“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7) Solomon here teaches that true knowledge and wisdom can only be attained by one who has a proper respect for the Lord God and His teachings – by one who “fears” God. To fear God is to recognize His Greatness, Power and Sovereignty. To be properly “awed” by His attributes.
The fear of God has dual meaning. In one sense, it means “terror” – fear God because He has the power to judge our eternal soul. “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” (2 Corinthians 5:11a) In another sense, it means to have a reverent awe for God. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
One cannot come to “a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) without due respect for God and His Word. The knowledge that leads to true wisdom begins with the fear of God. True wisdom can only be found by turning to God’s Word. According to Solomon in Proverbs 1:7, “fools despise wisdom” – the wisdom of God. The fool is further describes in Proverbs 1:29-30, “For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.” The “fool” in Proverbs is the man who is identified as being "simple" or the man identified as a” slanderer" or a perverse person. The “fool” despises God and takes no thought of Him in his dealings.
The fool will not be saved unless he embraces the wisdom of God by turning to the Word of God. We are saved by faith “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) Faith comes by hearing the Word. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) The Word of God teaches obedience to all of God’s commandments. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” (1 John 5:3) Commandments such as, confession (Romans 10:9-10) and repentance, followed by baptism. (Acts 2:38) God wants all to be saved, even fools. [God] “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4)
Do you want “To know wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:2)? Do you want to “increase learning” and become “a man [or woman] of understanding” (Proverbs 1:5)? Do you want to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18)? Then “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15) Do that and do it often and you will “love life, and see good days.” (1 Peter 3:10)
Friday, January 27, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Semper Paratus!
The United States Coast Guard has as its motto the Latin phrase, “Semper Paratus” – Always Ready. The Coast Guard stands “Always Ready” to seek and save those who have become lost at sea and to defend our shores against those who seek to do our country harm.
The Coast Guard must be ready at all times because they never know when the SAR (search and rescue) alarm might sound off and call them out into some of the worst weather imaginable to rescue the lost. One might ask how they are able to maintain a high state of readiness at all times. The answer is simple – they train, they drill and they train some more. They train so hard to do their mission – they practice their techniques over and over again to the point that it is second nature – that when the time comes to rescue someone or to intercept a smuggler they just go out and do it. They have prepared themselves for the mission and they courageously execute it.
Christians could learn a few lessons from the United States Coast Guard. Christians ought to adopt the same motto as the Coast Guard – “Semper Paratus”, “Always Ready”. In fact, the Bible commands us to be “Semper Paratus” when it comes to defending or proclaiming the truth. 1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” In the Latin Vulgate Bible, the phrase “ready always” is rendered “parati semper.” “Parati” is a derivative of “paratus” – both carry the same meaning: ready or prepared. So in essence, Peter tells us to be Semper Paratus!
Peter teaches us the need to be “Always Ready” to “give an answer.” The word “answer” here is from the Greek word “apologia”. In English, an apologia is not an admission of guilt, like an apology, but rather it is “a desire to make clear the grounds for some course, belief, or position.” (Webster’s Dictionary) In other words, “to give an answer,” means to make a scriptural defense for the things that we believe. We must be always ready to tell people the reason why we have this hope within us and to support this belief with the scriptures.
The question is how to achieve this level of preparedness and to be “Semper Paratus” to explain or defend our faith. Again, we can look to the Coast Guard for this answer as well – train (study), drill (practice), train (study) some more! Know your Bible! Peter said, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts...” “Sanctify” means to make holy, consecrate, or venerate. To “sanctify the Lord God” in our hearts means that we put Him first in our thoughts and in our daily life. We begin to do this as we, “study” to show ourselves “approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15. We are sanctified by the Word of God. “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” John 17:17.
As we study and learn more about God and what He has done for us our faith increases and grows stronger. As we constantly seek to apply what we have learned to our daily lives and to carrying out the Great Commission, we become more effective at our mission of saving those who are lost and defending against those who would seek to destroy our faith. After we have sanctified “the Lord God” in our hearts by studying and applying His Word, we will find that we have become Semper Paratus – Always Ready “to give an answer to every man that asketh...”
We're always ready for the call,
We place our trust in Thee.
Through howling gale and shot and shell,
To win our victory.
"Semper Paratus" is our guide,
Our pledge, our motto, too.
We're "Always Ready," do or die!
Aye! Coast Guard, we fight for you.
We place our trust in Thee.
Through howling gale and shot and shell,
To win our victory.
"Semper Paratus" is our guide,
Our pledge, our motto, too.
We're "Always Ready," do or die!
Aye! Coast Guard, we fight for you.
