Thursday, October 13, 2011

Captivity did more than the prophets……

“Create a clean heart in me, O God,
and renew a faithful spirit within me.”   Psalm 51:10 GW

If we become stubborn about a weakness or sin, God may force us to take “the cure”.

The cure is described in Jer. 27:17, “Serve the king of Babylon and live!”  

A strange message from a true servant of God.   We would have expected to hear, “Serve the Lord and live!”

But no, the right thing was wrong and the wrong thing was right!

There are times when God allows, and even commands, us to do what He has expressly forbidden.   “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still” (Rev. 22:11).

It that because God is unholy?    NOT in the least!

He urges that direction because He is holy; He simply wants us to get our fill of sin so completely that the very thought of it nauseates us.

None of the prophets was able to convince Israel to leave their sins; yet seventy years in Babylon did what no prophet could do.

He sent them captive into the very fountain head of idolatry and they came out a cleansed and purified nation after seven decades.

Must God go to such extremes with me?

Must I be submerged in sin in order to see its odiousness?

The distinguishing character of any true disciple is a “paper-thin” sensitivity to sin.

I have noticed seasoned----true saints are so sensitive to the slightest sins that they mourn, weep and agonize.

“Lord, my prayer is, make me so sensitive to sin that its slightest presence will send me to Calvary for protection!    Make me averse to sin like that, for when I am averse to sin it means the Holy Spirit is deliberately refining me in the divine image; the new heart and right spirit are displacing the old and the wrong”.

“As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us”.            Heb. 12:1 GNT

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