Living in a Fallen World
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)
THE ESSENCE OF ALL SIN IS HAVING OUR OWN WAY in opposition to the will of God. When God made man, it was the capstone of everything God had made, and He said that all He had made was very good. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)
INSTEAD OF MAKING MEN AS ROBOTS, He gave us a will that we can exercise at our pleasure. We can comply with His will, or we can live in defiance of His will. Like Satan, Adam and Eve chose to exercise their will against God and this plunged the human race into a contest of “us against God.”
GOD WARNED ADAM AND EVE: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:17) Eve was deceived by Satan and sinned. Adam sinned with his eyes wide open and identified with Eve in her sin. Through their joint sin, we inherited a sin nature and from that we practice sin. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Romans 5:12)
BEFORE WE DISCUSS ANY KIND OF SIN, we need to get to the root of all sin: God said: “Don’t do it!” Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. (1John 3:4)
WE HUMAN BEINGS TEND TO THINK: “Your sin is worse than my sin.” “Your dirt is dirtier than my dirt.” After Adam and Eve fell and the exploding population rejected God’s right to rule over them, they began to be ugly and mean toward one another. To limit that damage, God encouraged human government. Even that didn’t stop it. God told Noah to build a boat and sent a world-wide flood that destroyed everyone outside the floating ark. Just eight people survived the flood. Back to the drawing board.
THAT RESTARTED THE HUMAN RACE ON A BETTER FOOTING WITH GOD. But the new start didn’t last long. The population grew quickly, and God had to confuse the language the people were speaking, and they couldn’t understand one another. That’s where we got all the different languages that are spoken today.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So, the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore, is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:7-9)
AFTER A WHILE GOD HAD TO DESTROY SODOM AND GOMORRAH and after them would come Assyria and Babylon, and the Greeks and the Romans and all of them would have to be subdued.
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. (Isaiah 13:19) Sodom and Gomorrah became the standard by which God instructed other nations marked for destruction.
PETER AND JUDE ALSO WROTE ABOUT GOD'S DESTRUCTION OF WICKEDNESS: For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; (2Peter 2:4-6)
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)
ONE DAY GOD WENT O A MAN NAMED ABRAHAM, in modern-day Iraq, and said to him, I want you to leave here and go to a place I will show you. You will be the father of a great multitude of people. We are going to start a new nation and I am going to give them my laws and they will be a testimony to the rest of the world. Its’ going to be a long-term plan.
THE PEOPLE THERE ARE NOT QUITE WICKED ENOUGH FOR ME TO TAKE THEIR LAND, houses, wells, and vineyards and give them to you. Their wickedness is not yet full. So, your descendants will be in another country for four hundred years and will come back here and possess this land as their permanent dwelling place.
And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Genesis 15:15-16)
IT WAS A PRETTY TOUGH JOB LIVING AMONG PEOPLE WHO DID NOT KNOW GOD. God’s people were a misfit and a “hindrance to progress” everywhere they lived. But, God had his hand on them. God had to chasten them by the Assyrians (the 10 tribes in the north) and by Babylon (the two tribes of Judah in the south).
IN A FEW HUNDRED YEARS, GOD SENT HIS OWN SON TO THIS NEW NATION, called: Israel. He was born to die as the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the anti-Christ), whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Rev 13:8) God’s plan was for Him to die on a cross in Jerusalem for the sins of the world; your sins and my sins. Please note that the worshippers of the anti-Christ are not written in the book of life of the Lamb. The Lamb was slain (in the mind of God) from the very beginning, from the foundation of the world.
IN FORTY YEARS, GOD HAD TO DESTROY JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE by the hand of the Romans and they remained dispersed throughout the world for almost 2,000 years. But they are back in the land as of 1948 and they remain in their land. If you want to read more about this, look at this link, http://www.biblewalking.com/whose-is-the-land.html . Read this booklet by David Hocking. It took me five years to find him and get his permission to post it.
THE TEMPLE WILL BE REBUILT BUT, IN A FEW YEARS, will be destroyed again and the coming anti-Christ will break his covenant with them and they will be hunted down like wild dogs. But during that time a great number of Jews will be saved. At the end of the seven years of Great Tribulation, Jesus will return from Heaven with his saints and will rule the world from Jerusalem on the throne of David. During that time, Ezekiel’s Temple will be built and used during the thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth.
A HUGE POPULATION WILL BE BORN DURING THAT THOUSAND-YEAR PERIOD with Christ on throne in Jerusalem. But, even with Christ on the throne in Jerusalem, the new-born population of the earth will grow wicked and those who remain against Him will be destroyed.
AT THE END OF THAT TIME THERE WILL BE A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH “wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. (2Peter 3:12-14)
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1-2)
ARE YOU HAVING A HARD TIME LIVING IN A FALLEN WORLD? Hang in there and walk with God. He wants to use you as a testimony to others. We may be saddened and overwhelmed by the wickedness coming on the earth. But, God is not overwhelmed. He is in charge and will always be in charge. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.. (2Timothy 2:12-13) So, if you have peeked at the last page of the book, you know that we win, Satan loses, and the best times are yet ahead. (Is this too much for one devotional? Save it and read it again.)
ON A DIFFERENT TONE, BACK ON PLANET EARTH, I’m sure you noticed the cat fight going on in our nation’s capital over our getting another Supreme Court justice. It’s over. I tried to keep up with it. I was impressed by the speech of Susan Collins. If you want to read it in its entirety, this link is supposed to take you to it. It’s a classic speech that was well-researched and delivered in sincerity. It surprised everyone. I want to keep it where I can read it several times during the coming year. It will go down in history as one of the greatest speeches ever made in the U.S. Senate.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/why-susan-collins-voting-brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court/572341/ Ω
Read Through the Bible in a Year
OCTOBER 8, 2018 – MONDAY
A.M. Isaiah 39-40 P.M. Philippians 4
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)
Memory Verse This Month:
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)
Song for Today:
This World is Not My Home (2:11) (Calvary Mem. Church)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSVqU82Ge5M
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