Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

Sometimes we focus too much on theology and theory. It is interesting to try to understand the why’s and the methods by which God works. We understand that a man is saved by grace; that he is saved by faith. But sometimes, some go too far in their assertions of what that means in relation to the life a Christian must live. Their theories state that one cannot overcome sin on a regular continuing basis.
 
Their theories begin to usurp the place of plain statements of scripture and often excuse a careless attitude toward God’s demand for holy living. And, make no mistake, it is a demand.
 
Not to dismiss the passages on grace and faith from which the theology proceeds, let us consider some of the “on the other hand” applications made by the same writers inspired by the same Holy Spirit.
 
Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.  (2 Cor 7:1)
 
Sort of absolute, “all.”  Perfecting is ongoing as is the cleansing—get clean and stay clean.
 
For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world; (Titus 2: 11-12)
 
Grace instructs all to live righteously, godly.
 
Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust from them made shipwreck concerning the faith:  (1Tim 1:19)
 
So, one could go a whole day, or longer with a good conscience! In fact, the grace of God is so powerful in one’s life that he has to “thrust” a good conscience away, shove it aside.
 
For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; (1Thess 4:3) Abstain from every form of evil.  (1Thess 5:22)
 
We understand this means to abstain from evil in every shape it comes in. Again, the Holy Spirit is very absolute.
 
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  (Col 3:5)
 
Kill it. Don’t just reduce it. Kill it. Don’t be satisfied with being better than last week or last year, KILL IT!
 
Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  (Gal 5:21)
 
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  (Rom 6:16)
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof:  neither present your members unto sin [as] instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members [as] instruments of righteousness unto God.  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace.  (Rom 6: 12-14)
 
Grace is the power to choose whom you serve. To sin is to serve sin and to prove oneself not under grace. Sin is a choice to obey ourselves instead of living in Grace.
 
But I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.  (1Cor 9:27)
 
If Paul had to work at it this hard, we know that it is not easy. To buffet is to beat like a boxer. No nonsense about that approach.
 
With all the theorizing about grace and faith, that one cannot achieve sinlessness, even for a short time, we discourage others from doing what the Scriptures clearly command. Perhaps we could even say, grace has become a cloak to cover impenitence.
 
To repent means to STOP what one repents of. That is clearly the import of these passages and a dozen of others.
 
The sermons I have heard that use these verses usually go on to say that we all know we cannot really do this! Really?! Are they not saying to just keep sinning and praying forgiveness that grace may abound (Rom 6:1)?
 
If God said it, he gives us the power to do it. Doing it is a daily effort. These verses were written to people who had been Christians for some time. Therefore, Grace does not magically make us ok despite the sin or cause God to ignore the sin on the basis of Christ. God expects us to overcome our sin.
 
Yes, I struggle; more, perhaps on that later. Overcoming is no easy task and getting old is not a solution or else 66 is still too young. The solution is to effectively use the grace of God to renew our minds and transform ourselves.

Keith Ward

The “Health and Wealth Gospel” has been going on far longer than we think.  Paul talks about people who “suppose that godliness is a way of gain,” in 1 Timothy 6:5.  Others in Philippians 1 seemed to be preaching to cause Paul trouble and make a name for themselves at the same time. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.

            A few years back a certain televangelist promised that if you gave to his little club, your life would suddenly become wonderful.  The more you gave, the better it would get.  About the same time I remember something going around the brotherhood about financial problems being a sign that we were in sin, so don’t think it cannot touch us as well.  In fact, I have heard more than one Christian ask why he deserved such ill treatment from God when he had been so faithful and given up so much.  How is that any different?

            Sometimes unscriptural doctrines affect us far more than we want to believe.  While it is true that God will send judgment on sinners, it is also true that our lives can be effected by the sins of others, and that sometimes things happen just because they happen and for no other reason.  God brings not only rain on the just and the unjust, but hail too.  He never promised a security blanket that would protect us from everything bad.  Suffering and death happen because Adam opened the floodgates of sin, and if for no other reason, that is why we all suffer, including innocent children.  At least in our case as adults, we have participated in that sin sometime in our lives, whether we want to admit it or not.

