HE HAS OUR BACKS

“Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18.

We make decisions every day and we would like to make decisions that are compatible with God’s will. But how do we know God’s will? I believe that about 99.99%of God’s will can be found in the Bible. If we think we have found God’s will but our decision is contrary to the Word, we can be assured that it is not God’s will. But it is not that easy! What about things that are not spelled out for us. What if we are trying to decide what job to take, which house to buy, or even where to put our money? Can  we really find places in the Bible that can help us?

When making decisions like this, the first thing we should do is to see which of our decisions will be more compatible with God’s Word.  If the decision will result in compromising a Biblical truth, then it would probably not be a good decision.  Let’s say we were considering taking a new job, but that job would greatly interfere with our ability to spend any time at all with our kids.  Because there are many verses in the Bible that point to importance to family, we might see this as an indication that that job might not be God’s will and thus not to our advantage.

So where do we find these very helpful verses?  All through the Bible!  Let’s just take a look at five verses from 1 Thessalonians and look at how many valuable aids Paul has left us if we are trying to do God’s will.  If we are making a choice and that choice will violate one of the following instructions, we should think twice before making it.

Take a moment to think about these clear and powerful exhortations concerning the will of God for believers in our verses from Thessalonians. These exhortations express the specific will of God in relationships with others, with ourselves, and with the Lord. Packed into these short verses are patterns of life and behavior which will receive His blessing in these relationships.

“Warn them that are unruly…” When we know people who are idle, undisciplined, pleasure seeking, they need to know the danger they are in. Watching silently as people destroy their lives is not in the will of God. Other parts of God’s Word show us how to approach them; these words just tell us we should.

“Comfort the feebleminded…” We should comfort people who are disheartened, disoriented or confused.  We should come alongside them with brotherly affection, encouraging words, and prayer.

“Support the weak…” Our natural tendency is to despise and neglect weaker people, to stay away from them since they have nothing to offer us, can damage our reputation and often require a long-term time commitment. Jesus says find them and lift them up whenever we can.

“Be patient toward all men…” We must realize how patient God is with us, and that “patience” is the first thing that love is. See 1 Corinthians 13:4 for confirmtion!  Patience means waiting in love and hope, with prayer, for people to see what they need to see, do what they need to do, change how they need to change.

“See that none render evil for evil…”  We should not allow evil men in this world to corrupt our own behavior and character. This is a constant temptation throughout life because evil people are everywhere, including the church.  It is easy for us to compromise our own faith because others do it. We need to stay strong in light of worldly influences.

“Follow that which is good…”  Doing good of every kind is our lifelong mandate as believers; there are millions of ways to obey it. (unfortunately also as many ways to disobey it)  God’s will for us to do good toward all men – even those who don’t deserve it!

“Rejoice evermore…”  This is sometimes a tough one to get a handle on, but we know that Jesus has rescued us from an eternity unspeakable misery and pain to everlasting joy and pleasure. This constant reality in our lives can give a reason to rejoice even when the woes of this world attack us.

“Pray without ceasing…” Some of us might find the idea of praying constantly just a pipe dream. The Lord, however, is wide open to communication with Him 24/7, why not continually include Him in your words and thoughts?  He should never be far from our minds and we should continuously look for reasons to speak to Him.

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you…”;  Before we pray, before we work, before we travel, we should be do so in the spirit of thankfulness.  Gratitude can change our whole approach to everything.  Thankfulness to our Redeemer in all things lets Him know that we know who is in charge and what He has done for us.

Just think what the result would be if all Christians followed just these instructions from Thessalonians on a daily basis.  It is often said that if all believers looked like believers, it would cause the biggest evangelistic explosion the world has ever seen.  God’s Word shows us how to be the kind of people we should be.  If we will search for God’s will in the scripture and will act on the His will, we will be different.

The will of God is not so hard to figure out when we realize that these kinds of verses we see above are throughout the entire Bible. Just obeying these exhortations in these verses can give us direction in many, many decisions. Wherever the Lord calls us, He calls us to live out these things. God’s Holy Spirit inspired these words, and He alone gives us the power to carry them out. Our part is to believe and act, and He then will direct our paths.

