You Test, He'll Prove

Welcome to Fear No Fear, a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. Fear is a spiritual force that Satan uses to keep people down. We reject fear and champion faith in God. God wants a relationship with us, but He doesn't need us. He brought the people to Canaan but punished them when they turned away and embraced immorality. Sin is like a disease that spreads if unchecked. The law looked at the spiritual whole, not the individual. Jesus also emphasized cutting out anything that causes us to stumble. The Israelites didn't follow instructions and became defiled. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of his word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to his perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org Deuteronomy 18.22 You may say in your heart, how shall we know the word which Yahweh has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in Yahweh's name, if the thing doesn't follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him. We're always trying to put God into a box, to build ourselves into the image of our God, the God we imagine. We want him to work our way. We want him to be our way. We want to be secure in who we are in the him we imagine. But that isn't how it works. Not with Yahweh God. One of the main purposes of all the gods in mythology of the world is to lower expectations. The Greek gods lied, cheated, were petty, were immoral, and were petulant children. Same as the Roman gods and the Viking gods. Across the world, you find deities modeled on man. They talk like us, act like us, and enable us, good and bad. If the gods are like this, how can I be any different? Even the stories of mighty deeds are tinged with bad. Creation myths based on personality A stealing something from personality B. Lofty entities. That's the other one. Across the world, you'll find it. So far above us that they cannot dime to give us their attention. They're so otherworldly and impersonal that you just don't expect it. They're going to be what they are, and we're going to be what we are. And maybe we cross paths, and maybe we don't. Or they're personalities that are desperate for our worship, adoration, and gifts. And I can understand how you can get sucked into that. I can understand how a civilization or a culture that isn't learned in the ways of the world can get sucked into that. But really, who would want a god like that? These beings and stories were invented to explain the world around us, to give meaning to the cold realities of science before they were understood to be a science. That's why it's easy to understand why they would embrace them. They were there as teaching tools to impart a society's values, morals, and conduct into the next generation. They were cautionary tales, much like fairy tales were, to keep people from harming themselves and from others. But Yahweh God doesn't fit into that framework, and none of those frameworks. Yahweh God is, always was, always will be. In that respect, we don't matter whether we are here or not, survive or not, continue or not, obey or not, acknowledge or not, aware or not. He still is. Now the gods and objects of worship of humanity fade as their culture fades. There are innumerable gods who have ceased to be, no longer called by their names, and no longer sacrificed to or worshipped. But Yahweh isn't like that. He doesn't need us to exist. We, however, need Him very much, Job 12.10 and Acts 17.28. The Lord created us from dirt, Psalm 103.14. He breathed the breath of lives into us, Genesis 2.7, and established a relationship with us. That's the difference with Yahweh. He wants a relationship with us. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need our worship. He doesn't need our adoration. He doesn't need our obedience. But He wants our fellowship. In order to fellowship with Him, we have to be obedient to Him. If we're being obedient to Him, we'll realize who He is, and we will give Him our adoration. We will give Him our worship because He's worthy of it, being just who He is. But He doesn't need us. More importantly, He wants us. And we've betrayed that, Genesis 3. We've been moving further and further away from Him since then. You can see it in the book of Genesis that our relationship with God and how God gets referred to gets more and more distant. You could look at it from worldly archaeological principle and say, oh, well, you've got five different writers of the book of Genesis because there's five different ways that they look at God. But if you look at it spiritually, you can see that it's one writer of the book, and he's showing how five different times we took a step away and away and away, and it changed how we relate to Him. God is exactly the same, but we're relating to Him differently. So when we look back at events and commandments within the Old Testament in particular, because we're moving away from Him, we like to filter them through a modern moral lens and then use that filter as a justification of human interpretation. Okay, that sounded very philosophical, didn't it? So let's look at a single idea that many people struggle with to give you what I'm talking about. God tells the Israelites to eradicate the Canaanites. Now, we see this as a horrific thing. We question whether any true deity would even command this. We question whether a God of love could condone such killing. We see it as bloodthirsty. We see it as colonialism at its worst. And frequently we decide that the command that God had given had been more of a wordless revelation, just to take the land as