Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: repent

  • A Word to the Cunning – 3

    God’s plans change hearts

    We have been examining the wisdom of Proverbs and advice to the cunning. An evil man or woman has two choices: continue in cunning evil or turn to the wisdom of the Lord. One such repentant man was Simon the magician. Several men and women never turn back to the Lord. The fool believes that God will not have advice for our own good and an evil person remains adamant in their evil.

    Proverbs 3:

    Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding. – Pro 3:5

    6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
        and he will make straight your paths.
    7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
        fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
    8 It will be healing to your flesh
        and refreshment to your bones.

    • What makes a difference in the heart of a cunning man or woman set on a path of evil?
    • Is craftiness and cunning limited to plans of evil?

    In Egypt a powerful man once rejected by his family and sold as a slave confronted these same brothers when unwittingly they had no more cunning plans to supplant his favor in their family and with God. Joseph revealed the intentions of God to his brothers.

    The other sons of Israel (Jacob) had used cunning deceit in perpetuating the lie of Joseph’s death. Now after knowing both Joseph’s identity and power, the devise another cunning lie to save themselves from the potential retaliation of Joseph after Jacob’s death.

    Genesis 50:

    16 So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: 17 ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.”

    What to we see here?

    Both fear of Joseph on their part and contrition; not only fulfillment of a dream Joseph had told them in Canaan, but true acceptance of their youngest brother as their leader. Repentance, finally.

    And Joseph, servant of the Lord, reveals the same heart of the Lord that gave him such cunning dreams of greatness in his early years.

    19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?

    Gen 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

    21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

    A Cunning Turn from Self to the Lord

    Ahab and Jezebel and Jehoshaphat all meant evil against Elijah. They used every bit of cunning to do evil against the Lord. Unlike Joseph’s brothers, they never did repent.

    The Lord has used many cunning sinners as great evangelists of the Word once they repented. Saul of Tarsus, who cunningly persecuted followers of Jesus stood at the feet of the stoning of Stephen. He repented and turned to the Lord, preaching Christ crucified and risen to his fellow jews and championing the Way to the Gentiles.

    Acts 8:

    9 But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. 10 They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11 And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

    wolfWe’ve seen the great teachers built up in the slight-of-hand powerful ministry for God. (We don’t really hear much about Jesus other than how He will make us great and powerful and rich and healed.. and all for just sending in your donation or giving a large blessing to the magic of his ministry here in this bright megachurch.

    An egotistical preacher  meets a Spirit-filled Apostle

    12 But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.

    What’s different here? A once-renowned magician-preacher repented and turned back to the Lord Christ in humility. When a leader is no longer ashamed to have a cross in his church, he can become a follower dependent on the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Is that you?

    How cunning are you, dear friend? What is the Lord’s intention for you? Do you suppose your cunning you intended for evil could now be turned by the Lord for good?

    It’s not such a tough choice.

    It would take a fool, not one so wise as you, to choose hell for eternity over the blessings of God in Christ Jesus forever.

    Proverbs 3:

    33 The Lord‘s curse is on the house of the wicked,
        but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous.
    34 Toward the scorners he is scornful,
        but to the humble he gives favor.
    35 The wise will inherit honor,
        but fools get disgrace.

     

  • Stubble & Chaff – Repentance before the Lord

    Stubble & Chaff – Repentance before the Lord

    “Behold, I send My messenger,
    And he will prepare the way before Me.
    And the Lord, whom you seek,
    Will suddenly come to His temple,
    Even the Messenger of the covenant,
    In whom you delight.
    Behold, He is coming,”
    Says the Lord of hosts.

    Malachi 3:1 NKJV

    The prophesy is clear from Malachi, Prophet of the Lord in Judea of Persia, perhaps shortly before his death in about 486 B.C. History of the next five centuries leading up to another Prophet in the wilderness and the Messiah would be tough times for God’s chosen ones.

    What main course awaits Priests, Rabbis and a defeated people of Israel?

    Repentance!

    Malachi 3: ESV

    refiners-fire Malachi 3.22 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

    For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver…

     

    Surely the LORD can do this. He can bring repentance to the life and purity to the heart of any man. Yet how we resist: Priest (sons of Levi) or Rabbi (teacher), or common one who knows the Lord and continues in the impurities of sin.

    The LORD is going to send a fuller’s soap man to the Jews to purify their hearts and prepare the Temple.

