Bible

“My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother” – Proverbs 6:20

“Keep” in the Old Testament often means to guard, protect, or preserve. When you “keep” God’s Word, you are guarding it, or protecting it. But what does that mean exactly?

Consider this word picture:

In the Middle Ages, particularly the 10th through the 12th centuries, castles became very important places in warfare. They were designed to be impregnable fortresses against any attack. There were many elaborate designs of castles. They all included some basic elements though. The first line of defense was the outer wall, which was several feet thick (sometime more than 20 feet). There were tall towers along the walls and at the corners, through which archers would attack the enemy. There was often a large moat and elaborate drawbridge. The gates, which were the weakest part of the who complex, were modified with many defenses and traps in order to compensate. There were often several series of inner walls, all with their own towers and gates. A castle was a very difficult place to besiege successfully.

The central part of castle, the innermost structure, is known as the keep. It was essentially the absolute last line of defense, should the enemy break through the other series of walls. These keeps were sometimes nothing more than a hall surrounded by very strong walls. With the developement of battering rams, keeps went from a box-like construction to a cirucular one, as curved walls are harder to break through with a battering ram. Such keeps were also not just used for defence but for actual living accommodation for the royal family, storing armoury and often to guard the main well.

Our heart, then, is the keep of our souls. It is the central, the innermost part of our being. “Keep thy heart with all dilligence, for out of it are the issues of life“ (Proverbs 4:23). It is where you are truly yourself. It is where you store those things that are precious to your memory. Your heart can either be your last and best line of defence, or your weak link. It all depends on what you put in your keep. If you “keep” God’s Word in your heart, if you defend it and protect it inside your heart, God can defend your heart and life from all evil.

So what are you keeping and protecting God’s Word from in your heart? From it slipping from you memory, from it being disobeyed and neglected. You must protect it from the apathy and sinfulness of your flesh, which wars against you every day. When your outer walls are breached, and even your inner walls of spiritual protection crumble, if God’s Word is in the keep of your heart, you have a Sword which cannot be stopped. You have the very power of God to fight for you. Scripture memory and mediation are not just cool ideas that we’ve just recently come up with. They are commandments from God Almighty (look it up if you don’t believe me). More than that, they are powerful tools, weapons, and guides. A Christian who is intimately familiar with his Bible is a force to be reckoned with. The Word of God is your final, and yet your first, line of defense.

1 Kings 18:30-33, “And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name: And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD…”

Prior to Elijah calling down fire from heaven on Mt. Carmel, the idolatrous priests had tried and failed to get Baal to do anything for them at all, and now it was Elijah’s turn. It was time for God to show Himself strong through Elijah in a Bible story that most of us know very well. But before Elijah could see God do the miraculous and incredible feat He was about to do, before he could even place the sacrifice on the altar, he had to prepare an altar. There were obviously places of idol sacrifice already in existence, for the prophets of Baal didn’t need to make or prepare one. However, God is not pleased in just any kind of sacrifice, or just any kind of worship. He has certain requirements that must be met. Before Elijah did anything, he repaired a long-forgotten altar of the LORD in the exact way that God had commanded centuries before.

What a sad testimony that Israel had forgotten God for so long that His altars were forgotten and broken down. Jehovah God – Who had delivered them from Egypt, provided for them in the wilderness, gave them miraculous victories after crossing the Jordan, delivered them over and over and over again during the time of the judges, and so much more – had been forgotten and neglected by the nation as a whole.

In the course of life, we as believers can quickly forget about God as well. We get too busy to pray, too busy to get alone with God and His Word, too busy to go to church, or too busy to share the glorious gospel with a dying sinner. We allow so many other things to become as important, and eventually more important, than God. God will not share the limelight with anything or anyone. Isaiah 45:5, “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.” There is nothing and no one that can even come close to being compared to Him, for He is infinitely higher than everything. He is the uncreated Creator, the unchanging Master, the self-existent, self-sufficient, and all-powerful God of Heaven and earth.