            Nowadays admitting the awfulness of sin, even “small” ones, is not fashionable.  It’s narrow-minded, bigoted, primitive, ignorant, just plain nuts—take your pick of popular descriptions.  Perhaps that is why we do not comprehend what the Jews returning from Babylon understood.  Most of them were not the idolaters who had been sent away, but their children and grandchildren who had learned the lesson of faithfulness to God.  Yet they said, “After all we’ve done, God has punished us less than our sins deserved,” (Ezra 9:13).  That should be in the mind of every Christian every day of his life.

            So today has not been a particularly good one?  Just think—if God had been just, it would have been even worse.  Micah said, “I will bear the indignation of Jehovah because I have sinned,” 7:7.  He understood that we should be standing in shame with our heads bowed, rather than railing at God for his “unfairness.”  Be happy that God is “unfair.”  None of us would want what we truly deserve.

            Even more wonderful than that is the fact that we have good in our lives at all.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the suffering, that we forget the blessings.  “Count your many blessings” is not only a good song, but a good idea as well.  And we have all those blessings because God loves us, and He loves us in spite of the sin in our lives, not because of the good we do.  We get that all turned around, and that is the reason we can even think thoughts that begin, “And after all I’ve done for you…”  Just exactly what is it that we can do for God?  How can we help Him?  How can we do anything for the most powerful Being, the One who created us? 

            Exactly.  So let’s be thankful, especially this week, for what we get that we don’t deserve—every good and perfect gift comes from God. 
 
Sing praise unto Jehovah, oh ye saints of his, and give thanks to his holy memorial name.  For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime; weeping may tarry for a night, but joy comes in the morning, Psa 30:4,5
 
Dene Ward

The other day I was talking with a friend who loves to cook as much as I do.  We both spoke of how much more fun it is to cook for people who were not picky eaters.  When all that effort sits in the bowls and platters on the table with scarcely a dent made in them because this one prefers this and that one prefers that, it is hard not to be offended.  The very fact that I know so many more picky eaters these days than I did as a child emphasizes how wealthy this society has become.  Hungry people are not picky eaters.

            Real hunger is not a concept we understand.  We eat by the clock instead of by our stomachs, which may be the biggest reason so many of us are overweight.  If we only ate when we were truly hungry, would we eat too much on a regular basis?  A celebratory feast, which used to happen only once or twice or year, has become a weekly, if not daily, occurrence for many.

            And because we do not understand true physical hunger, we cannot understand Jesus’ blessing upon those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  We think being willing to sit through one sermon a week makes us worthy, when that is probably the shallowest application of that beatitude.  We don’t want a spiritual feast.  We want something light, with fewer calories, requiring little effort to eat.  In fact, sometimes we want to be fed too.  Spiritual eating has become too much trouble.

            How many of us skip Bible classes?  How many daydream during the sermons, plan the afternoon ahead, even text message each other?  If more than one adult class is offered on Sunday mornings, how many choose the one that requires more study or deeper thinking?  When extra classes are offered during the week, what percentage of the church actually chooses to attend?  How many of us are actively pursuing our own studies at home, studies beyond that needed for the Sunday morning class?  If we won’t even eat the meals especially prepared for us by others, how in the world will be seek righteousness on our own and how will we ever progress past simple Bible study in satisfying our spiritual hunger?

            Picky eaters suddenly become omnivores when they really need to eat.  For some reason we think we can fast from spiritual food and still survive.  Amazing how we can deceive ourselves so easily. 

            So, what’s on your menu today, or have you even planned one?
 
Oh how love I your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers; for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have kept your precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might observe your word. I have not turned aside from your ordinances; for You have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste! sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Psalm 119:97-104.
 
Dene Ward

I grew up watching my mother make her own pie crust.  It never crossed my mind that might be unusual, that there were convenience products, including ready-made pie crusts, at the grocery store.  So I was thoroughly spoiled as a child.  Homemade pie crust was all I ever had.

