November 26, 2015

From Gary... Scaling back and remembering God


This won't do any good; Turkey day fat is almost a certainty. If you overeat you will get fat (Oh, how I know this one). So, this Thanksgiving day- enjoy yourself, but try not to do anything you will regret when today's intake becomes tomorrows fat. And most of all...

Ecclesiastes, Chapter 5 (WEB)
18  Behold, that which I have seen to be good and proper is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, in which he labors under the sun, all the days of his life which God has given him; for this is his portion. 19 Every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God.

Remember where your blessings come from!!!

Gary- remember to scale back your portions- not your scale!!!

From Gary... Bible Reading November 26



Bible Reading  

November 26

The World English Bible

Nov. 26
Lamentations 1-5

Lam 1:1 How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
Lam 1:2 She weeps sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies.
Lam 1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: all her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
Lam 1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
Lam 1:5 Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
Lam 1:6 From the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
Lam 1:7 Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.
Lam 1:8 Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; all who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
Lam 1:9 Her filthiness was in her skirts; she didn't remember her latter end; therefore is she come down wonderfully; she has no comforter: see, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.
Lam 1:10 The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things: for she has seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you did command that they should not enter into your assembly.
Lam 1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul: look, Yahweh, and see; for I am become abject.
Lam 1:12 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, With which Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
Lam 1:13 From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them; He has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back: He has made me desolate and faint all the day.
Lam 1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand; They are knit together, they are come up on my neck; he has made my strength to fail: The Lord has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand.
Lam 1:15 The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men in the midst of me; He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men: The Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.
Lam 1:16 For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water; Because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.
Lam 1:17 Zion spreads forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries: Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.
Lam 1:18 Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow: My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
Lam 1:19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, While they sought them food to refresh their souls.
Lam 1:20 See, Yahweh; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled; My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: Abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death.
Lam 1:21 They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it: You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they shall be like me.
Lam 1:22 Let all their wickedness come before you; Do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions: For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
Lam 2:1 How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, And hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
Lam 2:2 The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
Lam 2:3 He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.
Lam 2:4 He has bent his bow like an enemy, he has stood with his right hand as an adversary, Has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.
Lam 2:5 The Lord is become as an enemy, he has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
Lam 2:6 He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he has destroyed his place of assembly: Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, Has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
Lam 2:7 The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary; He has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Yahweh, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
Lam 2:8 Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
Lam 2:9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.
Lam 2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Lam 2:11 My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
Lam 2:12 They tell their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
Lam 2:13 What shall I testify to you? what shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?
Lam 2:14 Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity, But have seen for you false oracles and causes of banishment.
Lam 2:15 All that pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
Lam 2:16 All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
Lam 2:17 Yahweh has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
Lam 2:18 Their heart cried to the Lord: wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no respite; don't let the apple of your eye cease.
Lam 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
Lam 2:20 Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
Lam 2:21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, and not pitied.
Lam 2:22 You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; There was none that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up has my enemy consumed.
Lam 3:1 I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
Lam 3:2 He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
Lam 3:3 Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.
Lam 3:4 My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.
Lam 3:5 He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.
Lam 3:6 He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.
Lam 3:7 He has walled me about, that I can't go forth; he has made my chain heavy.
Lam 3:8 Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
Lam 3:9 He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked.
Lam 3:10 He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.
Lam 3:11 He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he has made me desolate.
Lam 3:12 He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
Lam 3:13 He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
Lam 3:14 I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.
Lam 3:15 He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
Lam 3:16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
Lam 3:17 You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity.
Lam 3:18 I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from Yahweh.
Lam 3:19 Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
Lam 3:20 My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