If our priorities place God anywhere but Exalted, Almighty, High and Lofty #1, we have made Him into something He is not. When we view Him as something He is not, we are forming an idol in our hearts. An idol is man-made. An idol is man-dependant. The problem with so many Christians today is that they have a small god that they call the True God. They turn to human strength for every problem, talk only of empty, temporal things, and think on and spend vast amounts of time one every trivial thing under the sun, but they come to church Sunday morning and do their ”Christian duty.” God is tired of Sunday morning Christians. He wants devoted, loving laborers for His harvest. He wants you all day every day of the week, not just a few hours a week in church.

We must consistently humble ourselves before the great and mighty Ruler of the Universe, yielding ourselves to Him. We must seek His face and His power every single day. In order to do this we may have to rebuild some aspects of our personal worship that have been neglected and broken down. We will have to carve out time out of our schedules to find a quiet place to saturate ourselves in the Word. We will have to make a specific time for prayer. We will have to get back into church every time we possibly can (by the way, the first-century church met every day. I think we can stand to meet 3 times between 2 days in the 21st century). We will have to rely on God’s power to talk to friends and loved ones about Christ. It will require a personal sacrifice to renew God’s blessing and power in our lives; but in light of God’s sacrifice for us, the life of His own precious Son, nothing we could do for Him can be considered too great a sacrifice.

The following 4 points are not original to me. They were preached by Curtis Hutson in a message entitle “Building and Battling.” Dr. Hutson was preaching out of Luke 14:26-32 about a man who is going to build and battle for God. This post will focus on his thoughts on verse 27, “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”

His prefacing thought was that you can commit suicide a lot of ways, but you cannot crucify yourself (when you drive one nail in to one hand, how do you get the other hand nailed?). The Christian, then, is not obligated to re-crucify himself every day. He is already crucified with Christ, so he just needs to reckon it so.

1. A crucified man looks only in one direction. He can’t look in any other direction. It is impossible for him to look back. Concentration and focus are crucial for us to learn. Paul said, “This one thing I do…” God wants us to focus on His will and His plan and His desires. Nothing matters but what God has called you to do, so focus on it. Don’t keep trying to look back on what could have been or might have been.

2. A crucified man holds on to nothing. His hands are pierced by the nails, he can’t hold on to anything. He turns loose of everything for God. Stop holding on to things you think will bring you security, and trust God. It’s a little thing called faith. You can trust God, but do you?

3. A crucified man has no further plans of his own. He has absolutely no plans beyond the cross. Give God the absolute and singular right to make the plans for your life. Let God lead you, and you will not be sorry. He knows what’s best for you.

4. A crucified is not coming back. That’s the end of him. You need to come to a place of surrender where you leave yourself behind permanently, and never come back for you ways, your plans, your desires, and your ambitions. George Mueller was once asked, “What’s the secret to your spiritual success?” He responded, “There was a day when George Mueller died.” Surrender your claim to everything you have. It’s not your car, it’s God’s car. They’re not your friends, they’re God’s friends. It’s not your money, it’s God’s money. Any time you want to get back in the flesh, remember that you can’t because you’re already dead!

There’s no telling what God can do with a crucified man. But you have to get serious about your surrender, and reckon yourself truly crucified.

If you want to hear the entire message, go to http://oldpathsermons.com/allspeakers.php?spid=31 and look for “Building and Battling.”

To read part 1 of this post, click here!

While we must be aware that our actions have consequences, is living a good life just to avoid bad consequences and gain good ones really the way God intended the Christian life to be lived? Does Christ really want us to compel people to come to Him on the basis of avoiding the eternal negative consequence and gaining the eternal positive?

Consider the story of the Exodus. Pharaoh refused to let the people of Israel go time after time after time. Finally, after the hail, Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron in urgently. Now that he was really feeling the consequences, he made a desperate and emotional plea (Exodus 9:27-28). For just a moment, Pharaoh seems to be truly repentant. This hardened heathen king seems to finally have gotten the point and decided to yield to God. But you know the rest of the story… “And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart…” (Exodus 9:34).