            Unfortunately, I married and moved a thousand miles away without getting that recipe and the special instructions that probably went along with it.  I lived closer to my in-laws then and, as luck would have it, they had owned a small town bakery, so I asked them for their recipe.  What I got was a ratio; otherwise I would have wound up with a recipe beginning, “fifty pounds of flour…”  It went like this:  half as much shortening as flour, half as much water as shortening.

            It took a few years, but I finally got the hang of it.  I also discovered the proper ratio of salt (a scant teaspoon per two cups of flour), the advantage of ice water rather than plain tap water (it makes the crust flakier), and the need to handle the dough as little as possible if you want to be able to eat it instead of use it as a Frisbee.

            I still have a little difficulty passing this recipe along.  You see, flour changes according to the humidity.  If it has soaked up moisture from the air, it will take less water.  How do you tell?  By the way it feels.  How does it feel?  Here the problem lies.  When everything is right, it feels right, that’s how you tell.  But how does “right” feel?  It feels like pie crust dough that is “right.”  There is no way to describe it if you haven’t ever put your hands in it before.

            The same thing happens when I am trying to help a person with just about any recipe—biscuits, cookie dough, cake batter, gravy, cream sauce—when it’s right, you know it.  In fact, when teaching someone to make gravy or béchamel, I have to take the spoon from them into my hand and give it a stir so I can feel it in order to really know.  That’s why I never make my pastry crust in a food processor—I can’t feel it! 

            The trick is to do it over and over and over for years.  That’s how you know what “right” is.  Yes, you must have a good recipe, but even a good recipe can turn out wrong if you are not familiar with it.

            Do you want to know how to avoid false doctrine?  It has nothing to do with studying every possible false teaching out there.  You would have no time for it.  What you do is study the real thing over and over and over for years.  Then when the false one comes along it won’t feel quite the same, and you will suddenly catch yourself saying, “Unh, unh.  Something’s not right here.”  Because you are so familiar with what “right” is, you will have far less trouble seeing what “wrong” is.

            Learning the facts may seem formalistic.  It may seem like our religion is lacking some “heart.”  Don’t be so quick to judge.  Some of the people most likely to be taken captive by false prophets are those who love the whir and excitement of “food processor” religion.  “Wow!  Look at it go.  Look how fast it comes together.  This must surely be the real thing.”  It is certainly more rousing than watching someone cut a cup of shortening into 2 cups of flour with a handheld pastry blender, up and down, over and over, for several tedious minutes.  But that food processor religion is more likely to be tough and overworked or wet and hard to handle, while the handmade religion will separate into flaky layers of depth, and rival the filling itself for the starring role. 

            There is no short cut for this kind of experience.  If it takes years of handling pastry crust to reach this level of comfortable, secure familiarity, God’s word certainly won’t be any easier, but what should we expect?  God didn’t write pulp fiction.
 
And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment; so that you may distinguish the things that differ; that you may be sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God, Phil 1:9-11.
 
Dene Ward

We just returned from a birthday party—a double birthday party, which meant twice as many guests, twice as many cakes, and twice as many gifts.  It also meant twice as much time unwrapping the gifts. 

That last part did not bother Silas at all, but it seemed to bother Judah a little.  He started playing with one gift and then was handed yet another to unwrap.  So he had to stop playing and unwrap.  Once it was done, he started playing again, sometimes even went back to the first one he had unwrapped, but then he would be handed another.  You could almost see his little brain forming the thought, “There is such a thing as too many gifts.” 

The next morning even Silas had trouble with the number of gifts.  I sat and watched him go from one to the other, back and forth.  I wondered if he wasn’t finally realizing, you can only play with one toy at a time.

Have you ever read Proverbs 31 then slumped your shoulders in defeat and thought, “I can’t possibly be that woman?”  Take heart.  God does not expect you to have every gift this woman has, nor to play with them all at once.  Just think for a minute:  what does he tell those Corinthians in chapter 12?  Some of you have this gift; some of you have that one.  Some of you have yet another.  Don’t try to be what you are not—just use what I give you the best you can (the Ward version).

