The Walk Of Faith

“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel;’” Numbers 13:1-2 “…the land ...which I am giving to the children of Israel…” Stop right here. This statement is the source of tremendous controversy. The land of Canaan was occupied by many peoples, so some would say it’s unjust to uproot them and give their land to Israel. But there are a couple points to remember here: First of all, the earth is God’s creation and he can give portions of it to whomever he will: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Psalm 24:1 The second point is that God is just. Throughout his Word the Lord repeatedly states that he is just and righteous. So how then, can he uproot a pagan people and give their land to someone else? Well, God does not need to justify himself to us. He knows what he is doing. He formed man and not the other way around. Man does not have the right to accuse God. When you think deeply on this, you might arrive at the absurdity of a man accusing the great God, the Creator of all that is. One cannot be a follower of Christ unless he settles this in his heart, otherwise Satan will harp on this constantly, accusing God to man. Have thoughts of accusation toward God come into your mind? Satan delights in getting you to believe evil or unfairness toward God. “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?” Romans 9:20 Always remember, you are the creation, God is the Creator. Satan's chief characteristic is that he is a liar . John 8:44 The story here in Canaan is that it was occupied by peoples steeped in idolatry, people who sacrificed babies to their gods, and did all sorts of abominable things in their worship of false gods. The Scriptures reveal that fallen angels came down and cohabited with humans, corrupting the human genome and producing these hybrid races, all part of the Satanic opposition to the survival of God’s creation. Many of the pagan tribes in Canaan were “giant" tribes. REAL giants - as in the story of David and the giant Goliath. The word “giants” is the Hebrew “nephilim,” meaning “fallen ones.” Scripture says Goliath's bed was more than 13 feet long and 6 feet wide. These creatures had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. The hybrid genetic code was corrupted, and God was about to destroy these corrupted tribes. “There we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak came from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:33 The children of Israel dared not go into the land to take it because they were terrified of the giants. "…And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight.” That was literally true, these giants were huge. Here a stumbling block is revealed which happens to all believers at one time or another. God had sent them into the land to take a look at it, and he told them HE was going to give the land to the children of Israel. However, they balked, from fear. The point is that God is not going to tell them to go out and be murdered if he says he is going to give them the land. He’s not going to tell them to take the land and then leave them to their own resources to do it. The fear in a case like this is a normal human reaction, but then the decision to do what God has said to do - will reveal the level of faith they have. Can God tell you to do something and then put you in an impossible situation and leave you to your own resources? Of course not. If he sends you, he will take responsibility for the outcome. And on THAT, a person’s faith must rest. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him,” said Job. Job 13:15 “...and if I perish, I perish,” said Esther. Esther 4:16 Job did not perish, and Esther did not perish. Their hearts were set surely on the faithfulness of God no matter what. Brothers and sisters, God is faithful. But he says his ways are as far above ours as the heavens are above the earth. That's where the problem comes in - when the situation looks impossible. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9 He also says that his purpose for each of us is good: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 How we get to the fulfillment of that hope is his decision. It may mean following him in blind faith. Blind faith is not really blind, it is the absolute conviction that the purpose of God in any and every situation is to bring salvation and all that is good to his people. You might ask, “how can you say that when believers are being martyred?” If a believer is martyred, he instantly steps into heaven. When he finds himself in the glories of heaven, he will not regret that he died, he will rejoice! PLUS, he receives the martyr’s crown, and only heaven can reveal the worth and glory of this crown. Every suffering of a believer will result in something good, something often necessary to the believer's growth. God causes ALL things to work together for the good of his followers (Romans 8:28), and the only way to walk the walk of faith is to totally trust his faithfulness …no matter what.

Is There Life After Death?