But wait a minute, before you’re too hasty to judge Pharaoh, consider the story of your life now. How many times do we do exactly what Pharaoh did? We live for ourselves, God brings chastening against us, and we try to rationalize our way out of the consequences. Eventually when the heat gets too much for us, we run to God and cry out for mercy and help.

Our actions reveal our heart in the matter. All we’ve done is live focused on consequences. Our weak flesh will always find a way to rationalize its way around consequences and will tempt us with unbiblical solutions to the problems that God brings our way. If we’re living focused primarily on the repercussions, we’ve missed the boat.

Truth, then, is the to be the basis for our life – not consequences. The truth about who we are, Who God is, and what our relationship with Him is.

1. The truth about who we are. As Romans 6 tells us, we share in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. We are dead to the world and everything it has to offer. We are dead to the demands of our flesh and the wiles of the devil. We are free, free, free from this world of sin! We are raised to new life, given a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the Holy Spirit of God takes up permanent residence in us (1 Corinthians 6:19). We can live every single day in a way that pleases God.

2. The truth about who God is. God is so many things to the believer. He is our Creator, Redeemer, Refuge, Father, Savior, Master, Friend, Comfort, Anchor, Hope, Peace, Truth, Life, Light, Substance, etc., etc. But we must remember that He is  our authority. As a Father, He gave us life, and He protects us; but we must obey and love Him and seek to do things that please Him. As Creator, He made us. He does not need us. We are dependent on Him, and need turn continuously to Him for refueling and repair, just as a car needs a mechanic. As Master He gives us commands, and we must obey.

3. The truth about our relationship with Him. The Christian life is not a list of do’s and don’t’s. It isn’t something you work up within yourself. It isn’t the power of positive thinking as the world knows it. It is not complicated or difficult. God designed it to be as simple and easy as salvation. The fruitful and abundant Christian life that all of us crave is simply an outpouring of our relationship with Him.The word “abound” means to overflow. If you fill up a glass of water to the brim and keep filling it up, the water will naturally flow over the sides. The glass is now abounding with water. That’s the Christian life. Get so filled up with God that He just naturally flows out of your life. But as with any relationship, communication is the central key. You need to talk to God (it’s called prayer!), and you need to let God talk to you through His Word. You can have a practical, personal walk with God if you just keep the lines of communication open.

Galatians 2:20 sums up the Christian life pretty well: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Truth. Without it, we have no basis on which to discern anything. The truth is that Christ died to have a relationship with you, not just to send you to heaven. What are you doing with His priceless gift?

Consequences.

Everyone has experienced them. Everyone has been threatened with them. Everyone threatens others with them. They can be constructive or destructive. No one wants bad ones. Good ones can be used as an incentive for further good behavior. However, few people consider them before acting. Fewer people want to take responsibility when they turn out to be bad.

Newton’s 3rd Law of Physics tells us that for every action, there is an equal yet opposite reaction. The dictionary defines consequences as the effects, results, or outcomes of something occurring earlier. Most importantly, Scripture says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Galatians 6:7) So why is it that we so often live without regard to the consequences of our actions? We all want good consequences for the smallest grain of good that we do, but when we mess up, we fuss and fight over the just desserts of our actions. Why? A. W. Tozer put it this way in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, “Because man is born a rebel, he is unaware that he is one. His constant assertion of self, as far as he thinks of it all, appears to him a perfectly normal thing… Sin has many manifestations but its essence is one. A moral being, created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from that elevated position declares, ‘I AM.’ ”

Part of maturity is the willingness to take responsibility for one’s actions, and the consequences of said actions. The price for a DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) offence in New Mexico is considerable. One time, and you go to jail and get a whopping fine. Why, then, are there still so many drunk drivers on the road? With all the sorrow and death that drunk drivers have left in their wake, with the steep penalty, why do so many still do it? Mostly because they think, “It won’t happen to me. I won’t get caught. Nobody will get hurt.”

