murder

Judges 6, Jeremiah 19

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Rumble | YouTube | SermonAudio | Calvary Bible Church

Read Judges 6 and Jeremiah 19.

This devotional is about Jeremiah 19.

God complained, through the prophets, about many sins committed by Israel and Judah. But, of all those sins, idolatry was mentioned most frequently. God’s judgment against his people was closely tied to breaking the commandments about having any other gods and making idols for worship. From God’s perspective, we can understand this. God is real and other gods are not so it is offensive to give his glory to false gods and deeply unjust to worship something that people created instead of the true Creator.

For those who don’t know God, however, it may seem strange that the Old Testament spends so much time and ink addressing idolatry. The list of human problems is long. It contains moral issues like murder, assault, theft, rape, adultery, as well as societal problems like starvation, poverty, war, infant mortality, etc. These are more pressing issues, when it comes to human life and the quality of it, than idolatry. At least, that’s what people might think.

Here in Jeremiah 19, however, we see another reason why idolatry was so offensive to God: Human problems sprout from bad theology like branches sprout from the trunk of a tree. In verse 3 God prophesied “a disaster” on Judah and Jerusalem and, in verse 4, the reason he gave for doing so was “they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew.” But notice what followed his complaint about their false worship: “they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.” Israel’s idolatry wasn’t just a waste of time caused by praying to something that wasn’t real. Israel’s idolatry led them into unimaginable human wickedness. Thank about how depraved someone would have to be to take their beautiful newborn baby and burn it alive as an “offering” to Baal. It is incredibly cruel and unspeakably evil.

This is what happens with bad theology. Bad theology is a symptom of a wicked, unredeemed heart but it also leads to greater wickedness such as cruelty and inhumanity toward other people. We Americans don’t worship Baal but we do worship unrestrained sexuality which leads to pornography, premarital sex, unrighteous divorce, adultery, abortion, homosexuality and other sexual sins. We worship money and wealth which leads to exploiting workers, dishonest advertising, and unfair contracts. There is only one true God and only he can say what is truly right and wrong. Worship any other god–even one called YHWH or Jesus but detached from God’s revelation–and you will get all kinds of human wickedness, too.

So, this is why God spent so much time addressing the issue of idolatry in the prophets. Idolatry is offensive to him, of course, because he is the only true God. But it also leads to every other kind of wickedness. This is why we not only need to hold to our worship of the true God from scripture. But we need to make sure that the God that we worship is truly the only who is presented in scripture. Even though we may hold to many truths about God from scripture, if we distort the true picture of God, we tend to lead ourselves toward other kinds of sin. So think about your knowledge of God and be careful about what you allow into your own personal theology.

Deuteronomy 30, Isaiah 57

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Rumble | YouTube | SermonAudio | Calvary Bible Church

Read Deuteronomy 30 and Isaiah 57.

This devotional is about Deuteronomy 30:6.

It is easy to read the Old Testament and come to some false conclusions. Two false conclusions that come to mind are (1) that Israel had the capability to keep the law of God and that (2) God would be pleased with them if they kept his law.

False conclusion number 2 would be true but it is impossible because of conclusion number 1. Israel had no chance of enjoying all the benefits God promised in his covenant because Israel was a nation made up of sinners. Their obedience to his Word, therefore, would only ever be partial and half-hearted. Because God is perfect and demands perfection, the sins of the people–no matter how minor they seem to us–would always render them guilty before their holy God. We can see from Israel’s history that God did bless them when, in a general sense as a nation, they kept his commands not to worship idols or commit murder, or oppress the poor. But each individual person would be guilty of things like coveting his/her neighbor’s stuff.

So all of these laws in the Old Testament were designed to show God’s people and anyone else who was paying attention that God is holy and therefore, people are always guilty before him. God used the law to teach this so that people would come before him genuinely seeking his forgiveness and his help to be obedient to his word.

Verse 6 here in Deuteronomy 30 describes the spiritual work that needed to happen for people to truly worship and follow him. That verse says, “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” Circumcision, of course, was the covenant mark of the Abrahamic covenant. Each boy who was circumcised was, by that act, showing that they belonged God’s people, the descendants of Abraham. When verse 6 says that “God will circumcise your hearts” Moses is describing the spiritual act of belonging to God, being marked as a genuine believer of God. This is what we would call in the New Testament “regeneration,” the work of the Holy Spirit that makes someone a child of God.

There are important differences between Israel and the church but it is important to understand that God’s people have always needed his grace through faith and the regenerating work of the Spirit in order to be his people from the heart, not just in name only. What I’m saying is that God’s people–Old or New Testament–have always needed God to save them, to act on our behalf and make us his by the work of the Spirit. Believers in every age have all been saved by the grace of God and never by religious rituals or meritorious good works.

Are you trusting in your religious rituals or are you trusting in the grace of God alone for your salvation?

Deuteronomy 21, Isaiah 48

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Rumble | YouTube | SermonAudio | Calvary Bible Church

Read Deuteronomy 21 and Isaiah 48.

This devotional is about Deuteronomy 21.

