Judges 17. The first appendix: Some precautionary principles before studying apostasy.

Title: Judges 17. The first appendix: Some precautionary principles before studying apostasy.

 

Last night we noted that Christianity is in a war and as such, within ourselves, it is a war. We are to seek Christ. We are to seek truth by means of the Holy Spirit. If we find Christ in our understanding then we will find all that is Christ; things like peace and tranquility. If we begin by looking for tranquility and peace, we will not find it. Our fallen nature and our severe dependence on Christ, make it impossible. C.S. Lewis puts it well.

 

"In religion, and in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair." [C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity]

 

Striving to live the plan of God with earnest can cause us to fix our eyes on others who do not, and especially those who claim to and do not. This only puts you in the position of God.

 

I'm sure I don't have to say that putting oneself in God's position is a really bad thing to do. Having our eyes fixed on others, judging them, blaming them for our own unhappiness, etc. is a sure way to not live the plan of God for your life. Nothing that another person does has any bearing on your own joy and peace.

 

You learn what is right, what is holy, what is godly and you set to thinking and doing just that in a faith that completely relies on God the Holy Spirit to do it. You don't cloud your mind with the philosophical discussion of which part is the Spirit sovereign power and which part is your own free-will. How could you possible understand how God works within you?

 

Not even Paul really understood how God worked in him.

 

1Co 15:10

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

 

It was me, but it wasn't me. I can only call it grace.

 

"Very well then, atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view that is also too simple. It is the view I call Christianity and water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right - leaving out all the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil, and the redemption. … If we ask for something more than simplicity, it is silly then to complain that the something more is not simple." [ibid]

 

The inscrutable mysteries of the purposes of God you leave in His hands and you do as He commanded.  "He who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them is the house upon the rock."

 

Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.

 

Gal 2:21 "I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly."

 

I no longer live and yet I live by faith in the Son of God.

 

Again, we are concerning ourselves with some principles because the appendices in the book of Judges is going to challenge the fruit of our spiritual life.

 

If I lose my contentment and joy of living in the plan of God because of something that someone else has said or done, I did not  lose it because of them; I lost it because of the power I have given them.

 

Eph 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

 

Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

 

Eph 4:32 And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

 

Jesus was the first man to make the preposterous declaration that He could forgive sin. Mankind has heard it so often since then that we often don't see what it amounts to. He didn't say that He was forgiving offenses against Himself, which proclamation anyone could understand. You stole from me, I forgive you; you were bitter against me, I forgive you. But what Christ said is almost comical. He announced that He forgave you for stealing another man's money and not His own. For no one other than God, the God that the Jews heard from for centuries, could do such a thing. For anyone else to do it would be asinine. Yet this is just what Jesus did, and He proclaimed it clearly, right in front of the Jewish leaders from Jerusalem who had come out to see Him because He healed a Jewish leper. He told people their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all of the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured.

 

Luk 5:21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?"

 

Luk 5:22 But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them, "Why are you reasoning in your hearts?

 

Luk 5:23 "Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins have been forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'?

 

Luk 5:24 "But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," —  He said to the paralytic —  "I say to you, rise, and take up your stretcher and go home." 

 

Luk 5:25 And at once he rose up before them, and took up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God.

 

Luk 5:26 And they were all seized with astonishment and began glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen remarkable things today."

 

Christ actually behaved as if He were the party chiefly concerned with the injury of every sin, and this could only be true if it was God's law that was always broken and His love that was cast aside.

 

Psa 51:4 Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned,

And done what is evil in Thy sight,

So that Thou art justified when Thou dost speak,

And blameless when Thou dost judge.

 

And to us, His brethren, He demands that we forgive one another in just this way, without debating the weight of the sin or to whom it injured.

 

When I lose my contentment over a perceived or real sin against myself or another, I made myself God so I could judge and then I gave them power over me, which makes me the weakest of gods. I have then suffered greatly in two different ways.

 

You might say, "But you don't know how hard it is to love them," and I would say, "Of course I know how hard it is to love them. It is just as hard to love anyone. Only God can do this."

 

When love is empowered by the Spirit within the believer, all are loved, friend and enemy, because God has done it.