12.14.2012 CONSECRATION VI

'little children, guard yourselves from idols' I john 5.21
this week has been a war against the idol 'ray'.
this is not a person,
for we wrestle not against flesh and blood
but against rulers,
against the powers,
against the world forces of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (ephesians 6.12).
it is a 'golden lie'.
it is the temptation to trust something other that God alone.
this last week i have been largely without conscious prayer.
it is like someone flicked a switch.
yet i am not abandoned for God says, '..be content...for He Himself has said,
'I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you'. hebrews 13.5
Hallelujah.

I. decided to go through another section of psalm 119 starting out this morning.
came to vs. 126-8 and could not understand them.
to that point i had gotten nothing.
 finally, decided to read spurgeon's treasury of david on this section.
126 'it is time for the Lord to act.
for they have broken Thy law.
127 THEREFORE i love Thy commandments
above gold, yes, above fine gold.
128 THEREFORE i esteem right all Thy precepts concerning everything,
i hate every false way.'

2. the words 'it is time for the Lord to act' v126
became connected with the 'therefore' in v127
(and later, with the 'therefore' in v128).
times were bad.
men were being wicked.
rather than wilt, rather than judge and condemn, rather than fear,
the psalmist decided to take a new resolve:
to be openly and unashamedly and completely on the side of God and His word.
-i LOVE Thy commandments above all else. not only that,
-i esteem RIGHT
ALL Thy precepts
concerning EVERYTHING.
-i HATE EVERY false way.
as a good example always does much to encouraged another,
i was duly encouraged by David's heart choices here
and make the same choices as he.

3. then i turned to my reading of ezekiel SLOWLY AND PRAYERFULLY.
(what are You saying to me Lord?)
today's portion was to be chapters 26-8.
i got to 27.19 (more tonight when i go home)
the three chapters are talking about God's judgment of tyre, a renowned, busy seaport just north of israel.
my mind kept pointing me back to
26.5 'she (tyre) will be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea..
and she will become spoil for the nations.
and v14 'and I will make you (tyre) a bare rock;
you will be a place for the spreading of nets.
you will be build no more..'
my mind focused on NO MORE. (i have heard that it is still a bare rock)

then i remembered that the Lord had prophesied some similar things that He would do to babylon.
i found them in the book of jeremiah.
25.12 'then it will be when 70 years are completed
(the jews exiled to babylon were released 70 years after arriving there)
I will punish the king of babylon and that nation for their iniquity
(they were destroyed by the medes and the persians)
and the land of the of the chaldeans (babylonians)
and i will make it an EVERLASTING DEVASTATION.
(the site on which babylon stood is still wasteland)
50.39f 'therefore the desert creatures will live there along with the jackals;
the ostriches also will live in it,
and it will NEVER AGAIN BE INHABITED
or dwelt in from generation to generation
as when God overthrew sodom and gomorrah with its neighbors..
no man will live there,
nor will any son of man reside in it.

then i happened to notice the reason given by God for His judgment of babylon
jeremiah 51.7 babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord
intoxicating all the earth.
the nations have drunk of her wine;
therefore the nations are going mad.
i thought of america where i live, constantly, polluting the whole world with immorality, greed, genocide and war...
i thought of how little i have done because i will not sell out completely to obey God (like david talked of)...and live openly, unashamedly, completely obedient to His words.

i looked back at the reason given by God for His judgment of tyre. in eze. 26.2 He said to ezekiel,
'son of man, because tyre has said concerning jerusalem,
'aha, the gateway of the peoples is broken;
it has opened to me.
i shall be filled,
now that she is laid waste.
i thought of how i assiduously
(constant, unrelenting)
earthly ease and security for myself while untold people around me are a breath away from hell.
why should not i be eternally condemned for focus on self with no real concern for those around me?

4. then i was struck by the vast difference between the above punishments and God's treatment of Israel and Judah in jeremiah 51.5,
'for neither israel nor judah has been forsaken
by his God, the Lord of hosts;
although their land is full of guilt
before the Holy One of israel.

5. at that point i remembered the word 'survivor' as applied to judah, currently under the judgment of God and decided to consult strong's concordance.
the hebrew verb, palet, in one form is used often of david in the psalms with the sense, 'trust (as a fugitive?), deliver (as a fugitive)'
(17.13; 18.2,43,48; 22.4,8; 31.1; 37.40; 40.17; 43.1; 71.2,4; 82.4; 91.14; 144.2)
and in another form is used with the idea of 'escaped one, fugitive'

the first occurrence is in judges where the tribe of benjamin was nearly annihilated by the other tribes. after the fight there were only 400 men left.
the elders of israel said,
'what shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of benjamin?
21.17 and they said, 'there must be an inheritance for the SURVIVORS of benjamin, that a tribe may not be blotted out from israel'.
in other words the word is used in the context of 'israel CANNOT perish (any tribe even).

