Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: witness

  • Covenant and Truth – 2

    Covenant and Truth – 2

    Malachi 2

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart…

    10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

     

    Have you ever said to God: Where is Your justice?

    Do you think that the Lord does not see the injustice done to you or the sin committed by you?

    Why does the Lord not answer our prayers? (Surely God knows all truth.) Is God not going to seek justice for me?

    Indeed God will judge. It is not a court (when books are opened) where you would dare to plead even your own case, let alone come to God as the plaintive about others.

    In fact, God in several passages of scripture, pleads His own case to us; indeed, as warning against the same injustices we have committed against Him and against others.  This is God’s plea through the Prophet Malachi. Hear the proceedings of our case:

    The charges are serious. The consequences are eternal. The call for repentance is immediate.

    13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 

    14 But you say, “Why does he not?”

    Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 

    15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? 

    And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.

    So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts.

    So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

    The Messenger of the Lord

    17 You have wearied the Lord with your words.

    But you say, “How have we wearied him?”

    By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

    And we ask for God to come and bring justice?

    What were we thinking, without first bowing down to the will of Christ Jesus, our Redeemer by His Cross and our Judge Advocate?

    Read Malachi 3 for further conviction, if need be.

    Malachi 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

    NOT me; not without Christ Jesus as my Lord.

    To be continued…

     

     

     

     

  • Covenant and Truth

    Covenant and Truth

    Numbers 23:19-20

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    19 God is not man, that he should lie,
    or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
    Has he said, and will he not do it?
    Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
    20 Behold, I received a command to bless:
    he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.

    What is a covenant?

    Is it not a most solemn promise? Is it also not witnessed so that the truth can be confirmed?

    I have given my word. And I cannot revoke it.

     

    Of what value is a covenant without truth?

    God is not a man that he would lie. (Numbers 23:19) Satan is a liar… and Satan influences man (and woman too, of course… see earlier mention of the temptation of Eve). We now know good and we also know evil and we must choose every day whether to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help us God.’ (Sound familiar?) Law and covenant require truth.

    When God makes a covenant we can count on it, because God IS truth.

    However when two men, or a man and a woman, (or even two women or many individuals) make ANY covenant or promise, even with witnesses… even signed in the sight of an earthly judge; the validity of the covenant REQUIRES not only truth, but also faithful continued truth to the word of ALL parties to the covenant (solemn agreement).

    And one more thing (before we return to scripture): A covenant is permanent. A solemn promise before GOD is based on the truth of the words of those who make it, until it is broken by any party. And let’s not forget that our God and Judge (who will open books and separate unrepentant liars from the sheep) is also witness to EVERY VOW.

    Genesis 6

    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. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord…

    18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

    Noah worshiped the Lord (both before the flood and after God saved them).

    Remember, both Cain and Abel had worshiped the Lord; but God accepted the sacrifice of Abel, while cautioning Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?  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.” – Gensis 4:6-7

    Do you recall the oft’ repeated answer of Cain to God after he murdered his brother?

    He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

    Cain did not answer God with the whole truth. Like his sinful parents before him (and also like you and me), Cain spoke as if he could hide his sin from God.

    This sin of failing in the truth continues throughout the generations. God hates lies, and murders, and unfaithfulness, and GOD HATES ALL SIN (though He loves the confession of the repentant sinner).

    Surely we can no more hide our breaking of our covenant from the witness of God than Adam and Eve could hide themselves in Eden.

    God knows ALL truth.

    Genesis 4:10-11 And the Lord said, “What have you done?

    The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

    Genesis 9:9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you…

    Who has broken the covenants?

    Will you hear truth? “God is not a man that he would lie.”

    To be continued…

     

     

  • Are You the One? – 2

    Are You the One? – 2

    Jesus to the multitudes

    Speaking of John the Baptist…

    Luke 7

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    26 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written,

    “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

    28 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” 29 (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, 30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.)

    31 “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,

    “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
    we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’

    See the contrast of walking into two very different churches and hearing the complaints of the ‘worshipers.’

    33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’

    We will have only grape juice (and only on occasion).

    34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

    We will have wine (and every time).

    35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

    One preacher is loud; one is soft. One place of worship is grand; another quaint. One has an organ and a choir; another only one with a guitar. One place they kneel; in another they jump up and down and fall to the floor.

    And what do the multitudes say?

    Jesus is not John… and John was not Jesus.

    Perhaps they were pious before John, while they were joyful around Jesus. Yet they complained of John’s piety and Jesus’ lack of it. Two brothers of the faith; two sons of God — yet both were more than that.

    God has a family of his own children. The speech and ways of one child of God will win the heart of another, while a very different way of  witness will not win this soul.  Our brother or sister of the family of God may win a soul that we cannot.

    John and Jesus (even cousins) were so different in so many ways. And you are so different from me.

    Wisdom is justified by all of her children (and God has many children). The words and ways and witness of the children are important, each for different times, different purposes and different souls for the family of God; but it is the Father and the wisdom of the Father to which all must yield.

    Worship is not for the multitudes; worship is of the Father.

    Wisdom is justified by all of her children.

    John was one child of God (none greater, according to Jesus). Jesus was One child of God. They taught different. They had different purposes for our Father God.

    Some children were chosen for the family of God long before their birth. (Jews.) Some children were chosen by adoption into the family of God before we were conceived in the womb. (Gentiles.)

    I thank the Lord for my inclusion in the family of our Heavenly Father by His redemption for my sin. I thank God for all of my brothers and sisters in the Lord – the multifaceted family of believers who have eternal life in Christ Jesus.

    And the merciful and Almighty God is justified by ALL His children.

    God is NOT justified by those who refuse to worship Him and honor the Lord our God humbly as a child of God. Jesus, John, Peter, Paul, the Prophets have always pointed out that these are children of their father the devil.

    Consider for just a moment the individual living souls of two witnesses:

    Jesus was NOT John and John was NOT Jesus, yet both are children of the Father.

    I am NOT my brother Ed nor my brother Ken nor my sister Jenny. I am NOT my wife Lissette. I am NOT my father Bill nor my mother Marie.  I am NOT my daughter Rachel nor my step-daughter Ashley nor my step-son David. I am not even the same as any Christian brother or sister in the Lord.

    Jesus asks John’s messengers (and the multitudes) to stop comparing one child of God to another and to take no offense.

    Luke 7:23 KJV And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

    It is good advice for ANY brother or sister, whether in the Lord at this time or not.

    Do not be skandalizō by the teachings and miracles of your ‘brother’ Jesus or the right teachings of any child of God our Father.

    The religious ones and outwardly righteous ones in the crowds (as recorded in Luke 7:30) were scandalized by the teachings of Jesus.  The common sinners, tax collectors, drunkards and others (v. 29) repented when they heard John and changed their ways to continue to follow Jesus as their brother and our Lord.

    My dear brother; my dear sister; my beloved wife and beloved children:

    What is my message for you?

    Do NOT be offended by the teachings of Christ Jesus.

    What is the fruit of your witness?