Lam 3:21 This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope.
Lam 3:22 It is of Yahweh's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn't fail.
Lam 3:23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lam 3:24 Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
Lam 3:25 Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
Lam 3:26 It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
Lam 3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
Lam 3:28 Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
Lam 3:29 Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.
Lam 3:30 Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach.
Lam 3:31 For the Lord will not cast off forever.
Lam 3:32 For though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
Lam 3:33 For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
Lam 3:34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
Lam 3:35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
Lam 3:36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn't approve.
Lam 3:37 Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn't command it?
Lam 3:38 Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
Lam 3:39 Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
Lam 3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.
Lam 3:41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
Lam 3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled; you have not pardoned.
Lam 3:43 You have covered with anger and pursued us; you have killed, you have not pitied.
Lam 3:44 You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
Lam 3:45 You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.
Lam 3:46 All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
Lam 3:47 Fear and the pit are come on us, devastation and destruction.
Lam 3:48 My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Lam 3:49 My eye pours down, and doesn't cease, without any intermission,
Lam 3:50 Until Yahweh look down, and see from heaven.
Lam 3:51 My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
Lam 3:52 They have chased me sore like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
Lam 3:53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.
Lam 3:54 Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.
Lam 3:55 I called on your name, Yahweh, out of the lowest dungeon.
Lam 3:56 You heard my voice; don't hide your ear at my breathing, at my cry.
Lam 3:57 You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, Don't be afraid.
Lam 3:58 Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.
Lam 3:59 Yahweh, you have seen my wrong; judge you my cause.
Lam 3:60 You have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against me.
Lam 3:61 You have heard their reproach, Yahweh, and all their devices against me,
Lam 3:62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
Lam 3:63 See you their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song.
Lam 3:64 You will render to them a recompense, Yahweh, according to the work of their hands.
Lam 3:65 You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
Lam 3:66 You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.
Lam 4:1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
Lam 4:2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
Lam 4:3 Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
Lam 4:4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaves to the roof of his mouth for thirst: The young children ask bread, and no man breaks it to them.
Lam 4:5 Those who did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: Those who were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
Lam 4:6 For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid on her.
Lam 4:7 Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire.
Lam 4:8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
Lam 4:9 Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
Lam 4:10 The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Lam 4:11 Yahweh has accomplished his wrath, he has poured out his fierce anger; He has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations.
Lam 4:12 The kings of the earth didn't believe, neither all the inhabitants of the world, That the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.
Lam 4:13 It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.
Lam 4:14 They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, So that men can't touch their garments.
Lam 4:15 Depart you, they cried to them, Unclean! depart, depart, don't touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, They shall no more sojourn here.
Lam 4:16 The anger of Yahweh has scattered them; he will no more regard them: They didn't respect the persons of the priests, they didn't favor the elders.
Lam 4:17 Our eyes do yet fail in looking for our vain help: In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.
Lam 4:18 They hunt our steps, so that we can't go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
Lam 4:19 Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky: They chased us on the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
Lam 4:20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken in their pits; Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.
Lam 4:21 Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwell in the land of Uz: The cup shall pass through to you also; you shall be drunken, and shall make yourself naked.
Lam 4:22 The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion; he will no more carry you away into captivity: He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom; he will uncover your sins.
Lam 5:1 Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us: Look, and see our reproach.
Lam 5:2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, Our houses to aliens.
Lam 5:3 We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
Lam 5:4 We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold to us.
Lam 5:5 Our pursuers are on our necks: We are weary, and have no rest.
Lam 5:6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians, To the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
Lam 5:7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more; We have borne their iniquities.
Lam 5:8 Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.
Lam 5:9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness.
Lam 5:10 Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.
Lam 5:11 They ravished the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.
Lam 5:12 Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored.
Lam 5:13 The young men bare the mill; The children stumbled under the wood.
Lam 5:14 The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
Lam 5:15 The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.
Lam 5:16 The crown is fallen from our head: Woe to us! for we have sinned.
Lam 5:17 For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim;
Lam 5:18 For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it.
Lam 5:19 You, Yahweh, abide forever; Your throne is from generation to generation.
Lam 5:20 Why do you forget us forever, And forsake us so long time?
Lam 5:21 Turn you us to you, Yahweh, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old.

Lam 5:22 But you have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us. 


Nov. 26
Hebrews 12

Heb 12:1 Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Heb 12:3 For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don't grow weary, fainting in your souls.
Heb 12:4 You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin;
Heb 12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, "My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives."
Heb 12:7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline?
Heb 12:8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.
Heb 12:9 Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10 For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.
Heb 12:11 All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.
Heb 12:12 Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,
Heb 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Heb 12:14 Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord,
Heb 12:15 looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it;
Heb 12:16 lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal.
Heb 12:17 For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears.
Heb 12:18 For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,
Heb 12:19 the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which those who heard it begged that not one more word should be spoken to them,
Heb 12:20 for they could not stand that which was commanded, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned;"
Heb 12:21 and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, "I am terrified and trembling."
Heb 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,
Heb 12:23 to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
Heb 12:24 to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.
Heb 12:25 See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't escape when they refused him who warned on the Earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,
Heb 12:26 whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens."
Heb 12:27 This phrase, "Yet once more," signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Heb 12:28 Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,
Heb 12:29 for our God is a consuming fire. 

From Roy Davison... Let us pursue the knowledge of God


http://www.oldpaths.com/Archive/Davison/Roy/Allen/1940/know.html

Let us pursue the knowledge of God

“Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD” (Hosea 6:3).
To pursue is to resolutely strive for something even if it is difficult to obtain.
God placed people on earth “so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).

Through God’s creation we know that He exists.
The creation is solid evidence for the existence of God.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor languagewhere their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4).
“The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory” (Psalm 97:6).
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20).
There is no excuse for anyone not to believe in God. Yet knowing God is much more than just knowing that He exists.

Through the Scriptures we know what God is like.
Knowing a person is different from knowing a fact. You know someone only if you are familiar with his characteristics, if you know what he is like. Effort is required to get to know anyone, so it is not strange that effort is required to know God.
God’s nature is revealed in the Scriptures. God reveals Himself to us as our Maker, our Sustainer, our Ruler, our Lawgiver, our Judge and our Savior. He is the source of life on earth and the source of eternal life. God reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Yet knowing God is more than just knowing what He is like. Some things can be known about God through His creation. More can be known through His word. Most can be known through His Son.

Through His Son we can know God.
To know someone well, one must have a personal relationship with that person. Likewise, we must have a personal relationship with God to know Him well. By sending His Son, the Father has made this possible! Before discussing this, let us examine some fundamentals.

We cannot know God through human wisdom alone.
“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).

God has made Himself known through testimony.
Paul did not use human wisdom when he declared “the testimony of God” (1 Corinthians 2:1). “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son” (1 John 5:9, 10).

We must be God-fearing truth-seekers to know God.
We must seek knowledge and be open to God’s testimony to find the knowledge of God.
“Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the LORD,
And find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding”
(Proverbs 2:3-6).
Only those who love truth and seek knowledge accept God’s testimony and find the knowledge of God.
Paul speaks of certain people who are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). This is because they have insufficient respect for God: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). “For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight” (Ecclesiastes 2:26).


Someone who hates knowledge cannot know God.
God does not listen to the prayers of people who hate knowledge: “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, they would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies” (Proverbs 1:28-31).
God said about Israel: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).
“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge” (Proverbs 1:22).

We may not reject the knowledge of God.
Deceitful people refuse to know God: “‘Your dwelling place is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me,’ says the LORD” (Jeremiah 9:6).
Just claiming to know God is not enough. Of certain people Paul wrote: “They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work” (Titus 1:16).
Much evil emanates from a rejection of the knowledge of God: “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man - and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Romans 1:21-25).
They who do not know God will be punished when Jesus is “revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:7, 8).

To be God’s people we must know God.
Under the New Covenant one cannot be a part of God’s people unless one knows God: “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).
Under the Old Covenant, God’s people were a regular nation that included people who knew God and people who did not know God. The faithful encouraged the others to know God.
Under the New Covenant, God’s people are a spiritual nation consisting only of those who know God. “Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7).

In Christ we know God.
Jesus Christ has made God known: “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).
If we are in the Son, we have a personal relationship with the Father: “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
Being “in Christ” involves being an active member of His body, the church (Ephesians 1:22, 23). We are “baptized into Christ” (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:27). “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 13).
Paul explains that Christians have a personal relationship with the Father because the Spirit of His Son is in their hearts: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:6, 7).

Our knowledge of God must increase.
Paul prayed that the Colossians might “walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).
Peter admonishes us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).

Knowledge of God must be put into practice.
We can know God only if we love one another and keep His commandments: “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3, 4). “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7, 8).

Pursue the knowledge of God.
Through God’s creation we know that He exists. Through the Scriptures we know what God is like. Through the Son we can have a personal relationship with God.
Although we must seek wisdom and knowledge in general to find the knowledge of God, we cannot know God through human wisdom alone. We must be God-fearing truth-seekers who accept God’s testimony. Someone who hates knowledge cannot know God. We may not reject the knowledge of God. They who do not know God will be punished. We must know God to be His people. God’s Son, Jesus Christ, has made Him known. In the Son we have a personal relationship with the Father through His Spirit within us. Our knowledge of God must increase and must be put into practice.
“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). Amen.
Roy Davison
The Scripture quotations in this article are from
The New King James Version. ©1979,1980,1982,
Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers unless indicated otherwise.
Permission for reference use has been granted.

Published in The Old Paths Archive
(http://www.oldpaths.com)

From Jim McGuiggan... A WORD TO SINNERS LIKE ME

A WORD TO SINNERS LIKE ME

I’m sorry if life is so painful for you now and I’m sad even if you’ve brought much of your trouble on yourself. I’ve dug a lot of holes for myself down the years and I’ve often thought that when you’re hurt by someone else’s wrong (and not your own) you can console yourself a bit by thinking you’ve entered into the kind of suffering Jesus experienced but when your guilt hurts you, that sort of stabilizing truth isn’t open to you.
There’s not a bit of doubt in my mind that God cares that we experience pain and loss even when we “deserve’’ it.  Judges 10:15-16 explicitly says so. The book is all about Israel getting what they ‘’deserved’’ (I’m sure you’ve read it). God’s redemptive response is to bring judgment on them and when they turned to him he began the rescue.
The point of particular interest is that even while they were under foreign domination God saw it and didn’t like it. That is, found no pleasure in their pain even though it was the pain of “just punishment’’. It’s said of him that he “could bear Israel’s misery no longer.’’ Isaiah 63:9 (there’s a bit of textual debate about this verse) tells us in all their affliction he was afflicted. The Jewish Publication Version says, “In all their trouble he was troubled.’’
But beyond specific texts his incarnation in Jesus makes it clear he cares when we hurt. Your analogy with your children is legitimate—you’d feel their pain so why should it surprise us that he does. You’d go to rescue them so why would it surprise us if he did. The basics, I think, are beyond honest dispute.
The problem is the complexity of some situations. If for some good reason, a reason your children or your friends or observers couldn’t fathom, you judged that the immediate rescue of one of your children would prevent you doing good, a larger, more pervasive good, for your other children—if for that good reason you didn’t move to rescue him that would generate further pain.
But even if you didn’t move to rescue him it wouldn’t mean you were being vindictive or even harsh and it certainly wouldn’t mean that you didn’t feel pain about him.
I don’t believe, and I think the scriptures forbid us to believe, that God insists on dishing out a dollar’s punishment for a dollar’s sin all the time. [That’s a good legalist view but it isn’t God’s view.] A psalmist thought that God didn’t punish us as much as our sins deserve. I wonder what we’re to make of that? In our most contrite moments we feel the same way. Now and then we’re convinced he should simply bury us and go off and forget us. We’re often guilt-ridden and that may not be the direct action of God at all. A lot of our pain is self-inflicted though God has long lifted his hand off of us. [This generates further good questions for another time perhaps.]
I’m perfectly satisfied that we should ask God to help us out of our trouble. Get a modern speech version—loose as a goose—and read through the psalms without trying to understand them—no study, just a thoughtful reading—and see how often psalmists confess sin and ask him to be kind to them though they have not been faithful.
When you’re hanging by your thumbs it doesn’t matter after a while that you got yourself there. We can’t help wanting the pain to stop. Only the truly impenitent, only the people (whoever they are) who have no heart for God and don’t care that they have no heart for God and who want simply to use him—only they have no “right’’ to ask him for rescue. Those who are in covenant with him and regret their wrong, when they speak to God, speak to their covenant Father and ‘’expect’’ to be forgiven and helped. You’d want your wayward child to come to you even if you see in the end for good reasons that you can’t change things for him.
Will God rescue you from your present trouble? Who can say? But you’ve been rescued before and know it (Psalm 124) but you may have been rescued repeatedly and didn’t know it or recognize it.  If things don’t change in that visible way we want them to change it won’t mean he’s holding a grudge or that he’s being the flinty “sin in—punishment out to the nth degree, come what may’’ type judge. He’s never that and he never was.
We want the pain gone, of course, but if we have a heart for him at all, it’s his good will we want and the marker that he’s taken us back to his heart is that easing of our pain and trouble. Some kids may not care what their fathers or mothers think about them so long as he/she bails them out of every jam they get themselves into. But kids with a heart want the good will and acceptance as well as the rescue that is an expression of the good will.
Still, they want the pain removed and however stupid they’ve been we feel their pain. All of these illustrations—true to life and even true to the life of God—deal with only one aspect of the father’s relationship to one child; his tenderness and affection. And here’s a truth we don’t always care to hear: he has a responsibility toward the child to help him grow in all the ways that would make him good for the family and whoever he works with. God has more than one child and they all have needs! That complicates things.
Spending Time with Jim McGuiggan

Inconsistencies About Incest? by Eric Lyons, M.Min.


http://apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=2281&b=Genesis

Inconsistencies About Incest?

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

On more than one list of “Bible discrepancies” is the allegation that Bible writers erred in their teachings about incest. In Leviticus 18:6-30, 20:11-12, and Deuteronomy 27:20-23, one learns that sexual relations between close family members is sinful and punishable by death: “None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness” (Leviticus 18:6). Other passages, however, indicate that God tolerated incest among His people, and even blessed those involved in such relationships. Abraham married Sarah, his half-sister (Genesis 20:12; cf. Genesis 17:15-16; 22:17), while Abraham’s son, Isaac, married Rebekah, his second cousin (Genesis 22:20-23; 24:4,15), and Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, married his first cousins, Rachel and Leah (Genesis 24:29; 29:15-30). Even Moses’ father, Amram, “took for himself Jachebed, his father’s sister, as wife” (Exodus 6:20, emp. added; cf. Leviticus 20:19). Critics claim that such passages are contradictory. Were Bible writers really inconsistent when they addressed the subject of incest?
First, one must recognize that simply because Scripture mentions godly men such as Abraham or one of his righteous descendants doing something God forbade elsewhere, does not mean the Bible writers contradicted themselves. Christ was the only perfect man ever to live (2 Corinthians 5:21). Though Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc. were counted faithful to God (Hebrews 11:7-29), they occasionally disobeyed His will (e.g., Numbers 20:1-12). God never blessed their disobedience, only their faithfulness. Consider the harlot Rahab. Whereas God did not condone her harlotry, she was “justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way” (James 2:25). “By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace” (Hebrews 11:32). Simply because God graciously saved Rahab from the destruction of Jericho, does not mean that God condoned her past sexual sins. Similarly, just because the Bible writers mention a particular event (e.g., Amram marrying his aunt) without condemning it, does not necessarily mean the Bible writers condoned it.
Second, for one to identify a legitimate contradiction, he must be considering the same time frame. To condemn Thomas Jefferson for not paying Federal income tax would be inappropriate because there was no Federal income tax in the United States during his lifetime. Likewise, to accuse certain righteous men of breaking God’s law prior to the establishment of that law is equally erroneous. The first indication of God forbidding incestuous marriages is not until after the Israelites departed Egypt (when Moses was already 80 years old—Exodus 7:7). Prior to Mosaic Law, men could lawfully marry close family members. Indeed, God blessed Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) while he was married to Sarah, his half-sister. What’s more, implied in the creation of Adam, the first man (1 Corinthians 15:45), and Eve, “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20), is that their immediate offspring married each other and had children. Furthermore, following the great Flood, the entire Earth was repopulated by Noah, his three sons, and their wives (Genesis 9:1). Thus, in the beginning God allowed incest.
There was no need for strict laws on marriage partners in the early Patriarchal Age (apart from the divine “one man, one woman, for life” institution), and for at least one good reason: during this time, man was in a relatively pure state, at least physically, having left not long before the perfect condition in which he was created and the Garden that had sustained his life....[N]o harmful genetic traits had emerged at this point that could have been expressed in the children of closely related partners. However, after many generations, and especially after the Noahic Flood (Genesis 6-9), solar and cosmic radiation, chemical and viral mutagens, and DNA replication errors, led to the multiplication of genetic disorders. God protected His people by instituting strict laws against incestuous marriages in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus (Thompson and Major, 1987, 7[2]:7).
Laws regarding incest were given only during the Mosaic dispensation. Those living prior to this period or since this age ended (Colossians 2:14) have not been bound by its laws on incest anymore than we are bound by other Mosaic mandates (e.g., refraining from eating pork—Leviticus 11:7). That said, since “more genetic disorders have arisen in the world population since the time of Moses,...it is even more important to avoid marrying a close relative. Christianity thus far has insured that such rules have been carried forward into modern laws in the western world” (Thompson and Major, 7[2]:7). Though it may not be sinful for you to marry your first cousin, you may need to think twice before saying, “I do.”

REFERENCE

Thompson, Bert and Trevor Major (1987), “Where Did Cain Get His Wife?” Reason and Revelation, 7[2]:5-7, February.