Deuteronomy 29:16–19, Emboldened to sin. As we pass through the spiritual wilderness of the world around us (verse 16) on our way to the Promised Land, how easy is it to justify our personal rebellion, our sinful habits, our lustful and materialistic thoughts on the basis of such rationalizations as, “Everyone around me is doing it,” or, “It feels like it’s okay to do,” or, “If it feels good, do it,” or “YHVH’s laws don’t apply to me … that was for the people back then, not for us today,” or, “That’s not what the church I belong to teaches,” or, “Surely YHVH doesn’t expect us to keep his commandments … they’re too hard to do … we can’t really do all that stuff today,” or, “We’re under grace today … that stuff has been done away … Jesus fulfilled it … nailed it to the cross,” etc. Do these statements square with YHVH’s words of truth? Do what you believe and practice square with his Word? Is YHVH looking for our excuses or our obedience? What did Yeshua say would be an identifying mark of those who would love him? (Read John 14:15.)
Sulfur balls Natan picked up in his trip to Israel near the area of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah.
When one is emboldened to sin, the judgments of YHVH will fall if not immediately, then in the future. One way or another, it will happen. Eventually all unrepentant rebels will burn in the lake of fire. It’s the law of cause and effect, and our eternal fate all depends on the choices we make in this life here and now vis-a-vis Elohim and his commandments.
The modern-day area around the Dead Sea where Sodom and Gomorrah is once believed to have been located is stark testimony to YHVH’s warnings to those who continue in their sins, refuse to repent and fail to submit to YHVH’s Torah laws.
Deuteronomy 29:23, Whole land is brimstone. The area just west of the Dead Sea where ancient Sodom and Gomorrah likely were is to this day a barren wasteland of gypsum containing little or no vegetation, and, in places, is covered in sulfur balls (brimstone) that one can still pick up. This region is an enduring testimony to the severity of YHVH’s judgments against men’s sin, which speaking loudly to us even now in harsh and warning tones.
The area around what many believe to the location of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah.
Kentucky’s Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis (right) told Decision magazine Wednesday: “If the Word of God isn’t worth fighting for, I don’t know anything that is.”
UPDATE: Shortly after this article was published, Kim Davis was found in contempt of court by a federal judge and taken into custody.
Davis’ attorney issued a statement that said, in part:
“Kim Davis is being treated as a criminal because she cannot violate her conscience. While she may be behind bars for now, Kim Davis is a free woman. Her conscience remains unshackled.
“… And the tragedy is that there are simple ways to accommodate her convictions. Just remove her name from the marriage licenses. That’s all she has asked from the beginning. … This is not the kind of America the Founders envisioned or that most Americans want.”
Kentucky’s Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis talked to Decision magazine on Wednesday. A more comprehensive story will appear in the October edition of the magazine.
No amount of threats against her life or her job, no edicts from the U.S. Supreme Court or the governor, could sway Kim Davis to compromise God’s truth.
She is so overwhelmed by His grace, so captivated by His love, so surrendered to His will that she can’t fathom caving to the ways and pressures of this world—regardless of the consequences.
“I cannot be separated from what I believe,” she said. “I have to love the Lord with my whole heart, mind, body and soul—with every ounce of strength and might that I have in me. It’s every breath we take and every beat of our heart.”
Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk of court, has been at the center of a national firestorm in recent months over her refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses even though she received court orders to do so.
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Her voice cracked and she wept at times during an interview this week with Decision as she discussed her willingness to face dire consequences if necessary in order to remain faithful to her Lord, which could also include being impeached from office and being arrested.
“I have weighed the cost,” she said. “It’s definitely no place that I thought I would ever find myself, and it is definitely out of my comfort zone. I’m a very private person. For this to be everywhere [in the news] is just overwhelming at times.
“But it is through God and His grace and strength that I stand, that I can have a smile on my face.”
Because of the Bible’s clear teaching that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman, Davis prayerfully decided that she could not permit issuance to gay and lesbian couples since the licenses would bear her name.
“Those licenses leave my office through my authority,” she said. “I cannot be party to that. I just can’t. … If the Word of God isn’t worth fighting for, I don’t know anything that is.”
Her attorney, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, has asked the courts and Gov. Steve Beshear to change licensing procedures to accommodate Davis’ convictions and those of others with similar beliefs. Staver suggested several options, including removing the clerk’s name from all marriage licenses, making the state capitol the processing center for licenses and switching to an online application process.
Davis also tried to take pre-emptive measures to avoid the predicament immediately after taking office as clerk in January, writing state legislators in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage in June.
“I urged and beseeched them to get legislation on the floor while we still had time to protect clerks who had religions objections to same-sex marriage,” she said. “I got only one response, and nothing happened.”
Some critics have suggested that Davis should resign her elected position, but she has no intention of doing so, partly because she ran for the office last year after 27 years as deputy clerk only because she sensed the Lord calling her to do so.
Her deep devotion to Christ is rooted in the love and grace she received at her conversion more than four years ago, which she said followed years of “living in a pit of sin that I had created with my very own hands.”
She was divorced three times and gave birth to twins conceived out of wedlock.