“For I am the Lord, I change not.” Malachi 3:6

Changes in our lives are difficult.  There has been no time in recent memory that has had so many changes as we saw back  in 2020.  Covid, wildfires, riots, and unrest were all  crammed in a single year.  Now we are involved in a war and civil unrest that carries violence with it on a daily basis. We recently had a third assassination attempt on our president . How we handle these changes will say a lot about us. If the changing world around us controls what goes on inside us we need to look toward the Changeless One for strength. Some people don’t want to accept their need for change. The story is told about a doctor who told a man to give up red meat, so he stopped putting ketchup on his hamburgers.  That is not the way to handle change.

We get used to a certain routine and to suddenly have that altered is not without its accompanying stress.  The world is an ever-changing place that we have little control over.  It is a road full of potholes and obstacles between times of smooth driving.  People say that “The only thing you can predict about the weather in Oregon is that you can’t predict the weather in Oregon.”  Well, that is true about life.  Just when we think we have it figured out, along comes something new- it might not be particularly good or bad, painful or wonderful, or it might be one or all of these things.  What we do know is that it is different.  What we do know is that it is change- and that is something that can be difficult.

In our verse above God tells us that He does not change.  Isn’t that great to know.  In this ever fluctuating play called life, the playwright is unchanging.  The nature of God and His great love for us do not change. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.”   God loves us.  That does not change.  He willingly made history’s greatest sacrifice so that our lives would not have to be as up and down as the roller-coaster world we live in.  As unknowable as the world is, God’s love is knowable. The canvas on which our lives are painted is evil, but God owns the paints.  He can cover that evil with a life that is beautiful.

The word tells us, “So God has given us both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to his promise with confidence”   (Hebrews 6:18) .  That word confidence is a nice one to hear in this uncertain world.  God cannot lie.  He loves us and wants to do what is best for us. We can read books on philosophy or self help, but these can’t be read as “gospel” because there is only one gospel.  The scripture is the only perfectly reliable book that has been written.  If we want to feel confidence in change, we need to read the book authored by the only consistent author the world has ever known.

If we read something like, “For the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance” (Psalm 94:14), we can get excited because amidst change God gives us a never-changing inheritance.  But what good does it do to hear this truth if we don’t know what the inheritance is?  How do we know what the inheritance is?  By searching the Word.  There was a story of a man that who had two little boys.  One little boy who was so pessimistic that he was miserable all the time and the other who was so optimistic that his father felt he was dangerously unrealistic.

The father felt he needed to bring them to some sort of middle ground by teaching them that things are not always good or always bad. He told them he had a surprise for them. For the pessimistic boy, he had filled a room full of toys that he knew would have to make him happy and with the other son he filled the room with manure so that the boy would at least be able to accept the reality that not all things are positive.

After a while the father checked the toy room and the boy was sitting in the middle of the toys crying.  “There are too many toys here.  I can’t figure out where to start.  Please let me out.”  The father was blown away, but knew that at least his other son will have learned a lesson.

He went into the manure room and was astounded to see his son digging through all the manure. “What are you doing!” he shouted.

His son looked up with a big grin and said, “With all this manure, I know there has to be a pony here somewhere, and I going to find him.”

Optimism is good, but optimism in God is better.  There is value to being realistic and that realism can be based on the unchanging promises of God.   In this time when loyalties are as fragile as crystal and today cannot be used to predict tomorrow, it is wonderful to realize that God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.  …“for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” Hebrews 13:5   So let the changes come because He is with us and we do not need to walk in fear because we can walk in faith! We can trust God with all the changes, and know that He is more than able to help us and that He even has plans to bless us.

With God as our anchor, the winds of change need not toss us to and fro.  So often what seems an awful change is remolded by God’s hand to be a change that changes our lives for the better.  Remember, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.”  It is God who can take changes and make them into something special.  The way for us to handle change is by leaning on Him Who does not change.  The more we let God control the changes in our lives, the less the changes in our lives will control us.

