Blog

Standing Firm Forever

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? … Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.”
Psalm 15:1, 5 NLT

David winds up his list of required characteristics for those who wish to worship the Lord in His sanctuary. Inevitably, he turns to money, which can be a trap for unwary believers. Paul wrote to Timothy, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10). The requirement that those who lend money should not charge interest is perhaps, at least superficially, a problem in this day and age, where borrowers expect to be charged interest. But if we dig down a bit further into this requirement, we find Exodus 22:25, “If you lend money to any of my people who are in need, do not charge interest as a money lender would“. So perhaps David was just meaning that money should only be loaned interest-free to poor people in need. Obviously, in Biblical days, it was expected that interest would be received on investments. Jesus said to the third servant in His parable of the Ten Servants, “Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?” (Luke 19:23). So, perhaps, David was meaning that those who loaned money should be charitable when it came to the poor, and not guilty of usury, the charging of interest at exorbitant rates, to everyone else. Banking today charges one rate of interest on loans, but a lower rate on deposits, the difference between the two rates providing sufficient money to fund the bank’s operations. But sometimes the size of banking profits makes us pilgrims wonder about usury.

David went on to write about those who accept bribes for lying “about the innocent”. Perhaps David was repeating Exodus 23:8, “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.” We read about how the guards at Jesus’ tomb were silenced, bribed by the Jewish religious leaders, in Matthew 28:12-13, “When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep””. Bribery was common in those days, and still is today, with corruption in some nations reaching epidemic proportions. Bribery is a sin, there is no doubt about that, and anyone guilty of giving or receiving a bribe excludes themselves from being able to worship God.

In Psalm 15, David lists all the characteristics that need to be present to qualify someone for God-worship. The person concerned must:
Live a blameless life 
Not do anything unrighteous
Speak the truth
Not slander or gossip about anyone
Not wrong their neighbours
Not speak evil of their friends
Despise and avoid those who openly sin
Honour their brothers and sisters in Christ
Keep their promises, come what may
Be charitable and fair when lending money
Refuse to give or receive bribes

David concludes with the thought that the believer who ticks all these boxes will stand, upright and strong, a God-worshipper beyond reproach forever.

Dear Heavenly Father. We understand that there are things we have to do in our lives to qualify us for being able to worship You. We pray with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
 

Promises

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? … Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honour the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts.”
Psalm 15:1, 4 NLT

We spend another day looking at the qualities required for those desirous of worshiping the Lord in His presence. David wrote that those who make promises must keep them “even when it hurts”. From God’s perspective, the Bible is full of His promises. Take 1 Chronicles 16:34 for example, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever“. God promised to never stop loving human beings, and yet, when we see the hurt that we have caused Him, we perhaps think that this is one promise too far. Look at Genesis 6:6, “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart“. What a poignant response to the way the ones He loved were treating Him. But nevertheless, God never stops loving us.

We too have an opportunity to make a promise to God. The writer to Ecclesiastes noted, “When you make a promise to God, don’t delay in following through, for God takes no pleasure in fools. Keep all the promises you make to him. It is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it” (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5). The writer implied that those who fail to keep a promise are fools and shouldn’t have made a promise at all if there was any doubt that they would keep it. Notice too that the writer said “When” and not “If”. Promises should be made to God, and especially the one that we made when we knelt at the cross in repentance, asking for forgiveness. 

There are too many examples of broken promises in the world today. Take for example our politicians, quick to make all sorts of promises in the run up to an election, but forgetting they ever made them once elected. Another common example is a promise made by a couple getting married, only to find that the promise, “to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy law. In the presence of God I make this vow“, is abandoned at some point down the road when the going gets tough. Apparently, 42% of marriages officially end in divorce, but many more happen in people’s hearts, I’m sure.

David wrote that a prerequisite to being able to worship the Lord in His presence is being able to keep a promise, no matter what it takes. From Gotquestions.org, “Promises can be beautiful and honourable and made for the good of others. But they must be kept. As we are imperfect humans, we should only make promises with care and introspection so they do not turn into sin. Promises can be easily broken or made with the wrong motivation, which may result in damage to ourselves or others”. So there we have it. But we pilgrims are promise keepers, no matter what, because we want to worship our amazing Saviour in His sanctuary.

