Skip to main content

2 Kings 17:9-13 Things done in secret - Day 308

Good evening fellow sojourners

Listened to another Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermon on Romans 8 last week.  He pointed out that the motivation for holiness should be what sin does to God and not what it does to us.  I  quench the Spirit when I sin.  It is an affront to God.  I am to put to death the deeds of the body so that I do not offend Him, not because of any negative consequence to me personally.  Today's passage is an example.

Blessings,

Jeff

The sad summary of northern kingdom's entire existence.

How can author say that people did things in secret against the Lord that were not right?  Certainly they may have thought that God did not see what they were doing.  But the testimony of scripture is clear that God sees all things and is much displeased with the sin of having other gods.  And God sent prophets galore to warn them. When there are pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and every green tree, these are very public acts.  It seems that it was the vast majority of the people who were involved.  So I can't see this as being in secret from other people.

This made me think about current leaders like Ravi Zacharias.  When the truth finally came out, there were people who should have known and possibly did know, but they didn't do anything or say anything.  So his acts were "in secret" in the sense that people closed their eyes to what was there to be seen.

Israel was doing the wrong things for over 200 years.  So maybe the individual and corporate conscience became harder and harder.  Doing wrong was the norm, so it is hard to see it when everyone is doing it.    A modern example is abortion.  Everyone knows what happens to the unborn child during an abortion, but it is done in a medical context and the courts say it is constitutional, so it can't really be wrong. can it?  Human trafficking is another "in plain sight" evil.

So the application has to be, What am I doing that is wrong that seems to be in secret?  People may not know, but God does.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leviticus 18:21 - Partial restoration of creation order

Dear Friends, Some times we forget that Moses wrote Genesis.  Obviously, he did not have first hand knowledge of the events of creation.  But God did and revealed them to Moses.  The "story arc" is clear to Moses despite the millenia of history between Genesis and Leviticus.  The plan for ultimate restoration is hazy, but God is at work repairing some of the damage. Blessings, Jeff What is the prohibition on child sacrifice doing in the list of prohibited sexual relations? Be fruitful and multiply - First commandment in Genesis.  God made the world to be inhabited.   Having children is how this  was to happen.  So child sacrifice was a direct violation of this first command to Adam and Eve. Marriage is one man and one woman is the creation order. Seems simple enough.  I can imagine men thinking, Yeah but God didn't say which woman.  I will do the one woman thing if she is my sister, or aunt or …..  So God gives all these examples of unlawful unions.  To this day, man stil
Post a Comment
Read more

1 Chronicles 24:1-6 How about those Levites! Day 332

Good morning friends, Good foundations are important.  Our author turns to the religious life of the returning exiles. Blessings, Jeff We have seen the emphasis on the Davidic line in the  political life of Israel.  The other area of emphasis is the Aaronic priesthood and Levitical workers. In this passage we have a quick review of the somewhat sanitized picture of the start of Aaron's line.  The returning exiles would have known that Nadab and Abihu did not just "die before their father without children".  They rebelled against God by offering unauthorized fire and were themselves consumed by fire from the Lord. Leviticus 10.  The case of Abiathar  son of Ahitub son of Ahimelech, who was faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah is also not mentioned. But the passage points to the importance of the Aaronic line to the rebuilding of the temple by the exiles.  The history of the northern kingdom which was without the Levites from the beginning could not be repeat
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" becomes "no mere man since the fall
Post a Comment
Read more