FBC Daily Devotional – November 19, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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to you. I trust you're having a good day so far. Whenever you're watching this particular devotional, if it's first thing in the morning,

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I hope you had a good night of rest and are looking forward to a full productive day today. Maybe you're taking a break in the middle of the day and catching this over the lunch hour.

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If so, I hope you've had a good morning and get revitalized at your noon hour for the rest of the afternoon.

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And maybe you're watching this later in the evening. Day is behind you. You're getting ready to wind down for the evening.

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Well, whatever the case, I hope your Thursday is one where you recognize the goodness, the mercies of God that are new each day.

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Well, I remember several years ago a pastor of a church over in the

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Chicago area got in a heap of trouble because he was having a conference of sorts and he invited a guy to the conference, a man to this conference to speak, who was essentially a kind of a

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Unitarian. He did not believe in the Orthodox view of the

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Trinity, that is, that there's one God in three persons. God the Father, God the

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Son, God the Holy Spirit. And so this individual, his actual belief regarding the

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Trinity was that God just simply manifests himself in three different ways.

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There's not one God in three persons, there's just one God who's one person who just manifests himself in different ways.

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Anyway, that lack of orthodoxy on the part of this invited speaker created a great deal of controversy for the host pastor because he was, by inviting him, he was expressing a measure of praise for this unorthodox, you know, a guy who actually held to a heretical view of the

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Trinity. And that was a very legitimate criticism that this pastor who claimed himself to be orthodox and to hold to an orthodox position on the

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Trinity, it was a legitimate criticism that he was praising somebody who wasn't orthodox, and that caused the host pastor to be suspect as to what he really believed.

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Well, there's a verse in the Proverbs that comes to bear on this particular situation.

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It's found in Proverbs 27, verse 21. It goes like this. The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold.

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And a man is tested in the furnace for silver and for gold, right? You mine the ore out of the earth, whether it's silver ore or gold ore, but it's not ready to be, it's not ready to be utilized in any very real sense.

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That ore has to be refined, it has to be smelted, it has to be purified, and so it's put into the crucible or into the furnace, heated, and as the ore melts, the impurities rise to the surface, and those impurities can be scraped off, and the net result is you get the real thing.

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You get the full, pure silver and gold. So as that crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold, so a man is known by his praise, is revealed by his praise.

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So the furnace brings out the real gold. Praise has an effect on the man.

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It tests the man, it puts him to the test, it reveals what the man is really like.

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Now there's a couple of different ways you can think about that verse. So a man is tested by his praise.

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We can look at this two ways, right? At least one way is a man is tested by that which he praises.

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You see, this was what happened to the pastor in Chicago area. He got put to the test because of this, you know, heretical speaker that he had come to his conference.

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He got put to the test by his praise for a heretic. So what is it that you praise, and what do

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I praise? What garners our greatest praise? Whom do we praise?

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If our greatest praise is reserved for, oh, I don't know, those in the pop culture, maybe pop music artists or something of that nature, you know, if we get our greatest joy in sitting down and watching things like the

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Grammy Awards or the Country Music Awards and we're praising these, you know, pop icons for, you know, what does that tell us about ourselves, about our real love, what our greatest love?

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You see, think about those things that you praise. If our greatest praise is reserved for, you know, sports figures, some great athlete, somebody that we look up to for his athletic prowess, regardless of what his character is like, you know, what does that reveal about me, about who

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I really am? You see, whom or what I praise tests me.

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It brings out the real me, but we can also think of it in another way.

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A man is tested by his praise, and it could be referring to the praise that he receives and from whom he receives it.

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Now, frankly, there are some that I really don't care to get their praise.

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Those who are enemies of the gospel, those who are enemies of the cause of Christ, I mean,

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I'm happy if they appreciate me for my position and, you know, my character or whatever, but I'm really not out much for their praise.

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I'm more interested in, as Paul said, the praise of him who really judges me, the

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Lord. He's the ultimate judge. Paul himself said, I really don't care.

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I'm not all that concerned about the praise of men, what other people say. I'm concerned about the praise of God, and I think that's an important perspective for the believer in Christ to have, that, yeah, you know, we appreciate it when we're thanked and we're praised and so on by men, but in the end, those things really don't matter.

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That can't motivate me. That can't move me. Otherwise, I start living for the praise of men, and that's when

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I get into trouble. No, I need to be living for the praise of my

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Lord, of my master, of my Savior, my God. I live for his praise.

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So a man is tested by his praise. So I trust we'll give some thought to that today and, you know, meditate on, you know, who or what really receives all of my praise, the vast majority of my praise.

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Is my praise ultimately for my God? Is he the ultimate recipient of my praise, my glorying?

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And where do I get praise? What kind of praise am I looking for and from whom?

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Tells me a lot about who I really am. So our Father and our

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God, I pray that today we would meditate on this very real truth that we are tested by our praise, tested by what we praise and the kind of praise that we're looking for and from whom we're seeking to get it.

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I pray that our ambition, our desire, would be to receive your praise, and this we pray in Jesus' name.

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Amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your Thursday. We're a week away from Thanksgiving.

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I don't know what your plans are for that holiday, but I hope as you're making those plans, they'll be joyful plans.

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It won't be a downer. You know, this year there's been some of emphasis about, you know, not gathering together with your family for Thanksgiving.

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I hope whatever your plans are that it doesn't depress you.