A few chapters ago, in Deuteronomy 17, we read about capital punishment and the very high standards that had to be met before it could be used. Today’s chapter touches again on the death penalty in a couple of different ways:

  • An animal was to be executed as a substitute for the unknown murderer in an unsolved murder according to verses 1-9. The purpose of this law was to uphold the value of human life by making sure that there was some kind of life-for-life exchange if the killer could not be found.
  • A rebellious son could be executed if his parents charged him with rebellion in the presence of the elders of the town (see vv. 18-21).
  • Verses 22-23 regulated the public display of someone who was executed. God’s law required burial for anyone who was displayed in this way “because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse.”

Let’s consider that last instruction in verses 22-23 today. In each of the death penalty cases we’ve come across so far, God’s word commanded the method by which the death penalty must be… um… executed. In every case that I can remember, God’s law required the method of execution to be stoning. Verse 21 of this very chapter, for example, commands, “…all the men of his town are to stone him to death.”

Stoning someone to death required binding that person’s hands and feet so that he couldn’t run away. Once bound, the person was thrown into a pit and the witnesses or the elders would throw large rocks at him until he died. Usually the first stone thrown would be a very large rock that would be dropped on the person’s head so that he lost consciousness immediately and possibly would even die from that strike. It is not the most humane way to die, but it was the only way available in their society that multiple people–representing the entire community–could take part together in the execution.

Now, because God’s word prescribed the use of stoning as the method of execution, why did God include these verses about someone who is executed and hung on a pole? This law did not require that the dead body be hung on a pole this way; it only regulated such a pole-hanging if it ever were to occur.

Also, why would the law say, “anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse” but not anyone “guilty of a capital offense” (v. 22a) is under God’s curse? In other words, why does the curse apply only to the one executed if he is hung on a pole?

One reason that the Israelites might hang someone on a pole is to publicly display the dead body. The purpose here would be to display God’s curse on the man who was executed and hopefully to deter others who might be tempted to commit the same offense. We don’t know enough about daily life in Israel to know if this was ever used but there is certainly no instance of it in the Old Testament historical books that I can think of.

The New Testament, of course, does provide an example that would fit this description which is our Lord Jesus himself. Although he was not “guilty of a capital offense” (v. 22) personally, he came to serve as a substitute for our capital offenses against God. As our substitute, he was cursed by God (Isa 53:4c-d, Gal 3:13) so that we could be blessed with eternal life.

These two simple verses in Moses’s law, verses that may never have been relevant to any situation that Israel ever faced before Jesus’s death, remind us of the blessing of forgiveness we have in Christ. But they also show us how God foreshadowed the atonement of Christ for us in his word, thousands of years before Jesus was even born. This is one of many reasons why we can believe the Bible and know that it is God’s word.

Genesis 6, Ezra 6, Psalms 1-3

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Read Genesis 6, Ezra 6, and Psalms 1-3.

This devotional is about Genesis 6.

Critics of our faith commonly describe God — especially “the God of the Old Testament”– as someone who is angry by nature and who excessively and brutally pours out wrath on humanity through supernatural judgments, natural disasters, and attacks from enemy nations. Our passage for today, Genesis 6, is one example that these critics bring up.

It is true that verses 6 and 7 say, “The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” It is also true that Genesis describes the outpouring of God’s wrath through the flood in the coming chapters of Genesis.

What goes unmentioned by critics, and is sometimes overlooked even by believers, is what Genesis 6 describes about why God was angry and why he determined to kill humanity. Verse 5 says, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” The fall of humanity into sin, described in Genesis 3, led to unmitigated depravity in the human race. That is why God was angry and determined to destroy humanity. The actions of people were wicked according to verse 5a, but verse 5b says that the thoughts of humanity were relentlessly wicked: “…every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”

Those are general descriptions of the sinfulness of humanity, but what were the specific sins that God was so angry about? The only one mentioned directly here in Genesis 6 is violence. Verse 11 says, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.” Like Cain who killed his brother Abel, then, people on earth were forcefully wounding and killing one another. Our society has redefined and accepted as normal many sins that God’s word condemns, but everyone still agrees that wounding and/or killing another person without any justification is depraved. That’s why God was so unhappy and sent the flood. It wasn’t that he was cosmically and irreparably cranky, bad-tempered, and mean. It was that humanity was globally and unrepentantly cranky, bad-tempered, mean, and brutal to one another.

The flood, then, was an act of judgment. God, our Creator, judged the human race because of its violence and its wicked obsession with violence as an object of human thought. Instead of thinking about how to love others, work productively and profitably with others, and improve themselves and the human race, people thought continuously about how to hurt others, take advantage of others, and end the lives of others.

Despite his determination to destroy humanity for its sins, God was merciful to Noah. Note that Noah “found favor” with God first in verse 8 before God declared him to be “a righteous man” and “blameless” in verse 9. In other words, Noah didn’t earn the salvation God gave him in the ark. God had mercy on him first (v. 8) and, as a result of God’s mercy, Noah became “righteous,” “blameless,” and “walked with God” (v. 9).

This is how God works. He saved us as Titus 3:5 says, “not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” Just as Noah was saved from the coming flood of God’s wrath in this life, so God will save us eternally from his coming wrath in the future. We–all of us, including Noah–deserve the wrath of God that is coming. It is not our own righteousness or blamelessness that saves us, but only the mercy of God.

Having received that mercy in Christ, let’s follow Noah’s example. Just as he was ” a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time” (v. 9b), so let us be righteous and blameless among our people by the grace of God. Just as Noah “walked with God” (v. 9c) by His grace, so let us walk with him daily as well.