Category: Devotionals

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Devotionals

COVETOUSNESS BRINGS WEAKNESS AND SPIRITUAL DECLENSION AMONG GOD’S PEOPLE

June 21, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

COVETOUSNESS BRINGS WEAKNESS AND SPIRITUAL DECLENSION AMONG GOD’S PEOPLE.

The name Achan means, “Achar, the troubler if Israel.” 1 Chron. 2:7, KJV. In the New Testament, the antitype of ancient Israel is the church, ekklesia, “the called out ones.” The generic church, like ancient Israel, is also of two classes: apostate Christianity who have done away with God’s law and worship an idol sabbath, as apostate Israel worshipped Baal, the Phoenician sun-god, and the remnant church who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12) and “have the spirit of prophecy which is the testimony of Jesus Christ”(Rev. 19:10).

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Devotionals

COVETOUSNESS : AN EVIL OF GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT.

June 19, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

COVETOUSNESS : AN EVIL OF GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT.
“Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.” “Let it not be ONCE named among you.” Col. 3:5; Matt. 6:24; Luke 12:15; Eph. 5: 3.

“The deadly sin that led to Achan’s ruin had its ROOT in COVETOUSNESS, of all sins ONE OF THE MOST COMMON and the MOST LIGHTLY REGARDED [by man but not by God!]. While other offenses meet with detection and punishment, how RARELY does the violation of the tenth commandment so much as call forth censure. The ENORMITY of this sin, and its terrible results, are the LESSONS of Achan’s history.

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Devotionals

ACHAN’S INDIVIDUAL SIN AFFECTED THE WHOLE NATION (THE CHURCH THEN)

June 18, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
ACHAN’S INDIVIDUAL SIN AFFECTED THE WHOLE NATION (THE CHURCH THEN)
“To establish his guilt beyond question, leaving no ground for the charge that he had been unjustly condemned, Joshua solemnly adjured Achan to acknowledge the TRUTH. The wretched man made full confession of his crime: ‘Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel…When I saw a GOODLY Babylonian garment [high-fashion, expensive], and 200 hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels’ weight [the currency then], I COVETED them and took them; and behold, they are HID in the earth in the midst of my tent’ [as in hidden in my heart and imaginations].
“Messengers were immediately dispatched to the tent,… and ‘behold it was in the tent…and they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua….and laid them out BEFORE the Lord.”

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Devotionals

ACHAN’S SECRET SIN EXPOSED PUBLICLY BY GOD

June 17, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK;

ACHAN’S SECRET SIN EXPOSED PUBLICLY BY GOD. “For God will bring every secret thing into judgment, whether they be good or evil.” Eccl. 12:14.

Continuing from yesterday: “God’s command has been disregarded by of those appointed to execute His judgments. And the NATION was held accountable for the guilt of the transgressor. THEY have even taken of the accursed thing
and have also STOLEN, and DISSEMBLED also’ instruction was given to Joshua for the discovery and punishment [judicial procedures] of the criminal. The [casting of] lots was to be employed for the DETECTION of the guilty. The sinner was NOT directly pointed out, the matter being left to DOUBT for a time, that the people might FEEL their RESPONSIBILITY for the sins existing among them, and thus be led to SEARCHING of HEART and HUMILIATION before God.

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Devotionals

ACHAN’S SIN CAUSED DEFEAT OF ISRAEL’S ARMY IN CANAAN

June 16, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

ACHAN’S SIN CAUSED DEFEAT OF ISRAEL’S ARMY IN CANAAN. (See Judges 7: 1-26 first).

“But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things….for Achan took of the accursed things, so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel.” Verse 1.

Achan means “trouble.” He is also called Achar. After their miraculous victory of taking down the massively-fortified city of Jericho, Joshua led the army to attack a small town called Ai. “The hearts of the people melted and became as water.” Joshua “rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the eve tide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.”

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Devotionals

THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, ass nor ANYTHING that is thy neighbor’s.”

June 15, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, ass nor ANYTHING that is thy neighbor’s.” Exo. 20: 17.

God is also called Palmoni, “the divine Numberer” and is a God of order who “numbers the numberless stars of the heavens” and the number of hairs on our heads. Number Ten in the Bible stands for ‘completion,’ hence there are only Ten Commandments that cover our “whole duty to God and to our fellowmen.

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Devotionals

THE NINTH COMMANDMENT “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

June 14, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE NINTH COMMANDMENT
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Exo.20: 16; Deut.5:20.

“The ninth commandment requires of us an inviolable regard for exact truth in every declaration by which the character of our fellowmen may be affected. The TONGUE [see James 3:1-18], which is kept so little under the control of the human agent, is to be bridled by strong, conscientious principles, by the law of love toward God and men.” E.G. White, Letter 15, 1895.

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Devotionals

THE EIGHT COMMANDMENT. “Thou shalt not steal.”

June 11 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE EIGHT COMMANDMENT. “Thou shalt not steal.” Exo. 20:15; Lev. 19:11; Deut. 5:19, KJV.

“Both public and private sins are included in this prohibition. The eighth commandment condemns MAN-STEALING and SLAVE-DEALING [in all its different forms], and forbids WARS OF CONQUEST [all world wars were for conquest of other nations and peoples].

“It condemns theft and robbery.

“It demands STRICT INTEGRITY in the minutest details of the the AFFAIRS OF LIFE.

“It forbids OVERREACHING in trade [any business transaction], and requires the payment of JUST debts and wages.

“It declares that every attempt to ADVANTAGE oneself by the IGNORANCE, WEAKNESS of MISFORTUNE of another, is registered as FRAUD in the books of heaven.” E.G.White, Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 308, 309.

“Thou shalt not steal’ was written by the finger of God
Yet how much UNDERHAND STEALING OF AFFECTIONS is practiced and excused. A deceptive courtship is maintained, private communications are kept up. . . . To trifle with hearts is a CRIME of no small magnitude the sight of a Holy God. As we deal with our fellowmen in PETTY DISHONESTY so will we deal with God. Men who persist in a course of dishonesty will carry out their principles until they CHEAT THEIR OWN SOULS and lose heaven and eternal life.” Ibid, Adventist Home, pp. 57, 392.

Such is God’s all-seeing eye that sees through the lens of His law magnified by the Holy Spirit!   NMF