Cooking I can handle, most of the time.  Bookkeeping I have down pat.  But the only things I can do with a needle and thread are sew on a button, take up a hem, and mend a seam.  I can’t darn, quilt, crochet or knit.  I have made clothes and worn them, but I consigned them to an early death as soon as I had replacements.  I have finally learned to master the pressure canner instead of cringing in fear, but I couldn’t decorate one wall much less a whole house—I have no eye for it.

Do you see the point?  The Proverbs 31 woman is the ideal.  God lists it all, and it gives us some sense of duties in the home.  What it doesn’t do is command us to be some sort of Jill-of-all-Trades Renaissance Woman.  It just says, this is where the center and purpose of your life and everything you accomplish in it must be—your family.  Be the best cook or the best seamstress or the best gardener or the best organizer or the best comforter or the best home businesswoman—or maybe two or three of those--whatever present God has given you to unwrap.  Do that, and you have “done what you could.”
 
For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness, Rom 12:4-8.
 
Dene Ward

Many years ago a young doctor decided to try contact lenses on my nanophthalmic, hyperopic/aphakic, corrugated, football-shaped eyeballs.  Everyone told him he was crazy, that it was impossible.  Somehow, amid all the discouraging words, he managed to make it work.  For the first time in my life I could see more than the fish-eyed tunnel in front of me. 

            These were the original hard contact lenses.  He had sat me down and told me that the only way I could possibly wear them in my “special” eyes was to want to wear them.  I did not realize till much later how wise he had been.  They were incredibly uncomfortable, especially on my deformed eyeballs, but I saw so much more that I knew I would never give them up regardless the pain.

            Seven years later rigid gas-permeable lenses became available through overseas channels.  They were a tiny bit more comfortable, but more important, they kept my eyes healthier.  I wore those for thirty-five years.  Finally a type of soft lens has been developed that I can actually wear with no ill-effects.  Not only that, but they cause no strange visual effects either—no starbursts, no fish-eyes, no distortions at all.  It seems ironic that they have come now when my vision is failing and when only one eye can tolerate wearing one, but I am not complaining.

            I have had to learn different methods of insertion, removal, and overnight care.  This thing is so much more comfortable that sometimes I am not certain it is in.  The many surgeries I have had have changed me from hyperopic to myopic, and my vision, even with the lens, is not perfect.  That is why I did not realize for about an hour that I did not have the lens in my eye the other morning. 

            At first, when the usual blur did not clear up right away, I thought it was just one of those days when I was not going to see well.  They happen often enough.  Finally I put my finger to my eyeball and touched only eyeball—I knew the lens had not made it into my eye.  So where was it?

            I ran back to the bathroom, got on my hands and knees and felt across the floor from the door to the vanity cabinet, the only way I could possibly find it down there.  No lens.  At least I knew I wasn’t going to step on it.  So I stood up and I felt across the entire vanity countertop.  No lens. 

            Finally I took the hand towel off the rack.  I always open the lens case over a towel because of the fluid in it.  I felt one side of the towel and then turned it over.  Still no lens, but when I picked up the towel again, there was the lens under it, finally having fallen off the towel with a tiny little “clink.” It was as solid as one of my old hard lenses.  That nice soft lens material had dried up even in the humid bathroom air.

            I soaked it in saline a couple of hours and it came back to life.  Finally I could see again, at least as well as I ever do these days.

            I came across a passage the other day. The light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and calamity shall be ready at his side. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off. His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street, Job 18:5, 12, 18, and 19.

            Trying to live your life without Christ will dry you up.  I do not understand how people who do not have the hope He offers can handle life’s problems, and especially how they can handle dying.  They have nothing to live for, and certainly nothing to die for.

            We have said it over and over.  The grace of God not only gives you salvation, it helps you overcome temptation, bear tragedies, and face death.  If I turn into a dried up, bitter old woman, it is because somewhere along the line I refused to make use of that grace. 

