Warnings. Red lights in life that signal us of impending danger. They exist in all parts of life. Sirens scream as a marriage starts to sour; alarms blare when a faith weakens.
We usually know when trouble is just around the corner. Christians who've fallen away felt the fire waning long before it went out. Unwanted pregnancies or explosions of anger are usually the result of a history of ignoring warnings about an impending fire.
Are your senses numb? Are your eyes trained to turn and roll when they should pause and observe? One-night stands. Dust-covered Bibles. Careless choice of companions. Denial of Christ.
Proverbs 19:27 says, "Cease listening to [My] instruction and you will stray from the words of knowledge."
Divine warnings. Inspired by God; tested by time. Heed them and safety is yours to enjoy!
From God Came Near
Zechariah 9
Judgment on Israel’s Enemies
A prophecy:
The word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrak
and will come to rest on Damascus—
for the eyes of all people and all the tribes of Israel
are on the Lord—[a]
2 and on Hamath too, which borders on it,
and on Tyre and Sidon, though they are very skillful.
3 Tyre has built herself a stronghold;
she has heaped up silver like dust,
and gold like the dirt of the streets.
4 But the Lord will take away her possessions
and destroy her power on the sea,
and she will be consumed by fire.
5 Ashkelon will see it and fear;
Gaza will writhe in agony,
and Ekron too, for her hope will wither.
Gaza will lose her king
and Ashkelon will be deserted.
6 A mongrel people will occupy Ashdod,
and I will put an end to the pride of the Philistines.
7 I will take the blood from their mouths,
the forbidden food from between their teeth.
Those who are left will belong to our God
and become a clan in Judah,
and Ekron will be like the Jebusites.
8 But I will encamp at my temple
to guard it against marauding forces.
Never again will an oppressor overrun my people,
for now I am keeping watch.
The Coming of Zion’s King
9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River[b] to the ends of the earth.
11 As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
12 Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.
13 I will bend Judah as I bend my bow
and fill it with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, Zion,
against your sons, Greece,
and make you like a warrior’s sword.
The Lord Will Appear
14 Then the Lord will appear over them;
his arrow will flash like lightning.
The Sovereign Lord will sound the trumpet;
he will march in the storms of the south,
15 and the Lord Almighty will shield them.
They will destroy
and overcome with slingstones.
They will drink and roar as with wine;
they will be full like a bowl
used for sprinkling[c] the corners of the altar.
16 The Lord their God will save his people on that day
as a shepherd saves his flock.
They will sparkle in his land
like jewels in a crown.
17 How attractive and beautiful they will be!
Grain will make the young men thrive,
and new wine the young women.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Jeremiah 29:4-14
29:4-14
New International Version (NIV)
4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 8 Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.
10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.[a] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Footnotes:
Jeremiah 29:14 Or will restore your fortunes
The Challenge Of Confinement
December 27, 2013 — by David C. McCasland
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. —2 Peter 3:18
At the age of 86, Ken Deal concluded more than 3 decades of volunteer jail and prison ministry with a final Sunday sermon. His message to the inmates was about serving the Lord while incarcerated. Many of the examples he used came from prisoners, some serving life sentences. In a place everyone wants to leave, he encouraged them to grow and to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others.
After the people of Judah were taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar and deported to Babylon because of their disobedience to God, the prophet Jeremiah sent them this message from the Lord: “Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands . . . that you may be increased there, and not diminished” (Jer. 29:5-6).
We may face some limiting circumstance today. Whether it is the result of our failure, or through no fault of our own, we can “go” through it or seek God’s strength to “grow” through it. The challenge of every confinement is to increase rather than decrease; to grow and not diminish. The Lord’s goal is to give us “a future and a hope” (v.11).
I know, Lord, that You can use the circumstances
I am in for my good. Change me, and grow
me in my knowledge of You and intimacy
with You. Give me Your strength.
A limited situation may afford the soul a chance to grow.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
December 27, 2013
Where the Battle is Won or Lost
’If you will return, O Israel,’ says the Lord . . . —Jeremiah 4:1
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, “I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I’ll put God to the test.” Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point— a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Back From the Edge - #7035
Friday, December 27, 2013
I guess there's a daredevil inside of most little boys. They like to push the limits of safety and sanity. If you've got a boy or ever raised one, you know that. I'm not sure that part of the boy ever grows up, even when that boy becomes a man. I know that whenever we would hike to the top of a mountain, I would tend to head toward the edge of the cliff. That's where you get the best view, right?
And you know what? Even now I'll walk as close as I can to the edge, and you can hear the increasingly urgent counsel of my wife, who is saying, "Ron, you have children and grandchildren; you have one life. Don't go so close to the edge." Where we lived in New Jersey, near New York City, there are these beautiful palisades; sheer cliffs along the Hudson River. You can look across at New York City from there. And it was kind of fun to step to the edge and look down into the river. I stopped doing that. It got to the point where too many people had fallen over that edge.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Back From the Edge."
1 Samuel 15 is the story of Saul disobeying God's orders to him. Saul is the King of Israel; he has been told to destroy totally the corrupted culture of the Amalekites. It's like a poison, a cancer in the land. Sometimes God will destroy a sin-saturated culture directly as He did in Sodom. Sometimes He will do it though His people. Here He is giving Saul orders to do that through his army: "Leave nothing; take nothing." Listen to what happened.
Chapter 15, verse 9, it says, "Saul and the army spared the king, and the best of the sheep and the cattle, the fat calves and lambs-everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely." Okay, they are obviously disobeying God's orders. Verse 19 says, "Why did you not obey the Lord?" This is Samuel coming to him. "'Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the sight of the Lord?' 'But I did obey the Lord' Saul said." Well folks, not true.
Verse 22, Samuel says, "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king." Here's Saul's line of thinking, "How close can I get to the edge of disobeying without crossing the line?" Instead of complete obedience, he flirted with sin and punishment by obeying as little as he could get away with. He was wrong, and he paid the price of God's blessing.
Now, we do this all the time. When there's any question about where God's boundary is, we run to the edges of sin, take the most liberal position we can, and in the process we often wander into sin and we lose God's blessing.
Teenagers say, "How far can I go physically?" And they're unsure where the moral line is. They try to do everything physically that they can and then say, "Well, I'm still a virgin." You can't be in danger of doing too little physically, only too much. "Well, I really didn't lie." You intended to deceive didn't you? That's a lie. "Well, the Bible doesn't forbid drinking." It sure does discourage it if you want God's best. "Well, divorce..." Now we'll come up with the most liberal interpretation we can find; that's what we go for, and we cross God's boundaries in the process.
I would rather risk over-obeying the Lord than under-obeying Him. I'd rather be too far inside God's line than to risk crossing it. I'd rather err on the side of caution than carelessness. There's something in us that likes to go as close to the edge as possible. But my friend, too many have fallen over that edge.
God's blessing is too precious to risk by living on the edge of sin.