But there are always consequences, and the Bible shows us two sobering realities about the consequences of bad actions.

1. The fact of judgment. This is a fearful fact for those that do not know Christ as Savior. For those trusting in anything else but Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and glorious resurrection, eternity is not a happy future. For at the Great White Throne judgment, God will judge the lost according to their works, then will cast them forever into the literal Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:11-15). Many Christians will look at this and think that at the end of their life, God will just smile and say “Well done,” give them a pat on the back, and applaud them for having made it to the pearly gates. However, we too will will stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and give an account of what we have done in this life for Christ. Our works will be tried by fire, and what counts for Christ will be gold, silver, and precious stone (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). All else will be wood, hay, and stubble. Oh you will still be saved, and your future in heaven with Christ is secure, but you will have no rewards – no crowns to lay at Jesus’ feet. Be sure, Christian, there is a day of reckoning.

2. Somebody always gets hurt. Sin first and foremost hurts the sinner. Proverbs 5:22 says, “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.” You cannot sin without great personal detriment to yourself. When you sin, your relationship and communication with God is destroyed (Isaiah 59:1, 2; Psalm 68:18). Your mind and conscience are corrupted (1 Timothy 4:2). And God does say you will reap what you sow (by the way, you always reap more than you sow). And on and on the list could go. But not only does sin hurt the sinner, it affects people around you. “…for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me” (Exodus 20:5). That’s a pretty stiff consequence to push on your great grandchildren. Your sin and mine will have an effect on others around us. God declares it in His Word, so you better bank on it.

Considering the tremendous consequences of our actions would keep us from a lot of trouble. Before you take that first little tiny step, consider where your choice will lead you. Don’t just think about the here and now. Stop and think. Think about the pain in your spouse’s eyes, or the disappointment on your parents’ faces, or the cost it will bring to you personally.

There are both good and bad consequences for our actions. Mature Christians must learn to think about those consequences, and take responsibility for them, both good and bad.

To read part 2, click here!

Psalm 103:7 says, “He [the LORD] made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” Moses was a man who walked with God, and knew Him personally. He knew God’s “ways.” That is, His manner of being and moral character. Moses knew the LORD personally. Yet, we see in this short verse that in contrast to one man who had a real, intimate walk with God, there were a couple million people who were only familiar with the things that God had done. They knew all about the Red Sea. They knew all about the Passover. They were very familiar with the water out of the rock, the impossible victories over heathen kings, the daily manna from heaven. But something was missing….

Moses knew Who God was (and is). Israel, by and large, knew what God had done for them.

Sadly, those who will seek God and know Him personally will always be in the minority. Such is the case in many of our churches today. Ask Average Joe Christian Who God is, and you will likely hear things like, “He’s the one that saved me. He’s the one that wrote the Bible. He’s the one that helps me when I’m in a bad way.” But God is so much more!

God is more than just the sum of all His actions! He is more than the Holy Savior Who died upon the cross for your sins and for mine, was buried, and three days later arose victorious over the grave! (Though I praise God every day that He did that for a bag of dirt like me!) He went to Calvary to atone for my sins so that I could have a relationship with Him! He is more than the God Who inspired holy men of old to pen the very Word of God, though that is more incredible than words can describe! He gave His Word so that finite, limited, sinful men, could know the infinite, unlimited, Holy One!

Isn’t it about time that we stop seeking the God-who-does-stuff-for-us and linger in the presence of the Almighty. The LORD of all heaven and earth, the God Who created the entire universe by speaking, the Lord and Savior of my soul wants to have a deep, personal relationship with me and with you! If this fact alone does not compel you to beg for God’s mercy and seek His face anew and afresh, I don’t know what will. Stop looking for the God you want, and come to know and obey the God Who is.