“For every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4)

Years ago I listened to a discussion between a creationist and an evolutionist and it has really stuck with me.  It was very interesting and although both men were very intelligent, my faith was bolstered by the great points made by the creationist.  One point that he mentioned really stuck with me.  I know that it is probably obvious to everyone else, but for me, well, it was eye opening..  Basically he said it is not logical that the eye could have evolved, and he supported his argument with statements from a variety of evolutionists who basically said the same thing. 
Here was his point: unless the eye is complete and functional, it does not work.  Why would something that is so detailed and complex but non-functioning continue to evolve? Why would anything continue evolving which has no use until completion?

The eye is so complex that even Darwin, the godfather of evolution, admitted that the chance it could have evolved was beyond belief.  In Darwin’s Origin of Species he wrote “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest sense.”  Okay, Charles, if I get this right, it is logical for all parts of the body to evolve, except the eye because it is so complex.  We then, in theory, should be eyeless beings.  I just can’t see it (pardon the pun).  Psalms tells us should praise God because “(We) have been remarkably and wonderfully made. (His) works are wonderful, and I know this very well.”  (Psalm 139:14) That refers to every part of us, not just our eyes.  We are made in God’s image.  We are special.

Darwin is not the only evolutionist who struggled with “seeing” the eye as an evolutionary  problem.  There are mountains of quotes from those who believe in evolution who find the evolution of the eye an almost untenable propostition. The reason stems from its incredible design that defies any logical explanation other than a designer.  They, of course, do not admit a designer as a possibility, but just admit that it is a conundrum that they must ignore.  But we don’t have to ignore the wonderful design of the eye because we can be assured there is a designer.   “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”   Isaiah 64:8

John Blanchard, author and scientist has some interesting information about the eye.  It is one fourth-thousandth of our weight, yet we receive 80% of our information about the outside world through the eye.  Our retina contains about 130 million rod-shaped cells which detect the intensity of light then one million nerve fibers transmit impulses to brain, while at the same time six million cone-shaped nerves respond to color variations and send those impulses to the brain.  Our eyes can handle 500,000 messages simultaneously and are being constantly cleaned by just the right amount of fluid to keep both eyes clean in one five-thousandths of a second.  Wow, and guess what.  We are not the only ones that have eyes.  Thousands of  living creatures have eyes.   When did these eyes develop in the evolutionary process?  It boggles the mind that something so unbelievable just “happened” in thousands of different species, regardless of how many millions of years you add to it.  It is much harder to think eyes just developed, rather than came about in a completed fashion.

Some scientists readily accept evolution, even though it is scientific folly, because they refuse to accept any alternatives.   Dr. George Wald (co Nobel Prize winner in Biology and professor of Biology at Harvard) said: “There are only two possibilities as to how life arose: one is spontaneous generation arising to evolution, the other is a supernatural creative act of God; there is no third possibility.  Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others.  That leaves us with only one possible conclusion- that life arose as a creative act of God.  I will not accept that philosophically because I to not want to believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution.”  At least Dr. Wald is honest.  He will believe anything, no matter how preposterous, so he will not have to believe in God.  What a  sad admission.  How many other scientists feel the same way but fail to admit it.

When I look at what is around us, I see evidence for God.  When I look at our bodies, I see evidence of God.  Paul tells us, “For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.”  (Romans 1:20)  If we look at the wonder around us and examine the amazing design of our bodies, earth, and universe, we are without excuse.  There will be those who stand before God someday and say that our bodies are amazing and our universe is amazing, but then say they still weren’t sure that He actually existed.  I don’t believe that weak agrument will hold water.

GK Chesterson has a great quote that I really like, “It is absurd for the evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into anything.”  

To me, complexity spells out design. In a devotion a few weeks ago I mentioned a cartoon of two scientists saying to each other that if they could just create life in the lab, they could prove that it doesn’t take intelligence to create life.  Besides the irony of the statement, I am thinking that if anyone could ever create a telescope that could do what the eye can do, I guess that would prove that it doesn’t take intelligence to create the eye.  Ironic, huh?