their own, and that the humans involved interpreted that in the worst possible way. There's a modern interpretation of that. But the Scripture says different. It's clear that the Lord had a hand in bringing all those people who inhabited Canaan to the land of Canaan, Amos 9-7. Those people turned away from God and embraced immoral behavior and idols, Leviticus 18-24. This was the time period in human history of the law. Do and be blessed, do not and be cursed. Remember? This was the teaching time so that humanity could take in that the price of sin was death, that blood was required to be redeemed. Right from the beginning, He clothed Adam and Eve. He clothed their shame with the bloodied carcass of an animal. Right from the beginning, blood covered them. So the people that He brought to Canaan that turned away and defiled themselves with behavior that had nothing to do with the righteousness of the Lord sinned. They sinned against Him. And there were hundreds of years that they spent being dealt with by the Lord, Genesis 15-16. And they didn't turn back to Him. So they paid the penalty for it. The land was defiled. Therefore, I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out her inhabitants. You, therefore, shall keep my statues and my ordinances and shall not do any of these abominations, neither the native-born nor the stranger who lives as a foreigner amongst you. For the men of the land that were before you had done all these abominations, and the land became defiled. Let the land not vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. Because 18, 25-28. So, in this viewpoint, sin is a disease, a curse. And when you allow a disease into a body unchecked, it will slowly but inevitably take over that body. And we know this. Medical science proves this. Why do you think cancer treatment is so harsh? One can argue that the cure is worse than the disease. Cancer treatments can kill you. I would state across the board they will kill you, but we do survive them, not because we're strong, but because we stop them as soon as the cancer looks dead. We stop them because they're harsh, and they will kill you if you don't stop them at some point. Now, why do we do this? Why do we force people into this? Because the disease is a guaranteed killer. Now, what would you rather do? Lose part of yourself or all of yourself? Part, of course. It's a standard human idea and has been for untold millennia. Sin is the same. Cut it out or get it infected through all of yourself. This was the principle, or a principle, of the law. It looked at the spiritual whole, not at the natural individual, because the law was about the spiritual nation and not a single person. If you were a threat to the spiritual whole, you were toast. Now, don't think of this as an Old Testament idea. Jesus agreed with it 100%. If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. Matthew 5, 29-30. The people of Canaan consistently and continuously were against Yahweh, so they lost their opportunity to continue in the land of promise. They had to be cut out because they had become defiled and defilers. This was not the act of a bloodthirsty God. This was a sorrowful judgment out of love for the rest of humanity to get rid of the thing that caused defilement to protect the innocent. We accept this kind of thinking in our modern day. An individual who accepts the idea that they are an alcoholic does not keep alcohol in their house. They cut it out. Now, God warned the Israelites in the same way. If you don't get rid of that which defiles and have no part in it in any way, you will be defiled. It was truth. It is truth. And it's proved in Scripture. The Israelites did not follow all their instructions, and they ended up being defiled through association and absorption of bad morals. So, they ended up punished as well. That was what the law was about, to retrain their thinking to God's way because God doesn't do things to fit us. So, that box we keep trying to make, He doesn't exist in it. He is above it. His ways higher than our ways. He lays out what is, and we need to adjust. A good chunk of the law was to make them rethink what was important in order to save them from penalty and separation from the Lord. For example, it says in Leviticus 15, 18, If a man lies with a woman, and there is an emission of semen, they shall both bathe themselves in water and be unclean until the evening. Now, that's not a big deal. Unless, of course, you needed to enter or present yourself at the tent of meeting to give a sacrifice to be cleansed of a sin, or to attend a feast, or anything else that had to do with interaction directly with the Lord. That meant they needed to think things through. There were very appropriate times for passion, and there were inappropriate times for passion. Remember, humanity are not animals. We are not subject to the whims of the flesh. And in the law, they were challenged to think of the consequences of their actions and be mindful of their actions. You weren't going to go around sleeping with everything that moved if you were ritually unclean because of it. They were called to participation with the tabernacle, after all. So, you don't give in to the flesh if you're focused on the Lord. And the trick is to stay focused, which was a tool of the law. But just following the tool, you're not going to succeed, because there's more to it than that. And there's more to it than the Levitical laws and all of those things, but that's just an example of the idea. To take a rule that he says, this is good conduct. You can do this, and then you're unclean or