Wisdom Reveals God

New Guest: Most posts are devotional; those related to CAR BIZ can be found by searching for that label.

Friday and Saturday, December 19-20, 2008
Devotions: Ps 40, 51, 54, 55; Isa 10:5-27; 2 Pet 2:17-22; Jude 17-25; Mt 11:2-15; Lk 3:1-9

How kind God has been. He drew me from the mire, put a new song in my heart, and made me secure. Blessed are all who trust in God; how He multiplies His kindnesses toward those who trust in Him! He doesn’t need our stuff—He wants our selves; He helps us see and understand the mysteries of existence. I delight to do Your will, O YHWH; Your law is in my heart. You are generous; I will be generous, too, in sharing the truth You have revealed. May all who seek You be rewarded and rejoice! Great is YHWH, and swift in mercy. Father, You and I know I’m a sinner; wash me thoroughly form my iniquity; create in me a clean heart and upright spirit. Forgive me for hurting You by my corruption. Fill me with joy and gladness, and keep me close to You. I thank You for closing doors I would have used to enter into sin. Uphold me by Your Spirit, and I will teach transgressors the lessons You have taught me: God is love; the sacrifice He accepts is a broken and contrite heart and spirit. Turn to the light, and you can do good works!
God is my Helper; He upholds my life, and I give myself to Him day by day. I have looked in triumph on all my enemies, through His grace. God destroys the plots of wickedness that would harm me; He heals me from the wounds of fickle ‘friends’. I cast all my burdens on the Lord, and He sustains me. I will trust in You!

YHWH set Assyria upon His wayward people. But when God had done His work in Jerusalem, He punished the arrogance of Assyria’s king. The king thought his conquests resulted from the his own might, wisdom and virtue; this was neither true nor wise, because it alienated the God Who had sustained and prospered Assyria. The prophet says, ‘Shall the axe vaunt itself over Him Who hews with it…, as if a staff should lift Him Who is not wood.’ So God sent plagues against Assyria’s forces, and they wasted away. Jacob’s remnant returned to lean upon YHWH, and to the Holy Land. ‘For in a little while, My indignation will end, and My anger will destroy your persecutors, and I will lift their yoke from your shoulders.’

Peter wrote of the false teachers in the early church: ‘They are waterless springs, storm-driven mists, destined for nether darkness and gloom. They excite the base licentiousness of mortal flesh; they use freedom as enticement to slavery to corruption. Their last state is worse than their first: ignorance is better than ignoring the truth one has understood. They are like dogs slurping their own vomit, or washed pigs wallowing in a mire.’

Jude harps the same theme: ‘Remember that our Lord’s apostles predicted this: “In the last days scoffers will come following their own ungodly passions.” These worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, divide the fellowship. You, my beloved ones, build yourselves up in faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in God’s love; and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, which gives you eternal life. Evangelize, so that some will be snatched from the fire; express mercy, shunning what is fleshy. We ascribe glory, majesty, dominion and authority forever to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord. Amen.’

In 26 or 27 B.C., God’s word came to John, Zechariah’s son [and Jesus’ cousin] in the wilderness, and he went into the region near the Jordan River, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Luke quotes Isaiah: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways, smooth. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.' John said to the multitudes who came to him for baptism: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Bear fruit fitting to repentance. Don’t even start to say you have Abraham as a father; God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Right now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every fruitless tree is cut down and thrown into the fire!’

Later, from prison, John the Baptizer sent disciples to question Jesus: ‘Are you the One, or should we keep searching?’ Jesus answered: ‘Go tell John what you hear and see: the blind are given sight; the lame walk; lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead are raised to life; and the poor have good news preached to them. Blessed is he who takes no offense at Me.’ Then Jesus turned to those around Himself, and spoke of John: ‘Who is John? Did you go to see a reed shaken by the wind? A man in rich clothing? No, you went to a prophet and more—he is the one of whom it was written, “Look! I send My messenger before your face, who will prepare your way.” No mortal greater than John the Baptizer has ever been born. Yet the one who is least in Heaven’s kingdom is greater than he. Since John came, God’s kingdom has suffered violence, and violent men take it by force. All the prophets and all the Torah pointed to John’s coming: He embodies the return of Elijah announcing the Messiah’s advent.’ [Jesus’ deeds affirmed His identity to John; and John’s identity affirmed Jesus as the Messiah to anyone who had eyes and ears.]