And they said unto Moses,
speak thou with us,
and we will hear;
but let not God speak
with us,
lest we die.
Exodus 20:19
Due to the recent death of a superstar and wonderful singer I was forced to admit my sadness for such a loss. While the world focuses on her talent, her vibrant ability to not only to be a great vocalist, but also a mentor for so many singers and musicians. Then, while I was was watching with interest and being also impacted (For I did enjoy her singing), I was drawn to the fact that she had "demons" in her life. Furthermore, her life had become, maybe always, focused on herself and when life become a "slushy" bed of rotten lemons, she turned not to God, rather to drugs, alcohol, prescription drugs to placate her despair. This loss, this life that had so much going for it, money, fame, family, etc., caused me to examine my life, maybe this will cause you to examine your life. What is the source of my happiness, what is the source for my faith in God? We who believe that we are saved, saved by grace, that grace was given to us by the gift of faith, our hope of an eternal life after our death; what is this thing faith? Then the light appeared and there was a moment of sadness for I, and maybe you have never wanted to disobey God, I knew and do know that God forgives my sin(s), my failures, but that never seemed enough, just to not want to disobey God; so why? As has been mentioned in these blogs, our faith is not in faith, rather if we have faith then our faith must have an object. Often our object of faith is placed on the Bible, or more often it is placed upon our favorite pastor, teacher, author, but if that is so, then our faith has no foundation. When we fail to come to grips with the foundation, our foundation for our faith, even though we may come to know about faith from the Bible, if our faith is not placed upon the right foundation, no knowledge will be enough to give us the right understanding for our faith unless our faith is placed upon the proper foundation of our faith, the object of our faith: that object is Jesus Christ. Oh! We may not consciously disobey God, it is not always a willful disobedience to God; we simply do not heed Him. Why? Our willful disobedience arises in our lives because we do not pay attention to His commandments and this disobedience comes into our lives because we do not love and respect Him. Yes! We will listen to a sermon that pleases our ears, we will try to employ some admonition from our favorite author, we will allow these people who seem to have influence, to have some special connection with God, to speak with us, but we will not allow God to speak with us. We are no different than those Israelites in the day of Moses. We prefer, we desire to listen to personal testimonies, we give more credence to those who seem to be His servants, but we do not desire to listen to God. We may be humiliated due to our disobedience, have shame on us because we have not heeded God, we find our selves terrified to allow God to speak to us: why? Because we know that if God speaks to us, that which He speaks must be done. How does this play out in our life? If a person speaks, it is his voice that we hear, then we can justify our disobedience, our not heeding what is said by saying: 'Well, that is simply your own idea, it may the truth of God's word, that I may not deny, but it is still your opinion.' We let ourselves off the hook. What may be worse is that we come to believe what that person may be teaching as though it is Biblical, and our lives, our faith is not according to Scripture. This is why I am taking the time to address the Bible for it is when we have the knowledge that the Bible is truly the word of God, and that God does and is speaking to us from His Word, then we can align our lives according to Scripture and not to what someone may say; we have done our work, we have the arsenal that is needed to ward off those heretics, those opposers to God and to His Word. Those who will teach another form of faith, built upon experiences, or upon a stoic form of Christianity that is nothing more than legalism. "Do this, do that, believe this experience, don't do that, have faith in what I say, etc., and we fall for such garbage. God speaks to us, through His word, and through preachers, teachers, authors, that are teaching His word, not their own opinions. How do I know? I read, the Bible, read the ante-NIcene fathers, read, the reformers, Luther, Calvin, Whiterspoon, Whitefield, Edwards, read others, take time and you will learn as the Holy Spirit, with your prayers for Him to do so, will guide you into the truth. Yes, we may have become humiliated, but we have done worse, we have, if it be possible, humiliated God, the creator, the Savior. When we realize this we wonder; 'Why have I been so dull, why have I been so obstinate, what is the object of my faith? When we take the time to know, we we study God's word, then we do hear God. He speaks to us. Now we find real delight, delight for our life. Things are important in this life, but they are not the object that becomes the center of our life, they are not what we place our faith upon. Our joy is founded upon Jesus Christ, our devotion is to Him, all other things are as the old song "Until Then," states; "These things are just borrowed for awhile."
I will continue to teach about the Bible, the Apocrypha, cannonization of the Bible, in order to raise and deepen your faith. But, until our faith, our devotion, for us to come to God with a contrite heart, is founded upon the ground for our faith, the object of our faith, Jesus Christ, the Bible is nothing more than another religious book. Yes, God, speak to us, we will not die. As your child, you will teach us and have given to us a revelation of You. This we find in the Bible, where You have spoken and where we find our rule of life, where we come into an understanding of the object of our faith; Jesus Christ. We become humbled, but joy is to be found, our lives are to be with You for eternity. This all you have promised and more, for You know that we are feeble, we become misled, we place our obedience on things we should not, but You have done more, You have sent into the world You Son, that Son, Your Wisdom, an infinite and eternal source of salvation to us, and furthermore, You have sent Your Holy Spirit to dwell in us, teaching us, guiding us. We need nothing more, we need just you.
Wilt thou also disannul my judgment?
Wilt thou condemn me, that thou
mayest be righteous? Has thou an arm
like God? or canst thou thunder
with a voice like him? Deck thyself now
with majesty and excellency; and
array thyself with glory and beauty.
Job 40: 8-10
Spend Time In God's Word
Richard L. Crumb
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