you're clean, and you have to participate accordingly, so that you'll retrain your mind to what is morally right. Now, that puts a large focus on revelation, the revealed morality of Yahweh God. Because only by getting in line with the Lord will we be able to fellowship with the Lord and stay right with Him. If you weren't ritually clean, you couldn't interact with the tabernacle, which was the chosen meeting place between God and man. So, in the Old Testament, they had two tools to maintain that. It was the law and the prophets. The law laid down conduct, guidelines, and commands. Prophets revealed the word of the Lord, both in relation to the law and in relation to events occurring or soon to occur, which, of course, put a potential weapon into the hands of humanity. That revelation office could be usurped. Someone could say things to get selfish events to come to pass. They could be bribed for a favorable word. They could try to control those around them. So, God gave checks and balances. Test the word, He said. You see, the word of Yahweh God never fails, Luke 137. It never returns to Him void, Isaiah 55, 11. And He watches over it, Jeremiah 1, 12. It can be relied on. God told His people to test the prophets. If the words came true, you'd know God spoke them. If they didn't come true, you didn't have to fear the doom and gloom message of the prophet because God wasn't backing them up. Now, today, we have three tools of revelation, and ours are superior. Now, we still have the word, but the Spirit speaks to us about what we read and gives us confirmation, revelation, and communion in our spirit about what He says. We have prophets, but the Spirit speaks to us about what we hear and gives us confirmation not only by seeing the words of the prophets come to pass, but also confirmation in our spirits about the validity of the prophets' message. We also have Jesus. He abides in us, and we in Him, John 15, 1-7. We are new creatures in Him, 2 Corinthians 5, 14-19. We have a new spirit, new thoughts, and new impulses. We can be in a house full of alcohol and not worry about relapsing. Why? Because the Spirit will guide us to good things and away from bad things in order that we be healthy and happy, Proverbs 4, 20-27, and Isaiah 55-2, especially the second part of that verse. Yahweh God is. His ways are righteous. His ways are perfect. His ways are loved. We don't get to choose who He is. We don't get to say how He operates. He does what He does. Truth is truth. Right morals are right morals. We can follow Him and believe Him. We can reject Him and continue in our own way. The choice is ours. But remember, we didn't create Him. We can't change Him to fit our ideas, wants, and perceptions. We can only submit to His will and do what He says we should. The onus is on us to listen and apply. It is not on Him to change and deal as we want. He meets us where we are, but we don't choose who He is and where we meet Him. The responsibility of prophecy is to be honest, honest to His Spirit and honest to His teaching. Our responsibility is to listen and test. Because truth is truth. His word will come to pass. Our words come to nothing unless they're founded and grounded in His. Yahweh God is. He lives and breathes. Accept Him as He is and walk with Him today in His steps, on His path, in His way. No fear. Love. Peace. And fellowship with the merciful, loving Father. The Good Father. Our Father. God Almighty. Believe it, receive it, and walk in it. Amen. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Psalm 45, 5-7. The greatness of the new covenant, that which makes it a better promise, Hebrews 8, 6, is that the Lord God Almighty indwells us. How can you fear or be anxious or depressed or sad or worried? The Word by which all was made, the Living One who went to the cross and was resurrected again to life, the Spirit of Truth who comforts, counsels, instructs, and corrects. I am. The Almighty lives within you. The name that is above all names is formed and imprinted on your insides. It shines forth bright and glorious. It fills you with power and love and self-control. How can you be sick or weak or hurting when the power that raised people from the dead resides inside you? How can you be poor or lacking when the Spirit which enables growth flows in, on, and through you? You are a beacon of mercy and love and a dark storm of ignorance. You may be just a person, a human, a regular Ronnie, but inside of you is the authority, power, mercy, love, joy, and peace of the Father. It cannot be contained. It cannot be shut down. It cannot be denied. But it can be ignored by you. You have free will. You can let it loose by giving Him permission to work in your life as He sees fit. You can enjoy all its benefits. You can walk redeemed. He loves you too much to leave you lacking. He loves you too much to see you defeated. The voice that melted the earth itself is in you and you will not be moved. God loves you and is here to help you. Let Him be your refuge today. As we close, remember that you have worth. You are precious and valuable. Today, God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love and no end to the things about you that He loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember, the Lord loves you just because you're you. 1 John 4 9-10 tells us, By this, God's love was revealed in us, that God has sent His only-born Son into the world, that we might live through Him. And this is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because He first loved us. He just loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.