The Devotional - R009

The Devotional

Comment:

I was away Thursday and Friday of last week and I failed to mention this in the Wednesday devotional, I do apologize for that. Now that all is back to normal, that is; whatever normal is, in these days of our lives in the United States of America I will continue with the morning messages until the LORD decides differently. God in His Infinite Wisdom is PERFECT, PURE and HOLY in all that He does, History is His-Story even when we believe that we have snuffed Him out of our lives with our unrighteous acts of sin in the human heart. 

What better timing for us to be looking at Romans Chapter 1 verse 18-32. I struggled in the Spirit all last week with wanting to write about the Judgment of God on certain ungodly people who are like a “steering committee” of political evil in our nation. Now that does not excuse us “We the People” since a growing number of us approve of this degrading collapse within our judicial system. We have radically rejected God’s Righteousness. What does this implosion look like? One might dare to ask!

Challenge: Romans 1:20-32

The answer to that question is the word SIN, but I believe that we in our nation have banned this word from our schools fifty or more years ago along with the Ten Commandments; so can you believe it? There are people 45 and 50 years old in our nation who cannot define the word “sin” “sinner” (nouns) or “sinful” (adjective). In this, people 45 to 50 years old have replaced the Glory of the incorruptible God into an image of corruptible man, Romans 1:23. Well what does this mean? It means that God is Holy and Eternal (incorruptible) and Man is unholy (corruptible) and will die. We are reaping the harvest of this trade off in our current today.

Still I have not identified what sin is. Sin is what corruptible mankind does; now this is not pleasant for me to write, nor will it be pleasant for you to read. I have an out; these are not my words because I am merely a corruptible being just like you, male and female alike… all of us fall into the following definitions of sin, making us sinners and sinful in the face of a PERFECT, PURE and HOLY GOD.

By our willful exchange of the truth of God for SIN (all sin is a LIE) God says “enough” enough of your treachery and infidelity. Your priests, your churches, your cities, your country and your politics are filled with SIN, thus I will turn you over to this way of life. From now on you will worship and serve your human natural mind in place of ME, your Creator. Your sin will be identified this way as good and your good will be considered as evil.

Women will exchange the natural use of their body for what is unnatural and against nature, likewise also the men will leave the natural function and use of women. They will burn in their lust for other men. Men with men, women with women, committing what is SHAMEFUL in the eyes of their Creator. Not liking to retain God in their natural mind, God reluctantly gave them over to a debased mind (a mind of lower value).

Maybe the focus of sin is still a bit blurred to us, okay! Let’s turn up the heat just a bit. Being now in the basement of our natural mind instead of the attic and seeing sin for what it is. Let me open the cellar door and we will see our personal sinful pattern. Maybe one, two or several sins that we take pleasure in doing with no thought that it is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God of whom must all give an account… some SOON day, Revelation 20:11-15.

 We find the sins listed in Romans 1:29-32 – Immorality, wickedness, covetousness (greed), maliciousness (malice), envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness backbiters, (whispers), haters of God, violent minded (hot headed), proud,, boastful, inventors of evil things, DISOBEDIENT TO PARENTS, undiscerning (numbskulls), untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving and unmerciful. THESE ARE THE MAJOR sins we commit against the RIGHTEOUS standard of God. God calls these unrighteous acts SIN, now you know what sin is and now you KNOW that you have no excuse, the truth is that there has never been an excuse for sin, only forgiveness.

John 3:16 – 18 – For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For god did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he or she has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

So along with all the rest of the world around you, SINCE YOU ALREADY KNOW, there is a Righteous Judgment of God on all of those who practice such things and no doubt I am not the first one to tell you, you who practice unrighteous living and know it, also know that you are giving approval of this conduct to everyone around you that it is okay. What a shameful Nation we have become and it is ALL BECAUSE OF THAT LITTLE THREE LETTER WORD, SIN.

The Devotional - R008

The Devotional

Comment:

So yesterday we discussed that the Light of the gospel of God is His perfect Righteousness, we can also say that this is God’s unchanging Character. Even though God has revealed the Godhead to mankind it remains invisible to the world that lies under the enlightenment (or ever increasing) knowledge of unrighteousness. We can also say that this darkness is mankind’s predictive and changeable character. Now you may be thinking, whoa, just a minute; where is Satan in all of this? Good question, we might ask the apostle why he did not refer to this fallen angel or any of his demons in the entire epistle to the Romans. Paul, with this one exception in Romans 16:20 in a context totally separate from man’s innate (inborn or natural) unrighteous bent, speaks of people who purposely choose to be divisive, who use the methods of Satan to deceive those who are of faith. The unrighteousness of mankind does not need any help from the demonic world, mankind has a natural mind to know and do evil works and he or she needs no help from the devil.