The Coast Guard must be ready at all times because they never know when the SAR (search and rescue) alarm might sound off and call them out into some of the worst weather imaginable to rescue the lost. One might ask how they are able to maintain a high state of readiness at all times. The answer is simple – they train, they drill and they train some more. They train so hard to do their mission – they practice their techniques over and over again to the point that it is second nature – that when the time comes to rescue someone or to intercept a smuggler they just go out and do it. They have prepared themselves for the mission and they courageously execute it.
Christians could learn a few lessons from the United States Coast Guard. Christians ought to adopt the same motto as the Coast Guard – “Semper Paratus”, “Always Ready”. In fact, the Bible commands us to be “Semper Paratus” when it comes to defending or proclaiming the truth. 1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” In the Latin Vulgate Bible, the phrase “ready always” is rendered “parati semper.” “Parati” is a derivative of “paratus” – both carry the same meaning: ready or prepared. So in essence, Peter tells us to be Semper Paratus!
Peter teaches us the need to be “Always Ready” to “give an answer.” The word “answer” here is from the Greek word “apologia”. In English, an apologia is not an admission of guilt, like an apology, but rather it is “a desire to make clear the grounds for some course, belief, or position.” (Webster’s Dictionary) In other words, “to give an answer,” means to make a scriptural defense for the things that we believe. We must be always ready to tell people the reason why we have this hope within us and to support this belief with the scriptures.
The question is how to achieve this level of preparedness and to be “Semper Paratus” to explain or defend our faith. Again, we can look to the Coast Guard for this answer as well – train (study), drill (practice), train (study) some more! Know your Bible! Peter said, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts...” “Sanctify” means to make holy, consecrate, or venerate. To “sanctify the Lord God” in our hearts means that we put Him first in our thoughts and in our daily life. We begin to do this as we, “study” to show ourselves “approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15. We are sanctified by the Word of God. “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” John 17:17.
As we study and learn more about God and what He has done for us our faith increases and grows stronger. As we constantly seek to apply what we have learned to our daily lives and to carrying out the Great Commission, we become more effective at our mission of saving those who are lost and defending against those who would seek to destroy our faith. After we have sanctified “the Lord God” in our hearts by studying and applying His Word, we will find that we have become Semper Paratus – Always Ready “to give an answer to every man that asketh...”
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Forty-Two
What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? For millennia, man has tried to answer this basic question. During the Renaissance, philosophers began to believe that man could, beginning with just himself, find his own answers to this great question. Over time, though, man has discovered that he cannot do this. Instead of turning his mind toward a spiritual answer, today’s man has determined that there is no answer at all. An author named Douglas Adams accidentally came up with the right answer to this great question. In his trilogy, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, he gives his answer.
In the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, all the great philosophers of the galaxy came together and tried to answer that question. After much debate they could find no answer, so they built a super-computer named Deep Thought to compute the answer. After Six Million Years, long after the galaxy had forgotten what the question was, Deep Thought came up with the answer. It was Forty-Two! I can tell you that we know this is the correct answer! Forty-Two is the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything, just not the way Mr. Adams meant it.
Douglas Adams was an atheist and, as such, he did not believe that there is an absolute standard. He, like his fellow humanistic philosophers, came to the conclusion that there is no meaning to life, the universe, and everything. Therefore, he picked for the book what he thought was a purely arbitrary answer. His arbitrary answer is as good an answer as can be found, if God does not exist.
Christians know that God does exist, and that His Two Testaments, written by about Forty different men, contain the answer. Thus, Forty-Two, otherwise known as the Bible, has the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything. As far as man is concerned, this great question can be broken down into three basic questions: “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?” and “Where am I going?” The Bible contains the answer to all of these.
The first question, “Who am I?” is answered in the book of Genesis. In chapter 1:26-27, we learn that we were created in the likeness of God. We were not created in a physical likeness to God, because God is a spirit and has no physical body, but we are like God in that we have an immortal soul. We have within our physical body a spiritual soul that will never cease to exist, somewhere.
The second question, “Why am I here?” is summed up by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole of man.” Solomon taught that we are here to glorify God through our obedience to Him. Jesus states our two greatest reasons for existence in Matthew 22:37-39, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
The third question, “Where am I going?” is the most important one of all, for we know that this world is not our home. We all know that we are going somewhere. We are all going to either one of two places, depending upon which path we take. Which path we take depends upon which guide-book we choose to follow. If we adopt “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as our guide book, we will end up some place we never wanted to go, just as Arthur, the protagonist of the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, ended up at the “Restaurant at the End of the Universe.” To him this restaurant was an eternally boring and weird place.
In reality, the destination we will find if we follow the godless philosophy behind the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is one of eternal fire and damnation. However, if we adopt the Bible as our guidebook, we cannot fail to reach the other destination: Heaven.