"But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Matthew 22:31-32 Is there life after death? In context, Jesus was speaking here to the Sadducees, who were a sect of Judaism similar to the Pharisees except that they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. When Jesus answered them, he proclaimed that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had been dead for centuries, were ALIVE in heaven, asserting that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - are living, he said. There are some religions that teach "soul sleep," which asserts that when one dies his soul dies too, or "sleeps" until the resurrection. The Word of God soundly refutes this false doctrine. Here are some passages that clearly teach the fact that when one dies, he does NOT cease to exist nor does he go into "soul sleep." The Thief On The Cross When Jesus was dying on the Cross, the criminal who was dying next to him asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his Kingdom. "And Jesus said to him, 'Assuredly I say to you, TODAY you will be with me in Paradise.'" (Luke 23:43) If by that he meant the grave, then of what import is the statement? Being in the grave with him would have been a meaningless promise to that man. Paul's Dilemma "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21) If there's no life after death, this statement is ridiculous. How can dying be gain? vs 23-24: "For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you." Paul clearly desires to depart to be with Christ. To be with Christ certainly doesn’t mean in the grave - that wouldn't be better. How can lying in a grave be "FAR better?" Why would he so earnestly desire death unless he was looking to being alive with Christ? Absent From The Body "We are confident, yes well pleased, rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." (2nd Corinthians 5:8) When a believer leaves the body, he is present with the Lord. Not in the grave. One is not "present with the Lord” in the grave. No, he's present with the Lord in heaven. The Rich Man And Lazarus Luke chapter 16 verses 19-31 records a conversation between a rich man in hell and Lazarus who was in Paradise, clearly showing them both alive after death. In fact, the man in hell is begging that someone be sent to warn his brothers not to come to this awful place of torment. The answer was that if his brothers don't believe the Word of God then nothing will persuade them. Moses and Elijah In Matthew 17:1-4, Jesus took Peter, James and John up onto a mountain and was transfigured before them. Suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared and began speaking with Jesus. Peter was so shook up that he asked if he should build a tent for them. Moses and Elijah had been dead for centuries, yet they appeared on that mountain with Jesus. Alive. Friends, when you leave your body you are only changing location. YOU will not die, you will be alive - either in heaven, or in hell. "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me SHALL NEVER DIE." John 11:25-26 Shall NEVER die! Then Jesus asked: "Do you believe this?"

How Unsearchable Are His Ways

“And the Lord said to Joshua: ‘See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor.'” Joshua 6:2 The Lord directed Joshua to take his men and conquer the city of Jericho. But he laid out specifically how it was to be done. This would not be a battle of man against man, no, the Lord had an entirely different and unusual plan of action. vs 3-4: “You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days, and seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.” Joshua was “a mighty man of valor,” well-trained for war. Can you imagine what he thought when the Lord told him they would take the city by marching around it once every day blowing trumpets, then seven times on the seventh day? This was what this military leader had to tell his army! We know the rest of the story, but Joshua didn’t. He was in the position of having to decide whether to do what seemed outrageous – rather than storm the city as the warrior that he was! This was a mighty test of his obedience that needed to take place before he could be established as the head of the military in Israel. He HAD to know his God, and he HAD to be willing to do whatever the Lord would tell him to do even if it made no “common sense" to him. Throughout the Bible there are stories in which the Lord brought victory in any of a number of problems – by telling the person to do something outrageous before the solution could come. In John chapter 9, Jesus came across a man who had been blind from birth. He could have, as was his pattern, simply touched his eyes and the man would have been healed. But instead, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva and he touched the man’s eyes with it. Then he told him: vs 7: “’Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,’ which is translated, Sent. So he went and washed, and came back seeing.” Why did Jesus do it this way? And the answer is because he is Lord and his ways are past finding out. In other words, don’t even try to figure it out, there is no “common sense" to it. The bottom line is that what the Lord does, or tells a believer to do, works. If the man had gone and washed in the Jordan river instead, which was nearby, it wouldn’t have worked, the Lord told him to wash in the pool of Siloam. When he did his eyes were healed. “How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his counselor?” Romans 9:33-34 In some of the stories of our lives, we’ll be up against an enemy that we don’t see. And because we don’t see the enemy, we often don’t realize who the enemy is that is causing the problem, rather than the person the enemy has set against us. So we blame the person being set up, rather than the enemy himself. In order to gain the victory, we have to follow whatever the Lord says to do, otherwise our efforts will fail. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12 When someone says or does something against us we immediately blame the person we see, because we aren’t aware of the one provoking that person to come against us. What good does it do therefore, to fight back against the person who has no idea he’s being set up to hurt us? No, we need to focus on the real instigator. But how to do that? And the answer is we do that by very closely obeying the direction the Lord will give in any one situation. He may give you direction from his Word, or he may tell you simply to stand silently and not let it disturb you, OR – he may tell you to walk around a city seven times blowing a trumpet. And how will you know that unless you know his voice? And how will you know his voice unless his Word abides in you? I have noticed in my walk with the Lord that many times, before he leads me to a solution, he will tell me something I must do first. It’s not always something odd that I must do, but whatever it is, I must do it first. I look back at the stories in my life and have SO often marveled at HOW the solutions came. When God brings you to a solution, take a look at the story that had to go before it in order to make it work. Many times you will marvel at what the Lord had to set up in order to make the story work. You had to be at the right place at the right time, but in order to get you there the Lord had to set up the circumstances, and those circumstances will oftentimes make up an awesome story. This is what walking by faith is all about. The Lord is very present in everything that makes up the life of a believer. We need to pay very close attention to whatever he will direct us to do. We need to know his voice. And follow it.