I just finished a great conversation with a Seventh Day Adventist brother about the history or the Sabbath.
According to him, Constantine aligned the Sabbath with His Calendar which made Sunday the day of rest for all workers and professionals. I think he thought I would enter into a discourse about the Sabbath, but I redirected his attention to how the example of Constantine caused a long term shift in the faith.
While the leadership at the time might have thought
it an easy answer to stop persecution
and to make the faith popular,
it led to a change in the practice of the faith.
I then took the time to talk to our brother about the dangerous game our evangelical leaders are playing with our president and his companions. While they are working their way into power by renting out their pulpits, they are allowing a man who considers capitalism righteousness, and considers the Bible leverage to manipulate people to serve as an example to all as a standard of righteousness.
While this seems innocent and harmless, like Constantine, this can lead the practice and understanding of the the faith and Christ long beyond an up and coming election.
#pastorJDO3
The Word informs us that He will divide sheep from goat, almost like the lawless swipe their way through Tinder. Yep, either covered or uncovered! Our God swept through Egypt looking at the doorpost, laying to rest the first born of those who were not covered, swallowed up almost all of humanity in a flood, rained down fire on an unrighteous town, allowed famines to come, and allowed His people to be held in captivity (among many other events). This God, my friends, has been labeled so loving and so forgiving, that He will not honor His Word.
We forget that our God’s Word hold back the four corners of the earth, and that one Word from Him can flood the earth, can open up the ground and swallow up rebellious followers. How quickly we forget that 40 years passed before entering the promised land, laying to rest generations of His chosen ones because the grumbled and complained, and that His chosen vessel died before entering the land promised to him because of disobedience. This same God gave the man after His own heart the plans for the temple, allowed him to collect all the resources and then wouldn’t let him build! This God people is the same God, now and forever more. And despite our teaching and characterization of God, all the interpretive face lifts and implants will not change who He is, just who we believe Him to be.
This same God allowed His children to lay waste to enemy territory, putting to death women, children and even the animals. He reminds them that He is capable of not only parting seas, and providing clouds and fire to guide them, but is able to curse the very ground the labored on and remove the hedges that formerly protected them.
The people outside play, taunt and keep up drama and noise in His presence, ignoring the sheer danger of the lion, and playfully beacon from Him to emerge from His throne. I can see people throwing rocks down the entrance, waving fresh flesh at the caves entrance, yelling into the caves empty threats, growing bolder and louder by the moment before He appears.
The place where He purposed to meet them was eventually shared by false Gods, and became a place of manipulation and disobedience. The law He created for mankind to abide by, because a tool to chastise and prosper those in power with positions. And it is this bold, public rejection of God that causes God to put into works a public judgement.
Of course I gasped. As I look at our current state, I see us suffering and blaming the adversary, binding the work of the devil while the Lord holds back the angels and the hedge placed around us, exposing us and leaving us vulnerable to the enemy. God was using them to chastise His people in an effort to direct them back into a right relationship with Him, and they adjusted to their new normal, remained in error, and abandoned their pursuit for righteousness. We don’t have to remain in our current state! We can restore to us what has been taken by dedicating ourselves fully to the Lord.
In the past, the Israelites benefited from the help from others, but God warns them. No matter the marriages and or the connections they have made with those who are not in relationship with the Lord, “…that no one will be able to put out.” Everyone can grab a bucket and a hose, and focus all their resources on putting out the inferno God has sent your way. We can collectively sacrifice all our resources and find ourselves bearing witness as you are reduced to ash and dust. Why play chicken with the Lord.
The people of Israel have walked away from their God, and chosen to worship the false idols of the communities in which they existed. Their willingness to walk away from God, as well as the lack of reverence and fear for the Lord, was speaking loudly to the people who had front row seats. Those who feared and revered the Lord, though not God’s chosen people or ones who worshiped the Lord, had fear and respect for God, and lost it as His people walked away from Him. 
Their abandoning of God and choice to worship idols, validated the idols to those who worshiped them, leading to an even deeper worship and placed further distance between them and the Lord. I thought of us! I considered how our behavior has either given glory to God, or served as hindrance to them worshiping and acknowledging God.
We must also be honest. Honesty is a dying value our capitalistic mindsets. The mindset that is ingrained in us is to do what ever is necessary to prosper. Our behavior is justified by the productivity of our hands and plans. This my friends is wrong. There is a right and a wrong, and bearing fruit from evil is not a part of God’s plan. We take God’s word to be shrewd and or skew the concept of the wicked wealth being stored up for us.
Keep the covenant with God will keep us from being in exile. God shares that His plan was to lavish His people with blessing in the land He delivered them too. And as He blessed them, the testimony as to His goodness would be upon their lips. His children would be elevated in the midst of surrounding kingdoms, blessed beyond belief, leaving no doubt that this was truly the one true and living God. Because they worshiped the things and opened up to other gods, God has to punish them, thus resulting in people doubting God and not desiring to be in relationship with Him. God wanted to restore the people and make them the envy of all. He said the people would look at them and “pray to be as blessed by Him (God) as you are, and will make Him the object of their boasting.
This mirrors our personal perspective on faith. Many of us edit God’s Word, and omit God’s truths, justifying our lifestyle and choices by overlooking what He has commanded. This is harmful and foolish! The devil has deceived us into becoming out own gods, offering us the same fruit he submitted to Adam, and have bitten once again.
God says the dedication of these unbelievers is admirable. Their loyalty worthy of mention. Their faithfulness worthy of imitation. God says to look at them. They worship statues and animals, pictures and drawing, items and possessions, and they are faithful to these items though they are powerless. And we; are called by the name of the one true and living God, who has displayed His power, revealed truth, delivered his people, gave them land and riches, defeated false Gods, empowered His prophet to defeat the magicians of Israel and they still abandoned their God. Sadly, so have we.
How tough it must be for God to watch us be “catfished” by a statue posing as a God. God watches us carry on two and 10 years love affairs with a false god, using up our resources and time, humiliating us before the world as we are dragged along by our nostrils. How painful it must be for God to be so close to His people, only to have them falling in love with images on a screen. How painful it must be for Him to continue providing and being faithful, while we explore our options and share our most intimate moments and thoughts with someone who can not, see, hear or speak, and for that matter, act! How frustrating it must be for God to bring us through and have us attribute His handy work to and after marked god.
Has God sent word to you? Of course, this is a rhetorical question! You too, like me, and like the children of Israel have been both an enemy of the cross, and or AWOL! Maybe you you deserve to be dishonorably discharged! Despite our behavior, God sends prophets and angels, discharged with instructions and directions, to real us back into relationship with Him. He sends flowers and blessings, and allows us to experience life without Him, and still reaches out to us. He watches us walk hand in hand with sin, bathing in iniquity, and soaking in indiscretions, and drafts beautiful love discourses to express His unfailing love for us. Who does this but God?
speak His name in the midst of our sin and struggle. Why the aisle doesn’t open up to swallow us, one can not justify, but God justifies us! Through our covenant agreement, we are heirs to a Kingdom via a promise that is undeserved.