the next is in II kings 19.31 where isaiah gives answer to hezekiah after God has heard his prayer for deliverance in the face of a massive, hostile assyrian army at the gates of jerusalem,
'and the surviving remnant of the house of judah shall again
take root downward and
bear fruit upward.
for out of jerusalem
shall go forth a remnant
and out of mount zion SURVIVORS.
the zeal of the Lord shall perform this. (recounted in isaiah 37.32)

v35f 'then it happened that night that the angel of the Lord went out, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. so sennacherib king of assyria departed and...as he was worshipping in the house of nisroch his god, that adrammelech and sharezer killed him with the sword...

next, isaiah 4.2,
'in that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the SURVIVORS of israel.'

isaiah 66.18f  'for I know their works and their thoughts;
the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues.
and they shall come and see My glory.
and I will set a sign among them
and will send SURVIVORS from them to the nations..
to the distant coastlands that have neither heard my fame nor seen My glory.
and they will declare My glory to the nations.
then they shall bring all your brethren
from all the nations
as a grain offering to the Lord,
on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules and on camels,
to My holy mountain Jerusalem....

ezekiel 7.15f (foretelling the destruction of jerusalem by babylon)
'the sword is outside and the plague and the famine are within.
he who is in the field will die by the sword;
famine and the plague will also consume those in the city.
even when their SURVIVORS escape,
they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys,
ALL OF THE MOURNING
EACH OVER HIS OWN INIQUITY.
all hands will hang limp
and all knees will become like water.
and they will gird themselves with sackcloth,
and shuddering will overwhelm them;
and shame will be on all faces,
and baldness on all their heads.
and they shall  fling their silver into the streets
and their gold shall become an abhorrent thing...
they cannot satisfy their appetite,
nor can they fill their stomachs,
for their iniquity has become an occasion of stumbling.

ezekiel 14.20f (foretelling the destruction of jerusalem by babylon)
even though noah, daniel, and job were in its midst..
they could not deliver either their son or their daughter.
they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness.
for thus says the Lord God,
how much more when I send My four severe judgments against jerusalem:
sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague to cut off man and beast from it!
YET, BEHOLD, SURVIVORS
will be left in it (!)
who will be brought out,
both sons and daughters.
behold they are going to come forth to you
(ezekiel and the jews in captivity in babylon)
and you will see their conduct and actions;
then you will be comforted for the calamity
which i have brought against jerusalem
for everything which I have brought upon it.
then they will comfort you
when you see their conduct and actions,
for you will know
that I have not done in vain
whatever i did to it,
declares the Lord God.

this amazing grace of God to the SURVIVORS, both at the past destruction of jerusalem by babylon and in the yet coming deliverance of jerusalem from a whole world gathered together to destroy her once for all..spoken of in the above passages,
is confirmed by the apostle paul in romans 11.25f,
'for i do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery,
lest you be wise in your own estimation,
that a partial hardening has happened to (racial) israel
until the fullness of the gentiles has come in
and thus ALL (SURVIVORS of racial) israel will be saved;
just as it is written,
'the deliverer will come from zion,
He will remove ungodliness from jacob.
and this is My covenant with them,
when I take away their sins.
...all one can say is AMAZING GRACE all around,
not one of the jews deserve it,
not one of the gentiles deserve it, especially me..

6.(i have continued to struggle mightily (it doesn't look mighty from within or without) against the subtle, seductive honied strains of the pied pip0eer in my mind promising PROVISION for my needs if i would just bow down and worship the god of 'ray'..if i would just give my life to, if i would just do what he says...)
then my mind went to the words of Jesus in luke 16 with 'many are those who enter' destruction (matthew 7.13) and 'many will seek to enter (the narrow door that leads to heaven) and will not be able' (luke 13.24) playing in my mind. help me come and die Lord!

luke 16.13 (Jesus speaking)
'no servant can serve two masters;
for either he will hate the one and love the other
or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
you cannot serve God and mammon.
v14 now the pharisees,
who were lovers of money,
were listening to these things
and were scoffing at Him.
v15 and He said TO THEM,
'you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men,
but God knows your hearts;
for that which is HIGHLY ESTEEMED among men
is DETESTABLE
bdelugma - arousing or meriting intense dislike;
 in the sight of  God.
V16 the law and the prophets were proclaimed until john (the baptist..just recently)
since then the gospel of the kingdom of  God is preached,
and everyone is forcing his way into it.
v17 but it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away
than for one stroke
(a tiny projection from some of the hebrew letters that gave them their unique meaning)
of a letter of the law to fail.

everyone of us has a choice
to serve money and the things it buys
or to serve Jesus Christ.
what He commands He means.
not the smallest part of a letter,
let alone a word,
a sentence
or their meaning
will ever change.

i fear men too much.
men will do anything to avoid confronting their real need before God, crying out to Him and following Him faithfully to the consternation of other men. far better to fear God and see the stink of thinking the way most human beings think.
that means further ostracization and possibly more.
Lord, if i could only see clearly
and clearly covet only Your smile,
only to please You
though i be rejected by all me...
that is my desire...
back full circle to psalm 119.128..i HATE EVERY FALSE WAY.
(kjv for DETESTABLE reads AN ABOMINATION - HATED, loathed intensely)

then my thoughts turned to getting 54 fixed up and sold ASAP...oh Lord i come to You, the God of the impossible. so help me God...I WILL DO IT...