Making a Differencewith Pastor Phil Erickson

Jan 8th Praying for Clear Direction

Today’s Passage – Genesis 23 – 24 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – Click here to view the passage from Blue Letter Bible)

(Second Milers also read – Matthew 15 – 16; Proverbs 8; Psalms 36 – 40)

Listen to this morning’s Scripture Song – Psalm 34:6

Read the “0108 Evening and Morning“ devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Read previous posts from this passage – “The Bride of Christ” and “Taker or Giver“

“And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham. … And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master. … And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” (Genesis 24:12, 14, 27)

Genesis 24 is an awesome portion of Scripture, especially from a theological perspective. I have previously done devotions discussing some of the many types or pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ found in this chapter. (See “The Bride of Christ“) This morning, however, I would like to discuss how God guided Abraham’s servant to the perfect will of God regarding Isaac’s bride, Rebekah.

Abraham’s servant was given the awesome responsibility of finding the bride for Abraham’s son, Isaac. He obviously wanted to find the right one. We would all agree that one of the most important decisions in life is choosing the right spouse. The servant did not want to mess this up, so he prays and asks God to guide him to the right girl. He is very specific in his prayer request. He does not want there to be any doubt at all about the matter. The servants prayer here reminds me of Gideon’s “fleece prayer” in Judges 6:36 – 40:

“And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said, Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said. And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.” (Judges 6:36-40)

Gideon also wanted to be perfectly sure, without any doubt whatsoever, that he was doing exactly what God wanted him to do.

It is important to note that in both of these examples, God wanted the men to be sure about His will also. I do not believe that God wants us to wonder about His will. He wants us to be sure that we are where we are supposed to be, doing exactly what He wants us to do. Too many of us jump ahead of God’s will before He shows it to us.

Notice also from this passage that when God answered the servants prayer regarding His perfect will, it strengthened the servant’s faith and caused him to worship his God:

“And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master’s brother’s daughter unto his son.” (Genesis 24:48)

Years ago, I asked the Lord to reveal His will for my life regarding where I should serve Him after Bible College. God answered my prayer so specifically and miraculously that I have never since doubted that I am exactly where God wants me to be. When problems arise and I am tempted to quit, I go back in my mind, remembering the way God answered my prayer, and it keeps me from straying out of God’s will. I figure if God miraculously revealed to me that Jersey Shore Baptist Church was where He wanted me to be, then He will also have to do something just as miraculous to tell me that it’s time to leave.

One final, important point regarding this passage is that the way that God miraculously answered the servants prayer convinced everybody else that Rebekah was the will of God for Abraham’s son. Notice in v. 50:

“Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the LORD: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good.” (Genesis 24:50)

Folks, I believe that God still answers these prayers regarding His perfect will for our lives. Before you make any major decisions, why not ask God to clearly direct you in His will and show you exactly what He wants you to do.

Jan 6th Don’t Look Back

Today’s Passage – Genesis 17 – 19 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – Click here to view the passage from Blue Letter Bible)

(Second Milers also read – Matthew 11 – 12; Proverbs 6; Psalms 26 – 30

Listen to this morning’s Scripture Song – Psalm 25

Read the “0106 Evening and Morning“ devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Read previous posts from this passage –“Abraham Did a Little Walking With God, Too” and “The Prayer of a Friend”

“But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” (Genesis 19:26)

“And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

Our passage today contains the familiar story of the deliverance of Lot and his family from the city of Sodom just before God destroyed it. After they had travelled a good distance away from the city, Lot’s wife looked back at the destruction, and God turned her into a pillar of salt. I have done a little thinking through the years as to why Lot’s wife had turned her head back to gaze upon the life she was leaving behind. Though there may be many reasons, I have concluded that three possible explanations are these:

1  She had people that she loved that were still back in Sodom.

2  Everything that she knew was behind her, and the future was unknown.

3  There was a lot about Sodom that she really enjoyed. Like the Israelites who left the bondage of Egypt who lusted after the leeks, onions, and garlic that they used to enjoy on the other side of the Red Sea, Lot’s wife was definitely going to miss some of the old life.

