Deuteronomy 18:9-14
ESV
“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations… 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.”
For the Jews, the Promised Land was their physical inheritance.
For us, our inheritance is our salvation, our eternal life with God, our hope
of Christ’s return, our salvation completed, and our eternity with God in
glory.
So for us, coming into our Promised Land, ultimately, will
be when Christ returns. But, actually we enter into that eternal life with God
when we believe in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives. And, we
continue in that salvation and in that eternal life with God through our daily
walks of faith with our Lord in fellowship with him, in his word, in prayer, in
repentance, and in obedience to his commands (See: Rom. 8:1-17).
So, for us who believe in Jesus, this is saying that now
that we have entered into our “Promised Land,” i.e. into our inheritance, we
are not to learn to follow the abominable practices of the nations (the world).
So, this begs the question, “What are some of the abominable
practices of the nations, or of our own home country, that we are not to
follow?”
Let me preface this by saying that scripture is clear that,
for those of us who have trusted in Jesus Christ, we are to now live lives
which are separate (unlike, different) from the world around us. For, Jesus
called us out from the world and out from their practices, attitudes, values,
principles and behaviors. And, we are taught, too, that we are not to love (take
pleasure in, long for, or make our preference) the things of this world – the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 Jn. 2:15-16).
Abominable Practices
Sinful Practices (addictions) – We, as followers of Jesus
Christ, are not to continue in sinful practices. It is not ok for us to remain
addicted to sin once we have entered into our eternal inheritance. God is not
blind to what we do every day, nor is he accepting of us making sin our
practice.
He is not sitting up there in heaven looking down on us and
smiling while we regularly and consistently engage in filth, lewdness,
immorality, dishonesty, adultery, lust, gossip, slander, meanness, abuse, manipulations,
false righteousness, hypocrisy, and making fun of people who are different from
us, and using other people for our own advantage and our own selfishness.
The world, including the worldly church, is powerfully
trying to persuade the people of the world, and even Christians (or professing
Christians), that we are here to have fun, to entertain ourselves, to play
games, watch TV, watch movies and videos, throw parties, make ourselves feel
good, do what feels natural, pamper ourselves, feed our addictions and medicate
ourselves, too.
They are trying to convince Christians (or prospective
believers in Jesus), that Jesus just went around patting everyone on the back
and making them feel good about themselves, that he didn’t judge anyone, and
all he did was just “love on” people, and so everyone loved him back. They are
trying to convince them that to be a follower of Jesus is to do the same, to
not make waves, to stay in our “own lane,” and to not rock the boat.
Some church and world leaders are pushing hard the message that
we can have salvation from sin and the hope of heaven when we die, but nothing
is required of us at all – no submission to Christ, no repentance, no
obedience, no humility, no fear of God – just some innocuous “faith” which does
nothing but enjoy life and have fun and play games and entertain ourselves, and
maybe give Jesus 5 minutes of our time for devotions each day.
They have no problem with you continuing in sin and
believing in a false hope of salvation and never ever experiencing true freedom
in Christ, because they are not of God, but of the devil, for they are false
teachers and hypocritical liars and deceivers who are wolves in sheep’s
clothing whose goal is to steal, kill and destroy the church.
So, they are like parasites, feeding on you for their own
advantage, for their own selfish purposes. Thus, they make manipulation, the
twisting of truth, lies, deception, abuse, mind-games, trickery, using people,
charming the socks off of people, amusement, entertainment, pretending, and
hypocrisy their practice in order to deceive you into following after them,
instead.
And, they are out there everywhere, within the gatherings of
the church, in leadership within the church, in our governments, on blogs, on
social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like), on television, on the
radio, on the internet, on Christian discussion sites, and on political
discussion sites. They are out there spreading their filth and their garbage
and their false righteousness and their lies and pretenses in order to suck you
in, and to get you hooked, so you believe their lies, and so you do what they
do.
They want you in limbo. They want you filling your minds
with garbage every day so that the Word of God can’t get into your minds, and
so they convince you that God is ok with all that worldliness and that he uses
it to bring people to Jesus. Hogwash! We need to cut through that baloney.
They are masterful actors, these liars and deceivers posing
as men of God or as political leaders who have our best interest at heart. But,
so many of them are just following scripts. They are all following the same
play books, but not the Bible. They are busy building their earthly kingdoms,
so they are not thinking about participating in the building of God’s heavenly
kingdom.
So, don’t trust them! Don’t put your trust in the president
or in congress or in pastors and elders and TV evangelists and preachers. Don’t
put your trust in the news media, either. For, there is a New World Order (of
the beast) in play right now, and we live in an age of great deception, and
even the elect are being deceived by these masterful tricksters and
manipulators.
Their goal is to break down everything that divides us as a
people of this world. But, know this! The gospel of our salvation divides us,
and so their goal is to destroy that, too, and that is where all of this is
ultimately headed. They, including Donald Trump, want us to all come together
as one voice, one mind, one heart and to forsake all that keeps us from being
united together as one under the rule of the New World Order beast (Rev. 13).
Deuteronomy 18:15-19
ESV
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.’”
Know this! Jesus Christ, God the Son, died on that cross about
2,000 years ago in order that we, who believe in him, might die to sin and live
to righteousness. His goal for us is not that life should be one big party
where we entertain ourselves incessantly. His goal for us is that we are
crucified with him in death to sin so that we might live with him to his
righteousness.
The cup he said we would drink from is not a cup of
merriment and entertainment and self-pleasure, but it is a cup of suffering. He
said we would suffer like he suffered, and that we would be hated as he was
hated. So, know this. They do hate us, these who try to convince us that God is
ok with our sins, and that is why they are trying to convince us of that.
But, also know this. The Bible says that if we walk in our
sins, we will die in our sins. If we make sin our practice, we do not have the
hope of eternal life with God, but a fearful expectation of judgment. We will
reap what we sow. If we sow to please the flesh, from the flesh we will reap
decay (death). But, if we sow to please the Spirit, from the Spirit we will
reap eternal life (See: Rom. 8:1-17; Lu. 9:23-25; 1 Jn. 1:5-9; Gal. 5:19-21;
Gal. 6:7-8).
So, don’t be fooled! Don’t believe everything you read or
hear or see, especially on TV and on the internet, for there is so much
disinformation and lies and trickery on there. Not everyone is who he or she
appears to be. Anything can be faked! Just because it looks true doesn’t mean
it is true. So, get your minds out of the world and into God’s Holy Word, and
see what His Word has to say about what he requires of you, because if you
follow after the abominations of the nations, God will require your life of
you.
Broken Cord
An Original Work / August 29, 2018
Your bond is broken
With your Lord and Savior
And, your testimony is
Separate from Him.
Your words not matching
Your actions today.
Repent of your sin and
Bow down and pray.
Live what you testify
In truth always.
Purity’s lacking in
Your life and witness,
For you profess one thing,
But other you do.
Not moral, spiritual.
Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to
What you confess.
Lying about it
Puts you in a mess.
Living a lie is your practice,
‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness –
None of it true.
Your heart is not given
To your Lord God.
Because of how you live,
You are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and
Give your life to God.
Monday, December 10, 2018
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