Dear Father God. We make this promise today, that we will follow You all the days of our lives. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

Faithful Followers

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? … Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honour the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts.”
Psalm 15:1, 4 NLT

We continue to explore the attributes necessary for a believer to worship the Lord and enter into His sanctuary. We despise the “flagrant sinners” and now we turn to honouring the “faithful followers of the Lord”. It must be easy, one would think. After all there are many people who call themselves Christians and we only have to walk into a church on a Sunday morning to find them. There they are, seated in the pews, looking towards the minister speaking from an elevated platform called a pulpit. Or they might all be standing singing a song or hymn, accompanied by the sounds of a pipe organ, or in more modern times, a small band of musicians complete with guitars and drums. Surely we won’t have any problems honouring them. But if only it was that simple. There are many people who call themselves Christians but Jesus said, “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter” (Matthew 7:21). 

So how do we discern who the “faithful followers of the Lord” really are? In fact, are we ourselves counted in their number? And do we really know and understand what God’s will is for each one of us? Jesus continued in Matthew 7:22-23, “On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” I know a successful pastor who said to me once that this Scripture worries him personally. Surely this bar is far too high for believers in God to reach, let alone jump over. But doing the will of God is to believe in Jesus, to receive the gift of the forgiveness of sin made possible by His death on the cross and to be declared righteous before God. Our standing before God is not about us but it is all about Jesus. Those who do tremendous things for God, even in His name, but who don’t know Him personally, are in danger of rejection on judgement day.

But we’ll consider the question again. How do we discern who the “faithful followers of the Lord” are? I would say we pray for that discernment and, if in any doubt, treat other Christians as though they were indeed “faithful followers of the Lord.” Not all members of a denomination other that the one we follow will be true Christians. Some “Christian” fellowships may not be following the same “Lord” that we do. And there are sects around like the JW’s who consider themselves to be Christian, but are they really, in the true sense? They think so, but does the Lord? 

We don’t want to get tied up with this, and instead we follow what Paul wrote in Romans 12;10, “Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other“. We start with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in the fellowship where we worship. Paul wrote in Philippians 2:3-4, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too“. The body of Christ where God has put us will have many different people. Different ages, backgrounds, skin colours, professions and so on, but before the cross we are all equal. And before Jesus we honour them, whether or not they are faithful. How faithful they are in following the Lord is between them and God, but regardless, we pilgrims honour our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we will be blessed through doing it.

Dear Father God. There are those around us who profess to be Your followers and we remember that they too are Your blood-bought children. Help us to concern ourselves with them, praying for them and loving them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Flagrant Sinners

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honour the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts.”
Psalm 15:1, 4 NLT

David lists three more character necessities for those who want to worship the Lord in His sanctuary. We must “despise flagrant sinners”, “honour the faithful followers of the Lord“, and “keep [our] promises”. To be clear, we pilgrims can worship God anywhere but there is a sweet spot where we can do so from a position of having a clear conscience, free from the little accusing whispers in our minds that get in the way of true worship. Once there the sweet spot takes us to a connection with the Lord that somehow seems to take us into Heaven itself. 

But who are these “flagrant sinners” that David warned us against? Other translations refer to a “vile” or “evil” person but however we consider these words, there is something or someone here that we must avoid. The word “vile” describes a deliberately wicked, morally worthless person. “Despise” comes from a term which can also mean “to hold in contempt” or “to disdain.” These are strong words and highlight the importance of our being set apart from contact with such people, as we continue to journey on our walk of holiness. But Paul said “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” so does that mean we should despise everyone, because everyone sins? Of course not, because to do so would turn us into monks, shut away in a monastery away from contact with other human beings. The key word here is “flagrant”, describing those people who are open in their sin and who flaunt it in everyone else’s face, impervious of the offence that they are causing. We can find many examples of this on social media, where disgusting sinful rants emerge far too frequently, rants that abuse our political leaders, rants that target the sexuality of people they think they know, and so on. 

The word “despise” can mean that we should avoid, as a general rule, contact with these “flagrant sinners”. I say as a general rule, because there are some who find that they have a ministry of grace to these people. It depends on how strong their faith is. We read in Jude 1:23, “Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives”. There are many who have dedicated their lives to working with the “flagrant sinners”, people like Jackie Pullinger working with drug addicts and dealers in Hong Kong. But we must be careful. Paul wrote, “If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure” (1 Corinthians 10:12-13). So it makes sense to beware of places where we know there is a temptation too great for us to avoid. Think of a person who is an alcoholic entering a bar with a pocketful of cash.