Have you made the spiritual connection here from this passage to what a believer goes through after being saved? Sodom represents our old life. Our old life contained people we loved who choose not to enter into the journey of salvation with us; at least not yet. We love them, and we long for them to be a part of our new family of faith with us. We also remember some things that we used to do before our salvation that we really enjoyed, and we reluctantly give them up because they are not what God would have for us today.

God wants us to move forward by faith, leaving behind the old man, and the old way of life; and though the future has not been completely revealed, we know that God wants to give us a far more abundant, joyful, and fulfilling life than anything we had before.

As God brings us forward down the road of faith, let us enjoy the ride as much as we will someday enjoy the destination. And don’t look back. Looking back is the first step toward going back. You cannot possibly enjoy the journey that God has set before you if you are constantly looking back at what used to be.

Jan 3rd The Law of First Mention Regarding Wine

Today’s Passage – Genesis 7 – 9 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – Click here to view the passage from Blue Letter Bible)

(Second Milers also read – Matthew 5 – 6; Proverbs 3 ; Psalms 11 – 15

Listen to this morning’s Scripture Song – Psalm 18:3 & 46

Read the “0103 Evening and Morning“ devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Read previous posts from today’s passage – “It Doesn’t Take Long, Does It?“; “A Token“; and “Too Old To Do Something for the Lord?”

“And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.” (Genesis 9:20-21)

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” (Proverbs 20:1)

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;” (Ephesians 5:18)

“A bishop then must be blameless, … Not given to wine” (1 Timothy 3:2-3)

There is a principle of hermeneutics, which has to do with Biblical interpretation, called the law of first mention. According to this law, if we want to find out the correct meaning or use of a word, phrase, or doctrine, we should go to the first time that it is used in the Bible. In Genesis 9:21, we see the first recorded use of the word “wine”. Noah planted a vineyard and drank of the wine, and became drunk, which ultimately led to him passing out naked in his tent. His son, Ham, then went into the tent and saw his naked father, and apparently went out and told his brothers, instead of just covering his father. Some theologians have stated that Ham did more than just look at his father, but the Scripture does not say that he “uncovered” his father’s nakedness, just that he “saw” it. (See Leviticus 18) Seeing his father in that condition without covering him, and then reporting it to others was considered horribly disrespectful and when Noah found out about it, he was very angry with his son. Perhaps his anger toward Ham was justified but he also should have been very upset with himself for getting drunk in the first place.

Later on in the Book of Genesis, we see the third use of the word “wine” in the Scriptures. (Genesis 19:30. 36) This time, it is Abraham’s nephew Lot that gets drunk and he ends up sleeping with both of his daughters. Drunkenness is often associated with loose morals:

“Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.” (Proverbs 23:33)

Though I will not make the argument that every time somebody drinks wine in the Bible, a sin is being committed, I can state confidently that drunkenness is clearly sin, and you can’t get drunk if you stay away from alcohol. By the way, the wine that is being sold today, would probably have been considered “strong drink” in Bible days. So many problems are caused from alcohol consumption. In a recent study that I was doing on the Book of Habakkuk, I came across some research on the problems that alcohol consumption has caused in America:

According to The Centers for Disease Control, there were 88,000 alcohol related deaths in the United States, making it the number three cause of preventable cause of death in the United States. One third of all traffic fatalities (9,967 in 2014) were alcohol related.[1]

• 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor-vehicle crashes.[2]
• 696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking.[3]
• 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report experiencing alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.[4]

Christians, we need to just separate ourselves from drinking alcohol. Though we have liberty in Christ, we have the responsibility, or I should say the privilege, of shining the light of His gospel. Let us not dim that light by dulling our senses with alcohol or drugs.

