LORD, what is man,
that You take knowledge
of him? Or the son of man,
that You are mindful of him?
Psalm 144:3
Therefore, 'Come out from
among them and be separate,
says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
and I will receive you.
I will be a Father to you,
and you shall be My sons
and daughters,
says the LORD Almighty.
2Corinthians 6:17-18
God does not sit back and watch idly as we go about our business; no He is actively involved in His creation. This He does within our circumstances of life by means of His Providence. The Hebrew word for "knowledge" (Yada) as quoted in the above verse has a larger meaning than simply knowledge of something, for it is to know by observing, thinking, and to know through experience. By God's observance He is able to know who are His children and to whom He has required to come out from among the unclean and to be separate as a people devoted to Him. If God is truly your Father then we are His child, a son, and a daughter to Him. But, man cannot, as it seems, just accept what God has said for they rationalize, and this rationalization is found to occur when it is spoken of about the nature of man and sin. Man makes excuses for their sin thinking that God will not hold them accountable by His standards, those standards that man cannot keep. This is circular reasoning: I sin due to my fallen nature, and my fallen nature causes me to sin, and sin is abhorrent to God, and God allowed sin, therefore my fallen nature is not due to me, it is due to the allowance of God, therefore I cannot be held accountable for my sin, therefore, I sin: round and round it goes. Actually man blames God in the finality. Man's pride will not allow for the blame to be place on him. This form of thinking allows for the culture of the world to become acceptable and this we can see by those Churches that allow for homosexuality, abortion, and women as preachers (this is said not to put the importance of women in the Church, only to follow what has been set forth in Scripture), living together without marriage, allowance for divorce for almost anything, wearing of skimpy clothing, both male and female, so that they are sexually desired. When the message of the Gospel and the requirements of God are placed before such ones, they ignore the facts and are not open to the message of the Bible. The Gospel message must be plainly communicated and demonstrated adequately if there be any chance of overcoming the objections of those who are calling themselves Christians, but are in fact only cultural Christians who allow the world to be a larger influence in their lives: they have not obeyed God's word to "come out from among them, to be separate people."
The Gospel is plain, yet there are many things that are hard to explain; therefore, start with the basics. You see, if man does not come to know, that is to fully believe that they are fallen creatures who are in need of a Savior then they will not become converted, they might believe, they might participate in Church, they might even agree to the facts presented, but they are not converted for they do not have the basic fact: they are sinful and they cannot do anything about that fact. This sinfulness cannot be atoned for by any act of charity, or philanthropic actions; it requires that God who has chosen them from the beginning of time to enable them and to grant to them the gift of grace and faith so that they can become a son or daughter, and then by means of that conversion become a people separated unto God. After the basics are accepted, then it is time to tackle the more difficult questions so that they may have a defense for their faith.
God is not to be blamed for sin! We cannot say that they goodness of God and His justice is adequate for us to be saved due to the fact that we cannot do this ourselves. We must not just say this, we must believe this with our whole heart and soul, that is we must not be just believers, even Satan believes in God, in His Son, we must be converted which means that we are not the same as before, we are now what the Bible calls us, new creatures in Christ: :Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures" (James 1:18). Sanctification is complete in Jesus Christ for all of God's creatures, that is those to whom God has granted eternal life, but we cannot just sit back and say, "well I am perfect in Christ, therefore I have nothing that I need to do to make me sanctified." What foolishness this is, yet there are and have been those who have promoted that they by becoming Christian are perfect: this we know is not true by our lives, now, historical, and will be in the future, for we must live for God now, and to become sanctified in this life until God takes us home to be with Him whereby there will be no sin, all sanctification will be applied to that one, but until we are fallen creatures, and evil does exist, both with us, and with those who will not accept Scripture.
We are not to become stoic, to acquiesce to this fact, we are to live, enjoy this life, fun and wonderful experiences are ours, only that we being free to live for God will enjoy God's blessing. It is when God is first in our lives, that we are devoted to Him that we can be all that God desires of us and our wives, children, friends will benefit from this association to God and His Word. No matter what comes to us by way of persecution, tribulation, sufferings, we have a sure hope that God who has elected us to salvation will be with us in all things and will never allow us to suffer more than we can handle: "And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2Corinthians 3:4-6). I think it is time to say: "HALLELUJAH!"
For we walk by faith,
not by sight.
We are confident, yes,
well pleased rather
to be absent from the body
and to be present with the Lord.
2Corinthians 5:7-8
Praise God Your Father
Richard L. Crumb
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