David advised that those who want to worship God must avoid anything or anyone that gets in the way, even if it means taking an extreme position in the process. Whatever we fill our minds with, such as what we watch on TV, or listen to on the radio, or during conversations with people we meet, or find on YouTube or elsewhere in the Internet, will divert us away from the ability to worship God in the way he desires. There will be nothing sinful present in God’s presence or in His worship.

Dear Heavenly Father. Please help us to avoid people and places that will divert us away from worshipping You in spirit and truth. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Gossip

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? … Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbours or speak evil of their friends.”
Psalm 15:1, 3 NLT

David continues to list who can, and who can’t, “worship God in His sanctuary”. Verse 2 of Psalm 15 noted that those with “blameless lives” and those who “speak the truth” have the necessary qualifications, but now we launch into territory where David lists specific exclusions that will stop any form of true and sincere God-worship. There will be those of course who venture into the grey border between speaking evil and speaking the truth. Sometimes our minds play tricks and lead us into places where we suddenly find ourselves saying things that we shouldn’t, but a Holy-Spirit sensitised spirit will soon recoil and lead us back to safety.

But what about those people in our churches and fellowships who are hardened gossipers, not realising that they are saying or doing anything wrong? After all, they say, everyone knows this about a certain person, and they are just saying what everyone else is thinking. There is something juicy about a morsel of gossip, as Solomon wrote in Proverbs 18:8 (AMP), “The words of a whisperer (gossip) are like dainty morsels [to be greedily eaten]; They go down into the innermost chambers of the body [to be remembered and mused upon]”. Jesus said something scary, as recorded in Matthew 12:35-36, “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak”. The Apostle James wrote about the role a gossiper’s tongue has in the speaking evil department, “And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself” (James 3:6).

So with that as a background, those, who gossip about another person, or who harm them with their words, or even extend their malice and evil to words about their friends, are in a dangerous place where they exclude themselves from being able to worship in the presence of the Lord. But having said that, who is really free from talking negatively about another person? We all do it. We are all guilty of such a sin. There is something about human beings, that they tend to criticise, judge and speak negatively about another person. Often this is because we see in others negative behaviour that is actually something we are guilty of ourselves, and so we justify our own deficiencies by talking about theirs. We have a tendency to observe how someone else will dress and form an opinion, verbalising it to others. We will judge another person’s behaviour, even illuminating it with the help of carefully chosen Scriptures. But there is no other response to all of this than two words – STOP IT! 

We are a redeemed people, free from the punishment for sin, but our humanity, our “old man”, will constantly try and drag us back into a place where we lose our ability to worship the Lord. Before we speak out a negative or evil thought about another person, we must carefully weigh up what we are thinking of saying, in case we are becoming a gossip. And we pray for God’s help in being able to see others as He sees them. We don’t know why a person behaves in the way that they do but God does. And He loves them anyway. Solomon bluntly wrote, “Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble” (Proverbs 21:23). Jesus extended this theme to our thoughts and actions when He said, “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). 

Dear Father God. Please forgive us for the times when we have been guilty of gossip. Please help us to discern our thoughts and change them before we speak them out, and please help us to see others as You see them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Entering the Sanctuary (2)

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts.”
Psalm 15:1-2 NLT

David asked the question, “Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?” There is of course two scenarios – one in this life and the other in the life to come. In this life we believers want to worship the Lord wherever we can find Him. It doesn’t have to be in a Temple, or on Mount Zion, or even in a church. He can be found anywhere and everywhere. And in the life to come we will be in God’s presence and will join with the angels and all the saints in worship so incredible that it will be nothing like we have ever experienced.

But consider that the sanctuary David wrote about was Heaven, where the Lord will be worshipped, and where there will be no soul present that is still polluted with the stains of sin. We pilgrims know that one day we will join the Lord there because we responded whole-heartedly to the Gospel, the Good News about Jesus and all He did for us at Calvary. In Heaven the worship of the Lord will be absolutely amazing and we who worship Him in this life look forward to it. Sadly, there are many people, however, who don’t lead blameless lives and, in fact, don’t know Jesus at all, but they think they will end up in Heaven when they die. Will those people still find themselves able to worship the Lord, or will they be somewhere else?