            I wince, thinking about the pain I would have felt if I had tried to put that desiccated contact lens into my eye.  We sometimes go about with pain that we needn’t bear.  A good long soak in the grace and goodness of God makes it possible to live this life to the fullest and look forward to the one to come.
 
Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water, John 7:37,38.
 
Dene Ward
 

If you have been with me awhile, you know I have been teaching a Psalms class with lessons I compiled after a long, hard summer of study.  {You can read snippets from those lessons in the category “Psalms” on the right sidebar.}  I am still reading books about the Psalms and the last couple have brought a new idea my way that I would like to share.
 
           Of course, the early church, the apostolic church, as scholars often call the first century Christians, sang the Psalms.  The practice came from the Jewish heritage of the first congregations of Christians in Judea.  In fact, one of the books I read said this:  “…in the English-speaking world use of the psalms has often languished as hymns and worship songs with catchy tunes have tended to displace the psalms…This trend would have appalled the apostolic church…one may hope this modern failure to appreciate the psalms…to be a blip,” Gordon J. Wenham, The Psalms as Torah.  I find myself agreeing with Mr. Wenham.

 But here is something I had not realized:  The Psalms were often prayed by the early church and that practice lasted for centuries.  Mr. Wenham devotes a whole chapter to the affect that praying the Psalms would have on us if we did it.  Try this today.  Read the following verses from various psalms out loud.  All right, wait until you are alone if you want to, but don’t forget to do it.

I said, “I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle, so long as the wicked are in my presence,”  Ps 39:1
I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High, Ps 9:1-2.

I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD! Ps 116:18-19.

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. — Selah.  Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. — Selah Ps 32:5-7.

  I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me. ​A perverse heart shall be far from me; I will know nothing of evil. Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure. I will look with favor on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; he who walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me. No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes, Ps 101:2-7.

That should be enough for you to get the point.  Many of the psalms are written in first person.  When you pray it, you are praying for the same things the psalmist prayed for, and allowing the psalmist’s attitude to become your own.  You cannot pray these things without it affecting how you live—unless you are a hypocrite. 

But shouldn’t we read all scripture that way?  Shouldn’t we read the epistles in such a way that we are praying to be what we are told to be, to speak as we are told to speak, to live as we are told to live?  Shouldn’t every recitation of a memory verse be a phrase we are willing to live by?  Yet how often do we quote what we have learned by rote and then continue to live as we always have, never taking to heart the words that have just left our lips?

Maybe if you start with these few verses from the Psalms today you can train yourself to pray the prayers of the saints gone by instead of the selfish carnal prayers we usually pray—for physical blessings and physical convenience and physical health--and maybe, just maybe, we can start to be the people we talk about being every time we read our Bibles.
 
Dene Ward

Has life left you a few mementos?  For me it’s silicone lenses, a capsular tension ring, a fifty micron ophthalmic shunt, a metal anchor in each heel, plus the usual stretch marks, wrinkles, gray hairs, numerous surgical scars, and quite a few missing parts.  For Keith it’s a plastic eye socket, five bullet wound scars, a few wrinkles (very few, dear), and a loss of hair.  Our battle scars make our lives sound far more interesting than they actually are.
 
           We live in a culture that wants to erase those marks of life at any cost.  I still don’t understand why anyone would want to get rid of laugh lines.  Does she want people to think she has lived a miserable life?  I remember a couple of little boys who were thrilled to death whenever they had a “booboo” to display.  I suppose it all depends on how we got those “booboos.”  I am never quick to show off a bruise I got for being downright stupid.

            Paul was proud to mention the scars he earned for the Lord, Henceforth, let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus, Gal 6:17.

            What about spiritual battle scars?  If we are fighting “the good fight,” we ought to have quite a few.  I wonder, though, if we have fallen into the trap of our culture.  No scar is a good one because no fight is a good fight.  Love everyone and accept everything they do.  We might as well take the scissors to our Bibles.

