For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Be careful what you say because foolishly spoken words will get you into trouble. If you find yourself constantly getting into arguments, you are probably saying things you should not say. Learn from your past mistakes and guard your words carefully. This proverb contains a warning that I do not heed often enough.
Let us praise the Lord because He made us. If it were not for God, we would not exist. Everything that exists should praise God because He is our creator. Think about how great God is and the wonders which He has performed. Let us be filled with joy at the thought of praising God. I will praise God, no matter where I find myself from the deepest deeps to the highest heights. The glory of the Lord knows no bounds.
Paul warned the elders of the Church of Ephesus to guard themselves and the body of believers they had been given charge over. He told them that false teachers would come into the Church seeking to draw people away to follow them. Some of those false teachers will arise from within the Church itself, distorting the truths of the Christian faith in order to benefit themselves. Paul’s warning is one that we need to heed today as well. If we look around us, we see many Church groups which have abandoned Biblical truths. There are groups which have started claiming that sexual immorality is not a sin. There are groups which have abandoned a focus on loving our neighbors and caring for the needy. We must not make the mistake of overlooking one sort of distortion of God’s truth because a teacher is combating another distortion of God’s truth.
God allowed the Kingdom of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, to be conquered by the Assyrians. The people of Israel were sent into exile by the Assyrians. The passage tells us that this happened because the people of Israel did evil in the sight of God. Rather than follow God’s commands and worship only Him they followed the pagan practices of the nations around them. The writer speaks of their various sins and then mentions that they went so far as to sacrifice their own sons and daughters. God sent prophet after prophet to call them back to Himself, but they would not listen, until finally their sins brought disaster down upon their heads.
Every time I read these passages where the writer expresses his horror at the fact that the people sacrificed their own children upon the pagan altars I cannot help but think of the tragedy of the easy acceptance of abortion in our own country. In our society we sacrifice our own children upon the altar of convenience. Here too God has sent prophets calling us back to following Him, but people refuse to listen, some going so far as to say that it is not a sin to do things which God has condemned.
I am not a proponent of making abortion illegal (although I do not believe that doing so would be a bad thing). I am a proponent of convincing people not to kill their children, even if those children are still in the womb. I believe that we as Christians should stop worrying about changing the laws and spend more time allowing the Spirit to use us to change people’s hearts. Let us strive to convince people to stop worshiping the gods of convenience and self. Turning their hearts instead to God, their Creator.