In the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, all the great philosophers of the galaxy came together and tried to answer that question. After much debate they could find no answer, so they built a super-computer named Deep Thought to compute the answer. After Six Million Years, long after the galaxy had forgotten what the question was, Deep Thought came up with the answer. It was Forty-Two! I can tell you that we know this is the correct answer! Forty-Two is the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything, just not the way Mr. Adams meant it.
Douglas Adams was an atheist and, as such, he did not believe that there is an absolute standard. He, like his fellow humanistic philosophers, came to the conclusion that there is no meaning to life, the universe, and everything. Therefore, he picked for the book what he thought was a purely arbitrary answer. His arbitrary answer is as good an answer as can be found, if God does not exist.
Christians know that God does exist, and that His Two Testaments, written by about Forty different men, contain the answer. Thus, Forty-Two, otherwise known as the Bible, has the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything. As far as man is concerned, this great question can be broken down into three basic questions: “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?” and “Where am I going?” The Bible contains the answer to all of these.
The first question, “Who am I?” is answered in the book of Genesis. In chapter 1:26-27, we learn that we were created in the likeness of God. We were not created in a physical likeness to God, because God is a spirit and has no physical body, but we are like God in that we have an immortal soul. We have within our physical body a spiritual soul that will never cease to exist, somewhere.
The second question, “Why am I here?” is summed up by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole of man.” Solomon taught that we are here to glorify God through our obedience to Him. Jesus states our two greatest reasons for existence in Matthew 22:37-39, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
The third question, “Where am I going?” is the most important one of all, for we know that this world is not our home. We all know that we are going somewhere. We are all going to either one of two places, depending upon which path we take. Which path we take depends upon which guide-book we choose to follow. If we adopt “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as our guide book, we will end up some place we never wanted to go, just as Arthur, the protagonist of the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, ended up at the “Restaurant at the End of the Universe.” To him this restaurant was an eternally boring and weird place.
In reality, the destination we will find if we follow the godless philosophy behind the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is one of eternal fire and damnation. However, if we adopt the Bible as our guidebook, we cannot fail to reach the other destination: Heaven.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Drawing Nigh to God
A new year’s beginning is the perfect time to for us to re-commit ourselves to God. The past year is now behind us, the things of that year are beyond us now and we cannot change them. If we were not as faithful as we ought to have been last year (and I would hazard to guess that none of us was as faithful as we should have been) then we need to commit ourselves, each and every one of us, to drawing nearer to God in 2006. The inspired writer James said, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” (James 4:7-8).
To submit to God means to be obedient to His Word – to yield yourself to His authority. In yielding to God, we resist the devil. In resisting the devil and yielding ourselves to God, we draw closer to Him and He draws closer to us. But, how can we submit to Him and draw closer to Him if our sins are separating us from Him? Isaiah wrote, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.” (Isaiah 59:2-3). Sin is not just actively transgressing God’s law, but sometimes it is in our passivity toward obeying His commands. James 4:17 says, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Knowing God’s will and not doing it is the same as actively working against it. “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” (Matthew 12:30). Our sins of commission along with our sins of omission pull us away from God – the opposite of drawing nigh.
Since sin has separated the non-Christian from God and will also separate the Christian from God, we each have the need to repent. Jesus made it possible for all of us to be able to be reconciled to God. His death paved the way for all mankind to become children of God through their obedience. His work in mediation also allows the erring child of God to be restored his fellowship with God – to draw nigh to God once more. We draw close to God after first submitting to His will – obeying the gospel. We cannot approach God unless we have first been cleansed. The non-Christian is cleansed (remitted) of his sins through repentance and baptism (Acts 2:38). The Christian who has fallen away can be cleansed of his sins once more through repentance, confession and prayer. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). To “cleanse your hands…” (James 4:8) means to repent of our sins and to be forgiven. To “purify your hearts ye double minded…” (James 4:8), means to approach God with singleness of heart; to devote ourselves utterly to Him and to His will. It means for us to be double-minded no longer, in other words, to stop trying to serve two masters – God and self. Jesus tells us that this is impossible, “No man 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. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
In this new year, 2006, let us each submit ourselves to God and commit ourselves to resisting the devil with every fiber of our being. Let us each seek to draw “nigh” to God and allow Him to draw “nigh” to us. Just like in any relationship, communication is key. Communication is a two-way street – we must speak to God and allow Him to speak to us. God speaks to us only through His written Word. We need to read and study that Word daily in order to stay in constant communication with Him. But we also need to speak with Him on a daily basis. We can only speak to God in prayer. We need to be praying all the time – “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). This year may we each seek to become closer to God than ever. I hope that by the time this year is over we each will have become a more faithful and productive child of God, drawing ever near to Him.
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