”As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.”  Ezekiel 33:11

I was pretty fortunate when it came to substitute teaching  because overall I have been treated great by the kids no matter what the school or subject.  Some subs, however, are not so fortunate.  Kids see a sub and mistreat them.  It as though the students think subs have no feelings, so it is okay to abuse them.  When the kids see the teacher as robotic and lacking emotions, it becomes all right to treat them any way kids  please.  That is often the process people use when they want to hurt others. They dehumanize them first, take away personal identity, remove the traits that would feel pain, and then go on to treat them anyway they want.

Unfortunately, that is what many do to God.  They see Him as a disconnected being overseeing the world with an uncaring eye and a cold heart.  Because they see Him that way it allows them to treat Him any way they like.  After all, if He has no feelings, He cannot be hurt so we can curse Him, mock Him, and reject Him at our own pleasure.  But that is not who God is.  On the contrary, God feels pain when we reject Him.  Not for Himself, but for us.  Peter tells us that, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward (us), not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”  2 Peter 3:9

When people misunderstand the sovereignty of God and assume that God is pleased with all that He allows to happen in the world they ignore God’s nature as revealed in His Word.  We mistakenly say that if God was really hurt by the bad things in the world He would stop all evil, pain, and suffering since He is all-powerful. If He does not stop it, He must not care, or at the least, not be hurt by what He sees.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God cares so much that He gave His only Son to suffer and die on behalf of those who cursed, mocked, and rejected Him.  Who else would do such a thing?

Additionally, we sometimes justify a particular sin or sinful way of life by telling ourselves that if it really hurt God or if He was really upset, He would change us.  After all, if we don’t like something someone else is doing and we have the power to change it, we normally try to change it.  But God has tried to change things.  Over and over in his Word he says in many different ways,  “turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.”  His Word gives us all the ingredients for a (joyful (Brynn) )contented life.  Our rejection of those ingredients does not say as much about God as it says about us.

We can try to rationalize our bad behavior, just like the kids do with the poor substitute teacher, by changing God into an unfeeling being, but the truth is He has more feeling for us than we can possibly have for ourselves.  When we hurt, He hurts more.  Our tears stream down his cheeks and our breaks from Him break His heart.  He takes no pleasure in our pain and, in fact, He feels our pain.  An atheist said, “If there is a God, may he prove himself by striking me dead right now.” Nothing happened. “You see, there is not God.” Another responded, “You’ve only proved that He is a gracious God.” God loves us and often saves us from ourselves because of His great mercy. When we rebel against Him because we think He has no feelings, He shows His feelings by showing us grace.

God delights when we turn to Him and sorrows when we turn away.  With His power He could grab us and turn us around, but He would much rather we turn responding to His love than to His heavy hand. When I was growing up, I did what my father ask of me, not because I was afraid of him (which I should have been, because he was one tough guy), but because I was afraid to disappoint him.  He loved me so much, that I had a hard time seeing him hurt.  If we could see how much our Father in heaven loves us, and how much our rebellion hurts Him, we would think twice about our tendency to rebel.

If we read the Word and open our hearts to it, we will see the nature of God.  We will also see our own nature.  Juxtaposing the two, we will see that it is us who should change, not God.  While visiting the U.S. after World War II, Winston Churchill was aboard a train bound for Missouri with President Harry Truman. They were in a special car which had the presidential seal hung up on a wall. Truman noticed Churchill studying the seal and he pointed out that he had changed it so that the eagle on the seal was turned toward the olive branch instead of the arrows. “Why not put the eagle’s head on a swivel,” suggested Churchill. “That way you could turn it to the right or the left, depending on what the occasion warranted.”   Unfortunately, that is what we tend to do in our own lives.  We put our behavior on a swivel and sometimes point it toward God and sometimes point it away depending on whether we want to war with Him or not.

We should not wait until we are forced to turn to God by our own self-destruction.  Some people seem to see the light, but others won’t turn to God until they feel the heat.  God has open arms, and to understand that fact we merely need to have open hearts.

We sometimes look at the great people of the Bible as super heroes who God enlisted in a task because they were fearless and would do anything they were told unflinchingly and without any hesitation.  But that was not so and the wonderful thing about the Bible is that it shows all sides of the people it portrays.  Even from the most obedient men and women we see reluctance, doubt, and fear.  We see also the great crutch of excuse-making that we all have used and will continue to use to avoid taking on tasks, taking on responsibility, or taking on criticism.  Someone once said that excuses are like arm pits, we all have them … and they all stink.  Well, the men and women of the Bible had arm pits, too.