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Alcohol and Public Health: Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI). Average for United States 2006–2010 Alcohol-Attributable Deaths Due to Excessive Alcohol Use. Available at: https://nccd.cdc.gov/DPH_ARDI/Default/Report.aspx?T=AAM&P=f6d7eda7-036e-4553-9968-9b17ffad620e&R=d7a9b303-48e9-4440-bf47-070a4827e1fd&M=8E1C5233-5640-4EE8-9247-1ECA7DA325B9&F=&D=

[2] Hingson, R.W.; Zha, W.; and Weitzman, E.R. Magnitude of and trends in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18–24, 1998–2005. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (Suppl. 16):12–20, 2009. PMID: 19538908

[3] Hingson, R.; Heeren, T.; Winter, M.; et al. Magnitude of alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18–24: Changes from 1998 to 2001. Annual Review of Public Health 26:259–279, 2005. PMID: 15760289

 [4] ibid.

Jan 2nd Sin Lieth At The Door

Today’s Passage  – Genesis 4 – 6 (Click on the reference to listen to the audio. Click here to view the passage from Blue Letter Bible)

(Second Milers also read – Matthew 3 – 4; Proverbs 2; Psalms 6 – 10)

Listen to this morning’s Scripture Song – Joshua 1:8

Read the “0102 Evening and Morning“ devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

“If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” (Genesis 4:7)

In Genesis, chapter four, we read the familiar story of the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain. The events leading up to Cain’s murder of his brother are very interesting. Cain and Abel each brought their individual offerings to the Lord. Cain offers to the Lord from “the fruit of the ground”, presumably something from his garden. Abel, on the other hand, offered an animal sacrifice to the Lord, which caught God’s attention: God “had respect unto … his offering”, which means he gazed upon it and considered it. By the way, the Bible does not say that God was angry with Cain’s offering or that Cain’s offering was somehow sinful in itself; it just says that God did not have “respect” for it, meaning that it did not cause Him to look or gaze upon it in the same way that his brother’s offering did. Cain’s offering represented the work of his own hands from his labor in the garden. Again, it was certainly right for Cain to give back to the Lord a portion of what the Lord had blessed him with, but it seems that Cain was offering this fruit as a means of obtaining God’s favor, and as an atonement for his sins. Hebrews tells us that “without shedding of [Christ’s] blood is no remission“. God was very pleased with Abel’s offering because it was a blood sacrifice, which pictured the blood that the Lord Jesus would someday shed on Calvary for the sins of the world.

There is a phrase in verse seven that has always intrigued me: “if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door“. What does this mean? There are some theologians who believe that the word “sin” in that verse means “sin offering”. The Hebrew word for sin in  verse seven is chatta’ath, which has been translated into the phrase “sin offering” over 100 times in other Old Testament passages. This theory is very logical in that when people did sin, they could offer a sin offering, which served as a type or picture of Christ’s offering of Himself on the Cross. However, in my opinion the phrase in Genesis 4:7 is not speaking about a sin offering, but rather it is alluding to a personification of sin that is waiting to pounce on us like a ravenous beast and put us in bondage if we yield to it. Cain was angry because God did not respect his offering as He did Abel’s, and that anger inside of Cain was driving him over the edge. Anger in itself is not a sin, but it can cause us to sin, and this is certainly what happened to Cain. His anger turned into wrath and in his wrath he murdered his brother. God was warning Cain that his anger, which was completely unjustified because it was directed against a righteous God, was going to lead him further down the road into sinful actions. Even though Cain’s anger was an emotion that he perhaps could not control, he should still have repented of the way he felt, recognizing that his emotions were not in agreement with God. And, he could have asked God to help him deal with his emotions. Instead, however, he allowed his unjustified anger to cause him to go out of the door of God’s will where sin pounced on him.