Anyone who goes to a funeral will often find many who are deluded in their thinking. They have come to believe that their departed loved ones are in Heaven with the Lord and they find comfort in the thought that they will also join them there one day. They even go further and think that their loved ones are benignly looking down on them, pleased or otherwise about what they are doing. The departed spirits will go somewhere of course, and they may even be looking down at those left behind, but I always come back to the story Jesus told of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Luke 16: 22-23, “Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried, and he went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side”. The souls of our departed loved ones, and everyone else come to that, end up in one of two places. Those that know and love Jesus, those who are His wholehearted followers, will end up in a place called Heaven, or Paradise (look up the conversation the thief on the cross next to Jesus had with the Lord). Those who are unbelievers, the agnostics, the atheists, followers of other religions or those who don’t believe that our souls will survive death, will end up in the place of the dead, called Hades or Sheol in the various Bible translations. We know from the Luke 16 account of the resting place of the Rich Man that the place of the dead will not be a pleasant place. But it is logical really. David asked “Who may worship in Your sanctuary, Lord?” Those who don’t know the Lord will not really want to worship Him. What would be the point?

Jesus was asked a question about eternal life which we can read in Matthew 19:16, “Someone came to Jesus with this question: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”” Jesus replied to the young man who asked the question with an answer outlining the commandments that must be followed. We read the man’s reply in Matthew 19:20, ““I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else must I do?”” Jesus’ reply was for him to sell his possessions and give away the proceeds to the poor, something, as it turned out, that he was unable to countenance. In the subsequent conversation with His disciples, they said it was impossible to achieve a life spent in the presence of God by human efforts alone. Jesus agreed, and we read in Matthew 19:26, “Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible””.

David asked the question, “Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?” The same question still hangs in the air today and we should perhaps ask a similar question of those we meet, “Where will your soul go when you die – the place of the dead or will it join the Lord in Heaven?” In this life we have a powerful choice between being a believer in Jesus, with all that that means, or being against Jesus as an unbeliever. Making the right choice is the most important decision we can make in our lifetimes because it determines where we will spend eternity. Jesus was very clear. In John 14:6 we read, “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me”. The times are short and many of my friends are reaching the age in life when this question needs to be answered soon. Remember, those who fail to make the decision for Jesus will end up in a place they find they don’t want to be by default. 

At the end of Revelation 20 we read, “And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire“. Why did people have to be “thrown” into that place? Because when they saw what was coming they recoiled in horror and did everything they could to avoid going there. But it was too late. Their resistance had to be overcome with force. A stark and horrible warning that we pilgrims have to be clear about when we share our testimonies of what Jesus has done for us. There is a time coming when the results of a person’s choice will be realised. There is no escape. There is no third way. And we pilgrims have been entrusted with a Gospel that not only presents God’s love, but also His judgement. 

Father God. We have reviewed some sobering thoughts this morning and we pray for Your love and grace to flow even more in our lives and the lives of those we meet. Please help us present the Good News about Jesus to those who are heading for a lost eternity in a way that exposes Your heart for them. We love You Lord and always will. Amen.

Entering The Sanctuary (1)

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts.”
Psalm 15:1-2 NLT

David asked a difficult question, as he started to write Psalm 15. It was a straightforward question, that highlights the differences between a sinful man and a holy God. A gulf impossible to bridge, or so we think, because mankind is unable, by his own efforts, to reach the standard of holiness required by God. There will be nothing that is impure or unholy allowed, or even able, to be in God’s presence. God gave Moses instructions about how God could be accessed in the Tabernacle, because just to walk in when he felt like it would have dire consequences. Leviticus 16:2, “The Lord said to Moses, “Warn your brother, Aaron, not to enter the Most Holy Place behind the inner curtain whenever he chooses; if he does, he will die. For the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—is there, and I myself am present in the cloud above the atonement cover”. The rest of Leviticus 16 provides instructions about how the High Priest and the people can be purified of their sins, a process of which we’re grateful we don’t have to follow today. But David was aware that a person’s sins would exclude them from God’s presence, hence his first answer to the question – “those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts”. But such an answer created more questions. Who is really absolutely blameless? Who speaks absolute truth? 

During the time ever since David took up his pen, the same questions have hung in the air. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day had derived a code of conduct based on the Mosaic Law, with additions from the Rabbis, through which they believed they could achieve personal righteousness. But Jesus knocked that thought on the head in His Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:20, “But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!”

How do we become righteous? We start off with the verse part way in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3:16-17, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him“. And Paul guides us to the next step, “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24). Through repentance of our sins, through our faith and belief in Jesus, and through God’s grace, we embark on our journey to Heaven “justified freely by His grace”.

It is only righteous people who can enter God’s presence. We pilgrims enjoy “imputed righteousness”, righteousness that is credited to us because we have been made right with God. Jesus took on the punishment for our sins and gave us, in exchange, His righteousness. What a Saviour! A double exchange that cost Him everything and gave us right standing before God forever. This is a message that is News so good that we cannot but share it with anyone who will listen and at every opportunity.

Dear Lord Jesus. We love You, we worship You, we praise You, we thank You. Your grace has saved us forever. Amen.

Mount Zion

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who will come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel? When the Lord restores his people, Jacob will shout with joy, and Israel will rejoice.”
Psalm 14:7 NLT

The place “Zion” produces emotions in people ranging from joy to loathing. The Jews associate “Zion” with Jerusalem, and “Mount Zion” is a hill on the south east side of Jerusalem, where once King David built a citadel. But there are Muslim nations who regard the “Zionists”, the Jews, with contempt, and continue to profess a desire to eliminate them from the face of the earth. 

To the Jews, Zion has both a physical and spiritual meaning. After Solomon built the first Temple in Jerusalem, it became the place about which Jeremiah wrote, “For there will be a day when the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry out, ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, To the Lord our God’ ” (Jeremiah 31:6). The Temple acquired a special significance because after its dedication we read, “The Lord said to him [Solomon], “I have heard your prayer and your petition. I have set this Temple apart to be holy—this place you have built where my name will be honoured forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to my heart” (1 Kings 9:3). Where else could the Jewish nation go to worship God than in the place where He could be found? Isaiah went further and associated the Israelites with the name “Zion” – Isaiah 60:14, “The sons of those who oppressed you will come bowing down to you [in submission], And all those who despised you and treated you disrespectfully will bow down at the soles of your feet, And they will call you the City of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” So many refer to the Jews by their alternative name, “Zionists”. 

There are many references to “Zion” in the Bible but we pilgrims associate “Mount Zion” with the place from which Jesus will rule and reign. We read in Revelation 14:2 something that John observed in his vision, “Then I saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him were 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads”. We will one day find ourselves at Mount Zion, “No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering” (Hebrews 12:22). Wonderful things will happen there, as we will find out one day.

So, what do we pilgrims make of “Mount Zion”? Most of us do not have a Jewish heritage, so the geographical place, “Mount Zion”, or the Temple once located in Jerusalem, will not have the same significance. But we look forward, with anticipation, to a future “Zion” where we will find Jesus. John, in his vision, ” … saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). And there will find God Himself, who ” …will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4). We have read the end of the Book and we know what will happen. And so we look forwards and upwards, as the vision of “Mount Zion”, and God Himself, start to appear over the horizon. The Heavenly clock is ticking. One day we will be in His presence, with Him on “Mount Zion”.

Dear Lord Jesus. What else can we pray than the single word “Maranatha – Come Lord Jesus”? Amen.

Tale of Two Peoples

Posted on by korgrocker

“Will those who do evil never learn? They eat up my people like bread and wouldn’t think of praying to the Lord. Terror will grip them, for God is with those who obey him. The wicked frustrate the plans of the oppressed, but the Lord will protect his people.”
Psalm 14:4-6 NLT

Graphic language from David. He sets out the difference between those who acknowledge God and have a relationship with Him, and those who are evil and don’t. A very clear distinction emerges between two groups of people, one group, probably the larger, oppressing the smaller group of people who are relatively and apparently disadvantaged and oppressed, a scenario that has been repeated time and time again throughout history, but with one difference – the smaller group are God’s people. And for that reason the evil people should beware. Their actions are unacceptable to God and when He acts, “terror will grip them” because the Lord will protect His people. 

But David wrote, “They eat up my people like bread and wouldn’t think of praying to the Lord”. What was he getting at here? The Message translation reads, “Don’t they know anything, all these impostors? Don’t they know they can’t get away with this— Treating people like a fast-food meal over which they’re too busy to pray?” (Psalm 14:4). The picture emerges of evil people who contemptuously dismiss others who don’t follow their ways, quickly terminating the social occasion and moving on to spend time instead with their evil peers. A fast food meal is a sad and sorry way to fill an empty stomach, with processed foods often pre-cooked, heated up and served in a box and eaten with fingers. They provide little proper nutrition and too many of them can even be harmful. They are eaten quickly, with little enjoyment or consideration for the God who provided food for life. And so it is with the way unbelievers tend to regard God’s people. A meeting which they terminate quickly, rudely and overbearingly, not considering that the people before them have touched God and are His people. And worse than that, they will perhaps also take steps to introduce difficulties in the plans of God’s people, just out of spite.

