Did What Was Evil – Praying Pint

30.i. “To make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days”

2 Timothy 3:1 But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

Daniel 10:14    and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”

2 Peter 3:3    knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

Philippians 2:21   For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:29   They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,

Proverbs 6:17   haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

1 Timothy 6:4    he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,

Jude 1:19   It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

“We should note what the hardness or danger of this time is in Paul’s view to be, not war, not famine or diseases, nor any of the other calamities or ills that befall the body, but the wicked and depraved ways of men.” (Calvin) We should be able to discern when the last days are; or at least when world conditions are like the Bible described they would be in the last days. Apart from the second Advent of our Lord, the world is more likely to sink into a pandemonium than to rise into a millennium.” (Spurgeon) Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of His day because they did not or would not understand the meaning of their times: Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times (Matthew 16:3). It is possible that Jesus would have the same rebuke for some Christians today who are unaware of the last days and the soon return of Jesus Christ. (Guzik) People are told to love themselves unconditionally and that such self-love is the foundation for a healthy human personality. We don’t need to be encouraged to love ourselves; we naturally have such a love. Neither should we be taught to hate ourselves. This love of self is the foundation for all the depravity that follows. (Calvin) The moment a man makes his own will the centre of life, divine and human relationships are destroyed, obedience to God and charity to men both become impossible. The essence of Christianity is not the enthronement but the obliteration of self.” (Barclay) The love of money is nothing new, but today people have the ability to pursue our love of money like never before. Boasting, pride, and blasphemy are nothing new; but today, they seem far more prominent than ever. Today boasting, pride, and blasphemy are apparent everywhere, especially among the celebrities that our cultures idolizes. Men have always told hurtful lies about other men; but today, in media and in politics, slander has been elevated to both big business and big money. In politics, candidates routinely and knowingly distort their opponent’s positions, just to make their competition look bad – and they don’t feel bad at all about the lying if it helps them get elected. In media, editors and news directors serve as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to innocents who are wrongly suspected – and usually refuse to apologize when they are proven to be wrong. In our self-obsessed world, people feel very free to have a “salad bar” religion – they pick and choose what they want. They feel free to be very “spiritual,” but sense no obligation to be Biblical. People who do the things on this list are not only common today but they are often also our cultural heroes. The simple responsibility of Christians is to turn away not only these attitudes, but also from the people who do these things.

15.z. “For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness”

John 6:65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.

Matthew 12:41   The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.  The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.  “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.  Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.  Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

2 Timothy 4:10    For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me

Hebrews 10:38   but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”

2 Peter 2:20-22    For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.  For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.  What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

The Son of God was in their presence. He spoke wisdom greater than the wisdom of Solomon and preached greater than the preaching of Jonah. There were in His presence and many rejected Him. In 2 Peter he says; “it would be better for those who did not know the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back.” Jesus said, “the last state of that person is worse than the first.” When a person who knows the message of the Gospel and is aware of eternal life through it, and then chooses to reject it, then falls away or is drawn away by worldly passions and pleasures, what is it that so easily pulls them away from Jesus Christ? How does a person who has tasted what the blessings of forgiveness are and then comes to reject the forgiver? There are many things that come to mind. Pleasures and things of this world devour the light of Jesus Christ. They choose to become blind and deaf to things of God but open their ears and eyes to things of this world. They choose to believe a lie rather than the truth of the Gospel.

The day of salvation is now. If you hear His voice speaking to your heart and soul, do not reject Him. Let Him in. Hunger and thirst for Him. A time is coming when the offer of salvation in the presence of the Holy Spirit will cease. Rejecting it now means you reject eternal life and choose to go to eternal damnation and torment, hell. You may not ever get another chance. There are many who say they will choose to believe but sometime later in their lives. We are not guaranteed a single day in the future. Think about all of the people who die each day from a host of various accidents. I am sure they would have said, “if I had only known today was my last day I would have come to Jesus Christ.” The “day of salvation is now”, do not reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ a single moment longer.

142. For surely they will turn away your heart after their gods

1 Kings 11:1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

Deuteronomy 7:3-4    You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,  for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

Ezra 10:2-17   And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel.  Now then make confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.”

Malachi 2:11    Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

Judges 3:6-7     And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.  And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. They forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.

patrick Mabilog; “Idolatry looks completely different today from what it once was. Whereas there was a time when idols were inanimate figures and statues, today they can come in various forms. Idolatry is an issue of the heart and can thus only be broken by a transformation of the heart.

God promises that through the power of the cross, we are now set free from sinful desires and can find meaning and joy in Jesus Christ where other things will only fail us in trying to provide that.

Idols are anything that takes God’s place in giving us fulfillment, satisfaction, security or significance. Many of the things that people have idolized — both past and present — are not necessarily bad things, but good things that take bad positions on our priority tree.

We are taught by the Bible to always put God first in our hearts. Colossians 3:5 says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.“

We don’t have to yoke ourselves to another person to fall into the trap of serving other gods. Work, success, money, image, sex, materialism, and self-pride/worth are all paths this world offers us to take our eyes away from Jesus. These are not bad but when we distort their value and purpose they will seep in through every crack in our heart, mind, and soul pushing God away and their lies further in. They will root and lead us to make decisions that we would not have imagined making prior.

The minute we think we don’t need to be diligent with our time in God’s word, when we think we are in control and can coast through our prosperous life, when we think we are so strong that we would never fail, when we find it difficult to find time to spend with God’s word, When we think we are being good enough forgetting that it does not matter, when there is little difference in our lives and those who do not know God – these are all good indicators that worldly idolatry has infested your heart.

Recognize it, confess it, repent of it, and seek to place God first in all you do each minute of every day.

The Wrong Choice

They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them.

Judges 2:11
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress

1 Kings 15:26
He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin which he made Israel to sin

2 Kings 17:14
But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God

Why is it we would willingly choose to abandon God? Why would we choose to to be stubborn and not list to Him? Does it ever work to abandon what God has called us for? History will tell us NO. If we would be honest I am sure we would say it does not work out for the present either and if we believe the smallest truths in scripture we know it does not work out for the future. This I do know – If you believed trust in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ for your sins – If you choose to keep your heart desire with a single purpose to honor and glorify God – If you choose to continually seek Him first – If you choose to remain humble before Him – If you choose to stay in His word – If you continually choose to listen for His leading – If you choose to obey His leading – If you choose to learn to deny self – you will find, joy, peace, love, hope, grace, kindness, gentleness, patience and purpose for this life. Every day we make a chose on who we will follow.