Promise Verse: If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land. – Isaiah 1:19
For the past two weeks we have been seeing the Ten commandments given by God.
Normalisation of Hatred: On July 7th 2023 Pravesh Shukla was seen urinating on a tribal man in Madhya pradesh. He was arrested. If convicted, he should face a fine and imprisonment of two years. What does it show? The upper castes can treat the lower castes in demeaning ways.
In Tamandu, Pudukkottai district in a village called Vengaivasal the water tank used by Dalits was mixed with human excretion. Animosity flows like water. The Hindus are asked to hate Muslims and Christians.
The God of the Bible and the court of heaven is above the supreme court of India. He will bring the adulterers and the same sex relationships to the punishment of hell.
But nowadays conversion is portrayed as crime and anti-Indian. When you enter a lawyers’ chamber you see books that are kept on the shelf. “The reason we have 17000 pages in our law books is because we cannot follow 10 lines on a tablet made of stone.” Ravi Zacharias
When you do what is right or follow the commandments, God accepts you. When you do wrong, sin is waiting to have hold of you. If you confess your sin, you will be forgiven and accepted.
Cain was angry with his brother Abel because God had accepted him and sacrifice. He should have been angry with himself.
(Pro 28:13 NIV) Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
(Pro 21:27 NIV) The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable— how much more so when brought with evil intent!
(Deu 28:1 NIV) If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.
Ie The story, now a legend, is told how Wallace Purling added a new touch to the Christmas play in a small town in the Midwest. Wallace was a little slow in the learning department. He was nine at the time and should have been in the fourth grade but was still in the second. In spite of his mental slowness, he was liked by the other kids in his class even though he was quite a bit taller and bigger than they.
According to the legend, Wallace fancied being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the director, Miss Lumbard, thought he might better fit the role of the innkeeper. After all, he wouldn’t have too many lines to remember and, because of his size, he would be able to present a more forceful refusal to the much smaller Joseph.
So the big night came. Behind stage, Wallace was so totally engrossed in the play that Miss Lombard had to make sure he didn’t wander onstage before his cue.
Then came Wallace’s part.
Looking exhausted from the long journey, Joseph and Mary slowly approached the entrance to the inn. Joseph knocked. The door opened immediately, and with Wallace putting on his gruffest voice declared, “What do you want?”
‘Seek elsewhere,’ Wallace
barked. ‘This inn is filled.’
“We seek lodging,” Joseph replied.
“Seek it elsewhere,” Wallace barked. “This inn is filled.”
“Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain. We have travelled far and are very weary.”
“There’s no room in this inn for you,” Wallace states strongly.
“Please, good innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary. She is heavy with children and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired,” Joseph pleaded.
For the first time, the innkeeper began to let down his guard and relax a little. There was a long pause … and silence. Now the audience was beginning to feel tense.
“No! Begone!” whispered the prompter from the wings.
“No!” Wallace repeated automatically. “Begone!”
Joseph looked at Mary, put his arm around her, and with heads bowed in sadness, they slowly walked away.
But the innkeeper didn’t close the door and go inside. He stood there with mouth open watching the forlorn couple leaving his inn. He was genuinely upset. His eyes were unmistakably filled with tears.
Then, totally unexpected, Wallace departed from his memorised script …
“Don’t go, Joseph,” Wallace called out. “Bring Mary back.”
And then with a broad grin lighting up his whole face he spoke out loudly and clearly, “You can have my room.”
Some in the audience felt Wallace had ruined the pageant. Others, however, felt it was the best Christmas pageant they had ever seen.
Not so fortunate on that first Christmas morning so long ago in the little town of Bethlehem of Judea. Little did that innkeeper know he had just turned away the Christ child-the Son of God and Creator of all the Universe, saying that there was no room in his inn for Him! In turning Jesus away, the Son of God had nowhere to lay his head except for a manger in a stable.
He, the King of Glory, was born in a stable so that he could redeem us from our sins and provide for us a mansion in heaven to live with him forever.
As Jesus said to his disciples and followers during his brief three-year period of ministry, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
You see good businesses in the world. They have something called membership. When you become members, you have discounts and benefits.
(1Pe 2:9 NIV) But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Once we were in darkness and the great light Jesus shone upon us.
Egypt where they were in slavery, the land was not dependent on rain showers. They had the perennial flowing Nile River. But the land of Israel is a land dependent on the rain showers. It is God who sends you rain in the season. It is the Lord who gives the harvest.
Paul planted the seeds. Apollos watered them. But God made it grow.
(Psa 3:5 NIV) I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.
Sleep does not come easily during a crisis. David could have had sleepless nights when his son Absalom rebelled and gathered an army to kill him. But he slept peacefully, even during the rebellion. What made the difference? David cried out to the Lord, and the Lord heard him. The assurance of answered prayer brings peace. It is easier to sleep well when we have full assurance that God is in control of circumstances. If you are lying awake at night worrying about what you can’t change, pour out your heart to God, and thank him that he is in control. Then sleep will come.
(Lev 26:8 NIV) Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: This clearly speaks of a Divine blessing. These remarkable promises clearly have a supernatural element.
(Act 24:24-25 NIV) Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control, and the judgement to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”
(2Ch 7:14 NIV) If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.