    Malachi 3:5 excerpt I will be a swift witness against

    • the sorcerers,
    • against the adulterers,
    • against those who swear falsely,
    • against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages,
    • (those who oppress) the widow and the fatherless,
    • against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and

    “I will be a swift witness against … those who do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. Mal. 3:5

     

    A mere mortal would come along in time to accuse a Jewish King rightfully of adultery. He would accuse officials of the Temple and teachers of the Law of their leavening of God’s word. Like Prophets before and John the Baptist, who would follow five centuries later, Malachi warns that God requires repentance.

    7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

    The Lord indicts us of our sin through the words of the Prophet Malachi. Note that some, not all respond.

     

    The Book of Remembrance

    16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

    Malachi 4:

    The Great Day of the Lord

    Malachi 4:14  “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

    sun of righteousness2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

    4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

    5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

    Five Centuries Later

    Luke 3:

    John the Baptist Prepares the Way

    3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

    7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.

    As humble as the Lord Christ Jesus IS, born in a manger, baptized by John though He is righteous, and sacrificed on a cross for our sins; He IS King and Lord yet to return on the clouds in these last days to call up the dead to judgment and the living to new and eternal life.

    Repent!wheat-kernals-in-hand1

    Turn back to your Father, the Lord. Bear the fruit of righteousness, fellow sinner condemned.

    Or meet your Maker as He separates the wheat from the chaff.

    Even the Chosen of God and christians only claiming Christ are lost without repentance, a turning of our hearts back to the Lord our God.

    Isaiah 33:

    10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord,
        “now I will lift myself up;
        now I will be exalted.
    11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble;
        your breath is a fire that will consume you.
    12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
        like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

    Are the warnings of God through the Prophets not more urgent to sinners in these last days?

    Therefore, repent! The Lord IS come.

    13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
        and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
    14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
        trembling has seized the godless:

    “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
        Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

    To be continued…

    These messages highlight the scripture of the coming of the Messiah, Christ Jesus, Who IS and was and will always be. Prepare your hearts in this year of our Lord, 2015, for Christmas and for the day when the Lord will return.

  • Crushed

    Crushed

    Let’s get something straight:

    You are not good enough for Heaven. I am not even good enough for my church, my wife or my child.

    If we cannot do enough good works to earn our place with a Holy God, how will we ever pay what we owe for our many sins?chained to sin

    Answer:

    We can not.

    No work we can do is good enough to pay the high price of our sins.

    Five hundred years ago Martin Luther and many others sought to reform church leadership. Those protesting rejected sacramental penance of man for the true repentance of a man’s heart won back to God.

     

    For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

    Ephesians 2:8

     

    Why did the LORD send Jesus to the Cross for my sins?

    A most unattainable thing about goodness: We cannot attain it. We will always trespass. We will always sin.

     

    Romans 7:

    crushed by guilt15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

    18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

    19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

     

    The Scriptures foretold of the coming of the Christ, who IS in the Person of Jesus.

    Around 700 B.C., the Prophet Isaiah [in chapter 53] described the Savior of Israel, the Redeemer of the world:

    He was despised and rejected by men;
    a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
    and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
    Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
    yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.

    But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
    upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.

    All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
    and the LORD has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

    Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;

    when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
    the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

    Isaiah 53:10

    What good work will your soul offer for your guilt?

    Mark 10:

    17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone…

    “… come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

    “Then who can be saved?”

    27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

     

    Are we good enough for Heaven?

    NOT without the grace of God by faith in Christ Jesus, alone.

    The generous philanthropy of the greatest foundation for charity to all the causes of good can not buy Heaven and eternal life for even one unrepentant sinner without the grace of faith in Jesus Christ.

    GOD gave breath to your spirit, formed you in your mother’s womb and calls you to a life by faith in the Spirit.

    Fellow sinner, when will you repent of your many sins?

    Are you not crushed by your sins when your mind is convicted in guilt and no good work will lift the burden from you? Do you still consider that another good work will pay the price of the Lord’s piercing and death for you?

    Confess your sin before Almighty God! Bow down your selfish will before Christ Jesus. Repent once more, dear fellow sinner. Turn back to the righteousness of our loving Father.

    For God intends for your brief journey here beneath the immeasurable heavens and timeless creation to glorify your Lord. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

    Let us confess that we among many cannot do good without the grace of God.

    We are saved by faith alone: in Christ Jesus, the only Son, One with the Father.

    Humble your failing flesh to guidance of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ Jesus, eternal Judge of all mortal souls.

    crushed by guiltREPENT! Self-righteous sinner.

    Turn back to the LORD by faith in Christ Jesus,

    While it is yet today;

    Before you are crushed

    By sin and death,

    Before your good legacy becomes

    Another forgotten rotting vanity.