            If I don’t have any spiritual scars, why not?  Is it because I run from the fight, too ignorant of the Sword to do battle? Am I too concerned with the opinion of my neighbors to stand up for something unpopular?  Is it because I give into temptation too easily?  Satan only tempts those he has not caught.  Maybe I am just a POW too cowardly to try to escape.

            On the last day, we had better have a few battle scars to show the Lord.  We enlisted in an army that fights all day every day.  Deserters will not receive the reward.
 
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way,  but not crushed;  perplexed,  but not driven to despair; persecuted,  but not forsaken;  struck down,  but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,  so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh, 2 Cor 4:7-11.
 
Dene Ward

I have to admit it—I seldom look at Bible dictionaries.  They scare me a little.  I cannot read a word of Hebrew or Greek so how can I check out what these guys are saying?  At some point I just have to trust them.  That’s why I love it when the Bible itself tells us what a word means.  Sometimes you have to read carefully or you will miss it, usually because you read past it all your life and can’t seem to stop that bad habit.  At least that’s my problem.  You have to pay attention when you read God’s Word, like every time you read it is the first time.
 
           And by doing just that I found a new, obvious definition.  Read Ezekiel with me.

            If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul, Ezek 3:18-21.

            Did you catch it?  God tells Ezekiel exactly what a righteous man is—someone who warns (and delivers his soul) or someone who listens to the warning and repents.  But what about the “righteous man” who commits injustice, you ask?  He has “turned from his righteousness” and “none of his righteous deeds are remembered,” which means he is no longer righteous.  The only two righteous people in that whole paragraph are the one who warns and the one who repents.

            Notice, God says nothing about the way he is warned.  If you have not read the book of Ezekiel you need to.  Ezekiel preached hard sermons.  He preached plain sermons.  Yet God still demanded that those people repent.  Getting their feelings hurt did not make them “righteous.”  Getting angry about the way they were spoken to did not make them “righteous.”  The only thing
that made them “righteous” was heeding the warning and repenting. 

            Think about that Syrophenician mother who came asking Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter.  At first Jesus ignored her.   Then he insulted her.  If she had left with her feelings hurt, her daughter would never have been healed.  She understood that something was more important than her feelings.  And Jesus called that attitude “faith.”  Ah!  Another Bible definition.

            When I hear the warning, if I want to be counted righteous, I must stop blaming others and recognize my responsibility to listen and act.  The failures of others will not save me.
 
Take heed how you hear…Luke 18:8.
 
Dene Ward

“It’s just for fun,” I keep hearing.  “I know it doesn’t mean anything.” 

            If it doesn’t mean anything, why am I wasting my time on it?  And since when does God ever countenance sin “just for fun?”

            Astrology, palm reading, psychics, mediums, “ghost whisperers”—God condemns every one of these things and all their cousins in His word.

            There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this, Deut 18:10-14.  “God has not allowed you to do this.”  Isn’t that plain enough?  And if it isn’t, do you really want to be lumped in with people who sacrifice their children?

            “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers (people who claim to consult the dead}; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God, Lev 19:31.  It makes you unclean, unfit to serve God.

            And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? Isa 8:19.  It doesn’t even make sense, God tells us. 

            But it does make sense to Satan.  If he can get you to listen to anyone besides God, he has made his first inroad into your heart.  And lest anyone say, “These are all Old Testament passages,” let’s remind him of Gal 5:20 where these things are lumped under the heading of sorcery and labelled “a work of the flesh.”

            And no, these condemnations are not only to those who actually practice these things as Ezekiel makes crystal clear:  And they shall bear their punishment—the punishment of the [false] prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike--Ezek 14:10.  You can’t play around with this stuff and not be considered guilty, even if all you do is ask them a question.  Even brand new Christians understood that in Acts 19:18-20, and at great financial loss burned their books of divination.  It was obvious to them, babes that they were, that these things were an abomination to God.

            So please, stop playing with fire.  Stop making excuses.  Don’t let yourself be so fascinated that you lose all sense of right and wrong.  God will not tolerate a little playing around.  To Him it is sin, plain and simple.
 
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death, Rev 21:8.
 
Dene Ward