Her life changed in 2011 when she attended a Sunday evening church service in honor of her mother-in-law, who had died that morning.
“The pastor preached out of Galatians, and it really stirred my heart,” Davis said. “I repented right there on the altar, just fell on my knees and face and cried.”
Davis now prays regularly for the salvation and protection of the same-sex couples who have assailed her and says she believes there is eternal significance in remaining firm in her stance.
“For me, this is a Heaven or Hell issue because [of] someone else who maybe doesn’t know the Lord and is still searching,” she said. “This is real, and this is true.”
Though she has been under intense attack and pressure, she claims a peace and trust in God that surpasses human understanding.
“We serve a living God who is alive and on the throne,” she said. “He knows exactly where I am, and I know that His hand is upon me and upon His people. He is in full control.”
In late February ISIS cut a swath of destruction across the Syrian countryside, attacking 35 Assyrian villages and taking almost 300 innocent people captive. One of those towns was a small village by the name of Tel Goran, from which 21 Assyrian Christians were captured and carried off into captivity. The ISIS fighters kept these people captive for some five days before finally releasing the lot of them, on the condition that none of them return to their village. The captives agreed.
But that isn’t the full extent of their story. In fact, the rest of the story ends up making the ordeal sound more like an act of God and less like a simple hostage situation.
AINA: Tell us how the attack started and how you were captured.
Robert: There usually are guards in the village. On that day the guards left for Hasaka at 4 A.M. ISIS entered the village at 5 A.M. and knocked on our doors and awoke us. They rounded us up, everyone in the village, and placed us in a small room. On the other [north] side of the river there were Kurdish and Assyrian fighters, and we could hear the exchange of fire between them and ISIS.
AINA: How many of you were there?
Robert: 21. 17 men and 4 women.
AINA: What happened when you arrived at Abdul Aziz Mountain?Robert: They placed us in two small rooms. We spent the night there.
AINA: What did they say to you?
Robert: They asked us to convert to Islam.
AINA: That was the first thing they said?
Robert: Yes, that was their idea that we should convert to Islam.
AINA: Who was speaking to you?
Robert: Many bearded people spoke to us, and everyone asked us to convert to Islam.
AINA: How many?
Robert: Very many. Everyone spoke to us, whoever saw us.
AINA: What happened next?
Robert: We spent the night there. In the morning they brought cars and drove us for about 4 hours into the mountains.
AINA: How long did you stay there?
Robert: For 5 days, until we were released.
AINA: When you arrived there what did ISIS say and do?
Robert: They kept pressuring us to convert to Islam, it was their constant focus. But we were not mistreated.
AINA: When ISIS asked you to convert to Islam, what was your answer?Robert: We said we would not convert. They said you must then pay the jizya [a Christian poll tax] or leave the country. That was the option given to us. We said we would pay the jizya but we would not convert.
AINA: How much was the jizya?
Robert: They said this time they would not collect the jizya because we had not fought against them. They said that they would release us on condition that we not return to our village. They said if we returned and they captured us again they would kill us without any other option, they would behead the men and enslave the women.
AINA: Did anything else happen while you were there?
Robert: No. We were provided with all necessities — food, water, bathing facilities. They brought us everything.
AINA: What did they say on the day of your release?
Robert: They again said that we must not stay in the country, if they captured us again they would kill us.
ISIS has been raping, robbing, pillaging and murdering as they ransack the Iraqi and Syrian countryside, yet here we have a story where not only were all of the captured Christians released unharmed, they were not even maltreated during their captivity.
I don’t know (and neither do those who were held captive) the reasons why this group was treated with such care, but we can be thankful for small miracles. Yes, they’re still being forced to flee their homes for foreign soil, but at least they do so with their lives intact.
The article mentions that one reason given by ISIS for the group not receiving harsher treatment was the fact that they didn’t fight back. While this may have worked in this instance, we know from other experiences that not fighting back has not always led to better treatment from ISIS.
In fact, many of the dead who have fallen before the horror that is ISIS were innocent victims who never raised a finger to fight back.
Which is why the safe return of the villagers from Tel Goran is no doubt a miracle from God.
Read more at http://eaglerising.com/16225/christians-captured-by-isis-terrorists-refuse-to-convert-then-a-miracle-happens/#46Y1bYsGMi5J08jF.99
Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link below.
The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day. One each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.
* Verse numbers in parenthesis refer to the verse number in Christian Bibles when it differs from the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh.
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 9/6 through 9/12/15.
Hebrews 3:3, He who built the house. Yeshua is the builder of his spiritual house — the church. Interestingly, his earthly father trained him to be a carpenter. Often the physical or natural and spiritual dimensions parallel each other. The idea of Yeshua being the Creator of all things including humanity (Heb 1:10; John 1:3, 10) and being the builder of his spiritual house provides us with an important truth.
How is it that the death of Yeshua — one human — could pay for the sins of the whole earth — many humans? Simply this. Yeshua in his pre-incarnate state as the Word of Elohim created all humans. His life is more valuable than the lives of all those he created, since he is the Creator, even as life of the builder of a house has more value than all the houses he builds.
This is why Yeshua could pay for the sins of the whole world, and why his life was more valuable than those of all the humans that have ever lived in the history of the world.