Don’t allow sinful thoughts or even irrational emotions to develop into actions that are in rebellion to the will of God. What can you do:

1. Recognize that your thoughts and emotions may very well be rooted in your sinful flesh and are thus, outside of the will of God. Cain’s anger was a result of his jealousy. He was jealous of his brother because God was pleased with Abel’s offering, and “did not have respect” unto his own. He wasn’t thinking right to start with, which eventually lead to more irrational thinking.
2. Restrain your thoughts, emotions, and actions. The last phrase in verse seven, “and thou shalt rule over him“, literally means that we must rule over our sinful thoughts and emotions – we must control them. Through the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, we can have victory over our sinful thoughts. Paul said to the Christian, “for sin shall not have dominion over you” (Romans 6:14) We can control what we think about (Philippians 4:8), and we can “cast down sinful or irrational imaginations. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
3. Repent and ask God to help you. Turn away from the sinful direction with which you were heading. Ask God to help you. I think God wants to help you do what pleases Him.

Don’t be like Cain. A sinful progression eventually caused him to murder his only brother. What a shame. It didn’t’t have to happen to him, and it doesn’t have to happen to us either.

Jan 1st Just Don’t Do It

Today’s Passage – Genesis 1 – 3 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – Click here to view the passage from Blue Letter Bible)

(Second Milers also read – Matthew 1 – 2; Proverbs 1; Psalms 1 – 5)

Listen to this morning’s Scripture Song – Deuteronomy 32:4

Read the “0101 Evening and Morning“ devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Read previous posts from today’s reading – “In the Beginning”; “He Is Still Creating Me“; and “Let There Be Light”

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Genesis 3:1)

“My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” (Proverbs 1:10)

Every time I read the third chapter of Genesis, I find myself screaming in my mind to Eve and Adam, “Don’t Do It!!!” Yet, when I am faced with the temptation to sin, I find that I am often not very different from this first couple – I give in to sin. Of course, sinners today such as myself are at a little more of a disadvantage than Adam and Eve as we were born with a willful, fleshly nature that desires to do whatever it pleases, even it is wrong. The Apostle Paul said:

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” (Romans 7:18)

Adam and Eve did not have that problem. Eve was deceived by the serpent into believing that God was wrong about eating of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She was convinced that she was going to gain something by disobeying the clear command of God. However, she added only evil to her life. Before eating the fruit, she knew nothing but good. Now, she and her husband became intimately acquainted with evil. The fruit of disobedience is always evil. Adam, however, was not deceived (1 Timothy 2:14). He was well aware of what he was doing, and I believe he understood, at least partially, the consequences of his action. It is my opinion that Adam chose to join his wife in the sin, desiring to follow her will instead of the will of God.

As we enter into this new year, let’s decide to be obedient to the will and Word of God. We are all sinners by nature, but we can still choose not to sin. We have all made many bad choices in the past, but we can also strive to make better decisions in the future. Sin of any kind will cause nothing but problems for us and the people we love. Let’s decide now that when sinners entice us that we won’t consent. By the way, the sinner that entices me the most is me – my flesh.

What can we do to help us to be more obedient to the Lord this year:

1. Spend time every day in the Word of God.

“Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” (Psalm 119:11)

Make it a habit to read the Word, study the Word, and memorize the Word this year. The old saying still applies today: “This Book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this Book”. Read the Bible through at least once this year and begin the practice of daily memorizing verses of  Scripture; particularly the verses that will help you in areas of temptation. There are all kinds of websites and apps that will help you follow a plan.

2. Submit to the Spirit of God every day.

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

To “walk in the Spirit” means to live under the Spirit’s control. Before salvation, we really didn’t have a choice, but now we can choose not to sin, and choose to allow God to control our lives. Pray specifically for help from the Spirit to resist temptation.

3. Surround yourself in an environment that supports you to do right.

Run with people who also want to yield to God, and lovingly separate from those who do not. Fill your home with godly music and Scriptural reminders of the will of God for your life. Go to church as often as you can, and find a ministry to serve in. Become a soulwinner, or a more committed witness, helping others with their sin problem as well.

Adam and Eve made their choice and there is nothing that we can do about it. We have all made our sinful choices in the past as well. But, in this new year and in all future new years, we can choose by the grace of God to do right. When it comes to sin – Just Don’t Do It!