Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
One of the sad realities of life is that if we will not learn from history, we are bound to repeat it.
Contrary to the lies of evolution, our world is now about 6,000 years old. Over those 6,000 years, history has repeated itself over and over again. New things have been added from time to time. However, the basic thrust has been the same.
Adam chose to reject God’s Word and chose to believe a lie that his wife brought to him. He became a sinner the moment he ate from that forbidden fruit.
Doubting God’s Word has been a constant problem for mankind since that time. Occasionally, there has been an individual like Abel who chose to believe God’s Word. He was murdered because he honoured God.
The devil has been very convincing in reminding every person that if a person should follow Abel’s way, life will be hard and death will come.
The devil is a liar. He does not tell man that if he follows the devil’s way, life will be hard because man is dead already in sin and he will face the second death. The devil laughs every time a lost sinner dies.
Society has now joined him in holding “celebration of life” ceremonies rather than funerals. A funeral is far too somber. We need to lighten up a little. We need to think that death is not that bad. That is what the devil wants us to believe.
Today is marked as “Remembrance Day” on our calendars. The day was originally called “Armistice Day” It was established on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” in 1918.
There had been many wars prior to that time. However, it was determined that the world should be reminded of the horrors of war and the blessing of ending a war. Little did the world know that not many years later, there would be another world war fought, killing more people and destroying more territory.
We will never end wars by fighting wars. The problem is in the heart of man.
James 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
There is a battle taking place in man due to the fall. God created man in His own image. When man fell, the basis of that image was still there. Man still has the desire to know God, only now it is a god, rather than the true God. We have a multiplicity of false religions today. The sad reality is that the ecumenical crowd and the New Evangelical crowd do not realize they are part of the false religious system. They look at people like myself and claim that we are the problem.
When Jesus was on earth, He was the ultimate problem. John the Baptist was His forerunner and the religious elite came to hate him. True religion is incompatible with false religion. Some false religionists will tolerate true religion because they believe that is part of their calling. Rather than turn to the truth, they just learn to be tolerant of those “weird” people and they will even claim to pray that they would become more tolerant.
Deception is the trademark of the devil. Saved people are always in the minority. God does not need numbers to accomplish His purposes. He does not need anyone. He uses man for His glory. The wise man submits to God and thus becomes a recipient of His many blessings.
The wise person receives understanding from the All Wise God. Thus he does not corrupt the Old Testament and claim to be a participant in “replacement theology”. Rather he takes the Old Testament and studies the history of the nation of Israel and asks God to help him to understand the enduring principles that are there for all people to learn.
Be sure you are one of those people.
Pastor Bartel