It doesn’t take long perusing the Bible in our minds to find some excellent examples of excuse making.  Moses was called to “set his people free,” but argued that he was not the man for the job.  In Exodus 3 God tells Moses, “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you…”  In the following verses clear into chapter 4, Moses has a series of excuses that God must address.  Things like, the Pharoah is too powerful to I can’t speak well enough, are faulty reasons that Moses gives to God.  Until Moses took his eyes off his own inadequacies and his difficult circumstances, he could not be used of God.  When he finally gave God the reins and the reign, Moses led his people to the promised land.

But, of course, Moses isn’t the lone example in excuse making. Arguably, one of the greatest Old Testament prophets was Jeremiah.  Surely, he must have tackled his task without hesitation. Right?  Not quite. Listen to this exchange.

The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

“Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak;  I am only a child.”

But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’   You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.  Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”  Jeremiah 1:4-10

Jeremiah was not too different from us.  “I can’t” or “It’s too hard” or “I don’t know how” or “someone else is better, stronger, smarter…” are just some of the excuses that he and we use to avoid uncomfortable tasks that we face.  Jeremiah and Moses, fortunately, overcame their excuses and took their tasks on and served God faithfully.  But some of us let our excuses stop us from doing those things we should do (or shouldn’t do).  This is especially dangerous when it comes to spiritual things.  Excuses abound… “The Bible is too boring and hard to understand.”  “I am really too busy for God.”  “I can’t talk to others about God, I don’t know enough.”  “When things get settled down, I will get more serious about God.”  The list goes on.

The prophet Jonah was called by God to go to Nineveh, a huge city and the avowed enemy of Israel, and call them to repentance.  Jonah had all kinds of excuses for avoiding that task.  He might be killed, it was a long journey, he didn’t have the “right stuff” to do it, and a classic excuse that he didn’t want to go because he knew God would forgive them and that would make him mad.  “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”  So, Jonah didn’t want to go because God is good and would forgive Jonah’s enemies if they repented.  That’s really reaching deep in the excuse barrel.

These are just a few examples of excuse making in the Bible, but there are countless others from Eve blaming the serpent and Adam blaming Eve all the way up through Revelation.  Many of these people were called directly by God, but most of us are called by the Word of God.  We know what we should do, but so often we come up with excuses (and not such original ones at that) to sit on our hands. We should only marvel that God continues to call us to service when are so slow to act. We are like reluctant middle schoolers lining the walls of the gym at their first sock-hop.

We need to remember that God has plans for us and he will only give us tasks for which we are equipped. If we don’t do what we are called to do, someone with lesser skills, but a more obedient heart might have to take over that job.  We all know those people.  The ones who will tackle anything because there are so many who will tackle nothing.  It is better that we be one of the former than the latter. There is an old saying that a poor workman always finds fault with his tools. If we do not take on the spiritual tasks that we are called to do, we are really faulting God because He is our power to achieve.

There are usually three excuses for our inaction or our bad actions. First, we deny that we are being neglectful or that we are doing anything wrong. Second, we fall back on the “it’s not my fault” excuse that is always quite handy.  Third, we admit that we are wrong, but it is our circumstances that are at fault. So excuses are just that, they are not reasons and we can’t shape them to be reasons. We look to blame others, so we don’t have to look toward ourselves. We can’t just admit that we just don’t want to do what we are called to do or we just don’t want to stop doing what we shouldn’t do.   Like the outfielder who misses the ball and holds up his glove toward the sun to tell everyone the sun was in his eyes, we hold up our excuses, so everyone knows we are not at fault.

We will close today with a few humorous examples of excuses that have come in on accident reports to the police.

“As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision.”

“I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.”

“The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran over him.”

“The telephone pole was approaching fast. I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.”

“The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.”

Sometimes our excuses are as ridiculous as these.  I hope God isn’t publishing them somewhere for people to read.  Remember, excuses are the nails for building houses of failure.  Let’s avoid excuses; let’s avoid failure.