A sad tale of two peoples, but for those who have rejected God, the evildoers, their lives will not end well. David wrote that “terror will grip them”, something that will happen either in their current lives or when they stand before God to give an account of their lives. David returned to this theme in another Psalm, where we read, “For the wicked will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land” (Psalm 39:9). Paul adds a few more details in Romans 2:6-8, “He will judge everyone according to what they have done. He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honour and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness”. 

So why do people reject God and carry on in their evil ways? It’s all about the pleasures of sin, and the human tendencies and traits that underpinned an old song, “I’ll do it my way”. People don’t want to live a life during which they perceive they will lose their freedom of choice and independence. An evil person wants to behave in any way he chooses and although bounded by the laws of the society in which he lives, when that society is godless as well, then he’s happy. The sad thing is that there are many people who think they are living a “good” life and, if there is a God, they will never be turned away at the pearly gates.  They claim that it would be an injustice if a loving God would overlook and disregard what they consider to be their goodness. But if they only lifted the Bible for a moment and started to read, they would soon discover the truth and start to feel an ominous terror emerging in their souls. But, as David wrote, they will “never learn“. 

We pilgrims, however, will never give up in our love and care for the evil people around us. We may not perceive the evil within them but God sees all, and He asks us to be as gracious and patient as he is, extending His message of salvation while there is still time. Peter wrote in his second letter, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent” (2 Peter 3:9). God never intended anyone to end up destroyed and consigned to hell. That will be the place He originally intended to be the final home for the devil and his angels, but, think about it, where else can God send those people who, because they are evil, cannot be accepted into Heaven? A sobering thought, and to find themselves in the company of the devil for all eternity is enough to strike terror into anyone. But God will protect His people, as David wrote, and we are so thankful for that. So we continue into the day ahead, with thankful hearts, repenting of our sins, and praising the God whom we love so much.

Yes Lord. We love You. We praise You. We thank You. You are the One who blesses and loves Your people, forever. Amen.

All Have Become Corrupt

Posted on by korgrocker

“Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good! The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!”
Psalm 14:13 NLT

A damning indictment of the human race from David. He equates those who say “There is no God”, or fail to seek Him, with people who lack wisdom and are corrupt. The corrupt, he writes, also fail to do good. He wrote that “The Lord looked down from Heaven” to make this observation, but does the word “entire” include righteous people as well? But then, who of us is really righteous? Imagine the grief that God must have felt, as sin entered the human race and made everyone “corrupt”. We remember Paul’s words in Romans 3:23, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard”. 

The dictionary defines “corrupt” with references to dishonest dealings with money, but it is more than that. Any object can be corrupted by a malign action. Imagine a perfect mirror corrupted by a scratch. Or a sculpture or other work of art desecrated, corrupted by a deliberate act of vandalism. But here’s the thing, imagine a perfect human being, created in the image of God, but then corrupted by sin, the consequence of a devious thought introduced by the devil in a conversation that has had lasting connotations. What a tragedy! 

Corruption started in the Garden with the introduction of sickness and death, moral contamination and spiritual decay. The sin that blighted humanity caused spiritual death – Ephesians 2:1, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins“. In Genesis 6:11-12 we read what Noah’s generation was like, “Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt” and God decided that he would start again with Noah and his family, eliminating the corrupt from the earth. 

And so it would have continued, with every person deemed “corrupt” before spending eternity in hell, because there can be no corruption in Heaven. The Jews were given the Law to help them escape the consequences of corruption, but God’s intention to save His people was rejected by many of them. So God finally provided the ultimate solution to sin’s corruption by sending His Son, Jesus, to save the world. 2 Peter 1:3-4 summed up God’s amazing grace, “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires“. Jesus was and still is the “great and precious promise” allowing all who believe in Him to live a Godly life.

But before we pilgrims start to feel a bit smug because we think we have escaped the consequences of corruption, be aware that such thoughts are sinful and are in danger of relegating us back into the company of the corrupt. We need to keep short accounts with our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus. They paid the ultimate price for our freedom, remember that!

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for coming to this world to save us from the corruption of sin. Amen.