.

    For the time is near when the Lord will say, ‘Well done,’ or for the adulterous Bride, “I never knew you.”

     

  • Wisdom Cries Out

    Wisdom Cries Out

    Proverbs 8: NKJV Does not wisdom cry out,
    And understanding lift up her voice?
    2 She takes her stand on the top of the high hill,
    Beside the way, where the paths meet.
    3 She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city,
    At the entrance of the doors:

    4 “To you, O men, I call,
    And my voice is to the sons of men.
    5 O you simple ones, understand prudence,
    And you fools, be of an understanding heart.

    Wisdom cries out! She calls out from the mountaintop. She echos the Truth of the Almighty from Mount Gerizim and Mount Moriah, from Mount Sinai and the Mount of Olives.

    John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

    From the echo of the Voice of Truth, through unclean lips of the Prophet; from the highest mountain of the Law to the lowest manger of the cattle and fields of sheep: Truth is born as a Son of Man and speaks softly to those who will hear. You without deafening distraction hear what the Truth of wisdom would say to your soul.

    Proverbs 8:6 Listen, for I will speak of excellent things,
    And from the opening of my lips will come right things;
    7 For my mouth will speak truth;
    Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
    8 All the words of my mouth are with righteousness;
    Nothing crooked or perverse is in them.

    Yet we will not sit in silence before the Very Voice of wisdom and hear what Christ Jesus would instruct to our wayward and crooked paths. (Do YOU read His gospel truth before you begin your way in this day?)

    Hebrews 1: God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things…

     

    Proverbs 9:Wisdom has built her house,
    She has hewn out her seven pillars;
    2 She has slaughtered her meat,
    She has mixed her wine,
    She has also furnished her table.
    3 She has sent out her maidens,
    She cries out from the highest places of the city,
    4 “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”

    You with ears to hear, hear the Voice of Truth.

    Or will you yet hear the distraction of the devil, the beguiler of your soul by the lies of his snare?

    Luke 22:“For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves. But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

    And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

     

    Matthew 13:Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way…

    …at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”

    If Satan had asked to sift the soul of Simon Peter as chaff, will the snarer of souls not also seek to turn you from the wisdom of Truth?

    Do YOU read your Bible?

    Do YOU hear the invitation of Christ Jesus (with ears to hear) and do you continue with Jesus as your Lord, even in the trials of this life of distraction?

    OR have you missed the invitation of the Banquet; for Wisdom will not beg your repentance and obedience.

    Proverbs 9: 6 Forsake foolishness and live,
    And go in the way of understanding.

    7 “He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself,
    And he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself.
    8 Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you;
    Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.
    9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
    Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

    10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
    And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

    Jesus IS and will return. He will judge all sin and unrighteousness with wisdom and truth. He will gather the chaff; neither will those who only claim Him while wandering the paths of wickedness be seated at the Table of His mercy and love.

    Luke 6:46 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?”

    The persistent fool will not receive the cleansed robe of His righteousness.

     Matthew 22:

    The Parable of the Wedding Feast

    And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said:

    2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, 3 and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come.

    4 Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”’

    5 But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business…

    8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy…

    11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. 12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

    14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

    Though wisdom and Truth have called sinners and fools to the feast, only the humble and repentant will receive the Lord’s robe of righteousness.

    The King, in His mercy, has demonstrated much patience; that you might now accept His invitation to come among the guests.

    Revelation 19: 

    5 Then a voice came from the throne, saying, “Praise our God, all you His servants and those who fear Him, both[c] small and great!”

    6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

    9 Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.”

     

    12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.

     

    He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:

    KING OF KINGS AND
    LORD OF LORDS.

    You with ears to hear, hear; for our Lord will not always contend with the dust of the earth and the chaff of the harvest.