Challenge: Romans 1:20-32

In the Epistle of Hebrews the writer states that it is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of God. Hebrews 10:31 and the context of this passage is “The just (saved or justified) shall live by faith.” Once we are given the Light of the Gospel of God we are challenged throughout scripture to live by faith, to refrain from things that trample underfoot the Blood of the Covenant, if we do this we insult the work (grace) of the Holy Spirit – Hebrews 10:26-32. 

This same principle of justification applied to Adam and Eve in the Garden, they trampled underfoot the Command of God by doing what God commanded them not to do and they insulted His Grace - Genesis 3:1-13. Now Satan was involved in this action by mankind. Yes Satan did place in the heart of man the same rebellious pride that destroyed him and the fallen angels. Once this work of deception was completed, Satan involved himself in other ways to war with God, we can see more of this battle later.

The fall of mankind is permanent and it is progressive meaning that it is an ongoing and ever increasing enlightenment of spiritual darkness to rebel against God, Romans 5:12-14. What is this unrighteousness, how do we avoid it and how do we get out from under the curse of God’s Righteous Wrath? 

First – Knowing God is not enough, all of Creation knows God, Psalm 19, Romans 8 and many other passages provide enough proof that mankind is without excuse, knowing is not believing, even the devils knows God.

Second – Unrighteousness is anything that mankind does that mixes “good with evil” for instance worshiping God by exchange the Truth of God with the lie by serving the creature (idolatry and false religion).

Third – Being conformed to the standards of the world, rather than transformed by the Living Word of God, later we will identify the standards that the world is living by.

My time is up here this morning, so we will get back to it tomorrow. May God’s grace bless you today.

The Devotional - R007

The Devotional

Comment:

When a submarine or a cave goes dark, there is usually an emergency (battery) lighting that takes over, but there are times when even this light will be put out. The darkness then is beyond comprehension, the darkness is so thick you can feel it, very much like a heavy blanket covering you in a hot bedroom. Wanting desperately to throw it off and rid yourself of the unwanted feeling of discomfort. This is a description of physical darkness of the worst kind. Is there another darkness that we experience? Yes, but this darkness is not limited to miners and submariners every person is affected, or should I say infected with this darkness. It is referred in the Holy Bible as “spiritual darkness”, every day we wrestle with spiritual darkness and simply it would be foolish to deny its existence. Strangely those who deny the effects of spiritual darkness call it “enlightenment”. Therefore we must know what does this feel like, like the blanket of physical darkness, and if it is enlightenment then what does it look like?

Challenge: Romans 1:20-22

First let me say that “no one” can improve on the Word of God, the burden to revise the Words of the Bible is not the responsibility of any man and man can only teach or preach the things that God has already spoken. He has spoken by the prophets in times past in many and various ways and roughly two thousand years ago He spoke to us through His Son, the LORD Jesus Christ. The Son of God is the radiance of the Glory of God and the exact (or perfect) representation of God in human form. He is the sustainer of the universe and the world we live in and after He provided for “purification for sins” He rose from the dead and He sat down at the right hand of “Majesty in Heaven”, see Hebrews 1:1-4.

Does God get angry with the world He created, the answer is “NO” for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, John 3:16. If this being true then what does the apostle Paul mean when He says that the “wrath of God” is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, Romans 1:18?

Since Creation and the fall of mankind, God’s wrath is clearly revealed (in place) in His Perfect Character. His attributes which are invisible to the “enlightenment” or darkness of mankind through the fall are clearly visible by faith, thus these attributes can be clearly understood by the things make by Him in Creation. Even His eternal power and Godhead (His Divine nature or Deity). Since this is true those who practice enlightened darkness are without excuse.

Psalm 19:1-6 is the visible proof of God’s eternal power and Psalm 19:9-11 is the invisible proof of God’s attributes and those of us who believe God will find comfort, confidence and a conclusion to understanding that the wrath of God is revealed in order to bring man to the point of discerning his or her errors, confessing their sin, repenting from his and her hidden faults and by the grace of God be found blameless in this perverse generation. Those of us who come to faith in Jesus will see that no sin will have rule over them and death will not have victory over them either.

However, those who refuse to believe God and fail to glorify Him as God and those who are not thankful, will continue down the path of darkness (worldly enlightenment), their foolish heart professing to be wise will increasingly be foolish. How does this happen? They make or fashion the glory of God who is “incorruptible” into images that resemble corrupted man, perishable things like birds, four footed animals and creeping things. All of the things available to mankind on this planet are perishable including man, meaning all will die.

God is eternal and His Righteousness is available to anyone who will trust Him, Romans 10:4 – For Christ is the end of the law for Righteousness to everyone who believes.