The Lords Controversies
Dec 11
Now, if God has a controversy with His own people, what of other nations? God will seek reconciliation with His own backslidden people, but the God-despising nations of the world face utter destruction. “A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the LORD hath a controversy with the nations, He will plead with all flesh; He will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the LORD. . . . And the slain of the LORD shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other” (Jeremiah 25:31,33).
When God Says, “Leave Him Alone”
May 13
Our God is long-suffering and full of mercy, but there is a line which must not be crossed. It is dangerous to presume that God will always continue to forgive; He can become a "consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29). The leaders of Ephraim (a collective term for the ten northern tribes of Israel) had passed this point of no return. They had become completely infatuated with the pantheistic polytheism of the nations, being "joined" to their symbolic models of natural forces and all the immoral practices which accompanied such nature worship. The word for "joined" means "fascinated by." They had been brought so deeply under the occult powers behind these nature-god idols as to be irrevocably committed to them, so that it would be a waste of time and tears to try to reclaim them now.
Spiritual vs. Carnal Thanksgiving
Feb 25
"By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name." (Hebrews 13:15) Unique to the United States is the national holiday Thanksgiving. We are encouraged to recognize the bounty and wonder of our land, and express gratitude in some formal way. In many homes, however, thanks have become a vague expression of happiness for prosperity rather than a "sacrifice of praise" to our El Shaddai. This is the natural man's character and is temporal, oft times self-centered. Unique the the Christian Church however, we are told to, "...cry out with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of your wonderful works." Psalm 26:7 Not only by our outward expression of voice to offer thanks, but with song too. "I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving." Psalm 69:30 When we come before our God of grace to offer our thanks to Him, we remember that we are spiritually approaching the very One who sustains us in the day to day and for eternity through the death, resurrection and promise of salvation wrought by God the Son Himself, Jesus Christ.
Raining cats…
Feb 25
"The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust for a day of judgment, to be punished, and especially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise dominion. They are darers, self-pleasing; not trembling at glories, speaking evil." II Peter 2:9-10 MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- A cat's last-second grasp of a tree branch is credited with saving its life just before it ended a 17-story fall from an apartment west of Toronto. Building superintendent Daniel Ambaye told the Toronto Sun he found the cat in a messy apartment its owners had abandoned in Mississauga. He spotted the black and white cat in a bedroom as he surveyed the mess, and said he backed away so as not to frighten it.
Juliek – the last sonnet of a dying violinist
Feb 15
“For a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” John 4:23 In the book Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel describes a moment in the concentration camp frozen in his memory. In the darkened corner of room, where the dead were slumped beside the living, his friend Juliek sat with his violin. On the brink of his own grave, he played notes pure and heavy to an audience of dead and dying men. Wiesel recalls, "[I]t was as though Juliek’s soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings--his lost hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again."(1) I cannot make sense of this scene other than to say, there are times when the gravity of a song flattens us. To this day, Wiesel admits, he cannot hear the sound of a violin without memory of Juliek dismantling all other thoughts. Perhaps similarly, you have been floored by a memory locked in a melody or leveled by the words of a song. In a very real sense, these are the images of worship. The Hebrew word for worship conjures a physical image, an outward response to an inward affection; to worship the Lord whether in song or in silence means "to prostrate oneself" before the Almighty. Far too often, this is not the result of the songs I sing.
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