Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Lord Is God! So, Follow Him!

I don't know about you, but I appreciate the Bible's presentation of the truth. I was reading through the book of I Kings and came across the passage below and I was given pause by the logical force of Elijah's statement. It is inspiring, encouraging, and good to hear the truth about who God is and that He alone is to be worshiped. This message, I believe, is the message we are to tell the world. We should not be afraid to tell people that there is one God, the God of the Bible, and He alone is worthy of worship.

I Kings 18:21: "And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word."

Luke 16:13 "No servant 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."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a similar note, our church is going through the book of Numbers right now on Sunday evenings. And, this same idea about honoring the truth of God's Word and not being afraid to proclaim it as perfect and true struck me as we discusseded a difficult passage in Numbers 5:11-31. There, the Lord instructs Moses about what to do if a man doubts his wife's marital integrity. The Lord gives very specific and extraordinary instructions about how to test the woman's faithfulness (e.g. having her drink water mixed with dust from the floor of the tabernacle...). Does this sound strange? Yes (though I'd be very careful about qualifying that statement). Does it sound like something our culture would be disgusted at? Without a doubt. Is it God's Word and thus true and perfect and lovely? Yes! And, thus we should not shy away from such passages, or be anxious or afraid to speak about them with unbelievers and those who mock the Word of God. And, we should not try to adapt this passage or any other to our contemporary culture or to the standards of men so that this passage or any other will sound more attractive in some way to them. But, we should say, "this is God's Word and it is beautiful and a precious gift and I would not change it for my life!" (For purposes of space, I didn't take up all the other great points that could be made about this passage from Numbers, but we talked about much of it Sunday evening...)

No comments: