Wednesday, October 26, 2022 PM

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Opening Devotion

Making them clean and white with your son's blood, having washed them and taken their sins far from them. We praise you that we are a part of that body. We praise you that we are able to enjoy the freedoms to come together and feast together, enjoying the abundance that we get from your hand for the provision of our needs and our wants and desires and you have been so kind to us and though we did not merit it Lord.

We know thinking of you first and thinking of you most and upon your son is what we aim to do in these times. So as we consider your son and consider his bride, bring us to our knees in prayer and consider our meditations Lord.

It's in Christ's name we pray, Amen. It has been a few weeks since the last time I was able to give a devotion and we'll review because the first devotion has a lot to do with the second devotion that I've been thinking about over the last few weeks but Heather can attest that I've been thinking a few weeks it's only been a few hours that I've been able to work on it so put it together quickly but there was thought that went into it earlier on.

Scarcity, Preciousness, and the Bride of Christ

To begin with we considered the definition of scarcity and the one that we were going to go with was limited supply and when considering our Savior and his bride there is one church and one Savior and then we began asking three questions right off the bat to get engagement going.

Where do we find scarcity in our own lives? Where do we find scarcity in the biblical narrative? And why is there so much scarcity? Why is it a part of God's world and a part of his plan? We discussed scarcity as a feature and not a bug or a flaw of the world that he has created.

It screams to us of his sovereignty over all things to know that scarcity is good. We considered the relationship to scarce things and their inherent preciousness or ability to be seen as precious. Christ adorns his precious bride with all manner of precious metals, stones, but most notably clothes are in righteousness.

Something that we know is it only derives from one place so it is indeed coming from a scarce source and it's only something the bride can experience. There's she being one bride he's clothing only her and no one else.

And lastly we considered how an abundance of gods leads to a scarcity in righteousness and the scarcity of the triune God leads to an abundance in righteousness. Meaning that a fixed standard in Christ looking to him first and always looking to him alone gives us true direction meaning and righteousness for his church.

Transferring our affections from other gods and idols and focusing them on the one true God leads to a life of abundance. A life of idolatry and debts the heart of man. He may yet chase after even more gods looking to find another buyer for those debts but eventually all things come back to him to to it who it is all owed.

Prosperity, Idolatry, and Debased Minds in Romans 1

Now I just mentioned a life of abundance coming from us focusing our affections on the one true God which is true but when we talk about abundance or prosperity nowadays alarm bells begin to go off. Why is that?

Well traditional media and many pulpits are filled and saturated with prosperity grifters of both the Christian and the non-christian variety. Their idea of abundance and plenty is the abundance of things that I want or the plenty of things that I think I need.

This is the plenty the the abundance of paganism found in Romans 1 and on display in the hearts of men when we begin to think of the world God created without any reference to the husband of the bride.

What do I mean by this? Well Romans 1 22 and 23 speaking of those who suppress the truth of God even though everything they need to know about him is already evident to them. Verse 22 reads, although they claim to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

So where do these fools fix their eyes? To what do they reference all things and measure those measure those things against or sorry to what do they reference all other things and measure them against it?

Certainly not the incorruptible God. They pick a portion of God's creation which can be replicated corrupted and debased. Paul uses a term in verse 28 which can be and it many times was rendered as debased which we know to be used of many currencies in the ancient world where they would clip the edges of coins and melt it down and stamp and make another coin.

So out of one coin or multiple coins you've made extra coins and therefore debase the value of the whole coinage across its breadth. And it's in reference to the type of mind that the Lord would give these fools over to so they were given over to debased minds.

They worshipped their own likenesses. The likenesses of rainforest trees that they chain themselves to. The likenesses of endangered species that they plaster on your screen with a donation hotline. The likenesses of dead presidents on paper bills.

All of which can be replicated to the point of hilarity and worthlessness. A couple of examples of a debasement in our modern time that we can make reference to which were examples of this kind of hilarity and worthlessness were found in Germany during the Weimar Republic just before World War II.

And more recently in Zimbabwe where the national currency currencies were printed and replicated or debased if you will in order to save the politicians and bankers that manipulated those currencies. In Germany wheelbarrows and other tools were employed to carry the massive stacks of cash bills necessary to buy loaves of bread at local markets.

So they would they had literally printed so much money that they had to use something other than just their hands to carry cash to buy their everyday items and food. And in similar scenes were recorded and photographed in Zimbabwe and jokes circulated about Zimbabwe being a country of millionaires.

Millionaires of worthlessness and hilarity. There are just two examples in history though of what happens to a people who fix their eyes on dead likenesses and rage against God's anointed. As the kings and rulers do in Psalm 2 saying in verse 3, let us break their bonds and pieces and cast away their cords from us.

Now I don't know about you but have you ever seen kings or rulers with bonds and cords? That image to me is not something you would think of when you're thinking of earthly kings or rulers. That they're the ones who are bound by something.

But if we want to figure out what they're bound by, we go to God's law and his requirements that he gives to those who will distort against evildoers. But more on that for another time. I plan to address that at a later date.

But I'm thankful for the devotion that Chris gave on idolatry a couple weeks ago. As many things do, what he shared cast me into thought. Idolatry is an exercise of constant debasement and replication.

And the more these idols are replicated, the more worthless they become to the idolater. That is not to say that these idolaters don't worship these idols. They do. But their time of usefulness to the idolater to satisfy his lusts, hide his guilt, and occupy his mind, shrinks with each new idol that he sets on his mental mantle.

Truly, how much time can you give each day to every one of your thousands of idols? You can give the whole of your day to the lot of them, but only mere moments of devotion to each individual idol. Whatever value the idolater has placed on these idols, he himself has debased it thousands of times over.

He may call himself also a millionaire of worthlessness and hilarity. With so many gods at hand, the idolater begins to look at God's creation as what is known as a zero-sum game. There's a finite amount of everything.

But for us Baptists, it's also known as a Thanksgiving pie, where each slice taken from that pie is a piece that is never coming back and limits the size of the slice that you yourself may take from that pie.

We all know that feeling. I know that feeling personally. Daryl would take one-tenth of a pie at Thanksgiving, leaving me only nine-tenths to eat for myself. But I also hope we all know the feeling of mom bringing out five more of your favorite pie.

Judgment on Babylon in Revelation 18

When the number of idols increases in the land, scarcity of goods and services, poverty, and short-term thinking reign. We may use a text that I mentioned but we didn't read in the First Devotion to prove this.

And it's just one example, again we can't go through all of them, but it's just one example of God's similar judgment of idolatry elsewhere in the Bible. If you would all turn to Revelation 18 with me, it's gonna be a pretty big chunk.

I'll be starting in verse 9 and reading through verse 18. So Revelation 18 verses 9 through 18. The section is considering the harlot who is being judged in Revelation 18 for her idolatry and for her chasing after other gods and looking to different nations to satisfy herself other than her Lord.

Verse 9, the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her when they see the smoke of her burning standing at a distance for fear of her torment saying alas alas that great city Babylon that mighty city for in one hour your judgment has come and the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her for no one buys their merchandise anymore.

Merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble, and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men.

The fruit that you longed yours that your soul longed for has gone from you and all the things which are rich and splendid have gone from you and you shall shall find them no more at all. The merchants of these things who became rich by her will stand at a distance for fear of her torment weeping and wailing and saying alas alas that great city that was clothed in fine linen purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls for in one hour such riches came to nothing.

Every ship master all who travel by ship sailors as many as trade on the sea stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning saying what is like this great city. Now this was the outcome for the harlot in Revelation 18 called Babylon who I believe to be Jerusalem and under the judgment which Christ had foretold of in the Gospels.

Like I said there are many examples of this in the Bible of this sort of judgment where an idolatrous people are stripped of their idols and their basic needs and we don't have time to run through all of them at the moment.

Blessings for the Saints and the Marriage of the Lamb

But what is the outcome for those who by the Spirit have their hearts minds and eyes fixed upon Jesus? What is promised to them? The Lord has brought them to a place where they bless and kiss the Lord's anointed contrary to those in Psalm 2 who rage against him.

What blessings are they to share in? Before we answer that let's run through a few examples of the Lord blessing the Saints throughout the biblical narrative and we're going to go back to some of the Old Testament examples and we can we can view them as types and shadows of how he is going to bless Christ in the New Testament and how he is going to raise him up as his anointed.

First of all Noah and his family are brought through a worldwide judgment and given the same command as Adam and Eve to fill the earth and subdue it. He was surrounded by wickedness and it was washed away and he was brought in to fill the world once again.

Abraham and Sarah are aged childless Saints who are promised and received descendants that number as the stars in the sky. Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers and is blessed later on to sit at Pharaoh's right hand and govern even over those brothers.

David goes from shepherd to man on the run to King. Job is brought low and lavishly restored to more in his latter days than in his earlier days. Again more examples of the Lord restoring those he loves to a higher position and wealth and fruitfulness than they had before and all of which belong to Jesus Christ and from him they flow outwardly to his Saints as he desires.

But our focus and the first devotion was his bride, if you'll remember, as a whole. What does he add to her? Well we go back again to Revelation before the marriage supper or marriage supper of the Lamb.

We go to chapter 19 verses 6 and 8 and you don't have to turn there I'll just read them off but it says, and I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude as the sound of many waters and as a sound of mighty thundering saying, Alleluia for the Lord God omnipotent reigns.

Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready and to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen clean and bright for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the Saints.

He gives us a metaphor that we aren't really allowed to misunderstand or misinterpret and it's that very last line. What's that metaphor? Did we catch that? About the linen? Yeah it is the righteous acts of the Saints and we can't avoid that.

The Son presents his bride clothed in his abundant righteousness without which she cannot stand before the holiness of the Lord. We cannot stand as we are without being clothed by Christ's righteousness.

And one of the final points of the last of devotion I gave was an abundance of God's leads to a scarcity in righteousness and the scarcity of the triune God or his being the only one, the only true God, leads to an abundance in righteousness.

Just as the idolater cannot in his own power stop the debasement of his gods with yet more gods, he can only add to it. He can't stop it. He can't taper it down. The Saint cannot stop the Lord from proving his abundant mercy and grace as he sanctifies him adding spiritual fruits and fruitfulness to his life.

And the Saint doesn't want to either. That's one of the beautiful mercies as well as he's changed our heart to seek after and want those spiritual fruits more and more. So let's turn to those fruits in Galatians 5 19 through 26.

If you will turn there with me we're gonna jog our memory on the fruits of the Spirit as they are juxtaposed firstly to the the works of the flesh. So Galatians 5 19 verses 19 through 26. Now the works of the flesh are evident which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like.

Of which I tell you beforehand just as I also told you in the time past or in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Now I find it interesting and is it not interesting that Paul gives a warning against conceit, provocation, and envy after listing all that the Lord will be adding and is adding to his church. When he sanctifies her, he is adding this to his saints, all the fruits.

We know he is writing specifically to the Galatians and addressing a specific false teaching where they added circumcision of the flesh to the gospel. So they were trying to bring the law into the gospel and therefore polluting it and diluting it or debasing it.

The conflict comes when Gentiles are being added to the church in Galatia in significant numbers. Out of conceit and envy, the Judaizers provoke others to follow this false gospel, namely Peter and Barnabas.

The Lord adds abundantly to his church and because he knows our frame, he gives us this warning against conceit, provocation, and envy in a time when he is adding numbers and gifts to his church. It may also give us insight to the growth of envy and conceit during our current age of plenty and abundance or any age of plenty and abundance.

The greatest acts of envy in history are usually born in times of economic blessing. We can see that today. We can see it in the time of Rome during this time period in the Bible. There are especially times of empire where there is plenty and abundance.

There is also a lot of envy, strangely enough. In the very next passage, Paul exhorts those who have been blessed with the fruits of the Spirit to restore our brothers and sisters who have been overtaken in any trespass.

He adds to us, the Lord our Savior adds to us, and we must add to each other in ways that the Lord has blessed us with. So those who are spiritual, go and restore your brethren in a gentle fashion. As the bride, we have a precious relationship to Christ from which we judge and measure everything else.

He is our fixed point. He is the one scarce thing that we see everything else through. He's the lens that we use. If we have multiple lenses all the time, ever-changing idols that we view the rest of the world with, we end up with debased minds.

It is our restoration in Christ that causes a man to have his abilities and his production also restored in such a way that he becomes yet another of God's additions to the bride and not a drain on her resources.

Closing Remarks and Discussion

That's all I have for tonight. I wasn't as interactive as I was last time, but I am going to leave more of a time tonight for that interaction. If you thought I left loose ends or threads that you want to follow up on, we can talk through any questions or comments before we force Brian to come up here and take prayer requests.

So any comments or questions, they're welcome now. Yes, yes. Yeah, that was not a verse in the Bible. Just, yeah. To be clear, it might have. I just filter stuff and it just spits out the other side a lot of times.

Anyone else? Yes, yes, yes. I would say anytime that we see abundance throughout history and we have more and more around us, it's more readily available for us to be idolaters of those things, right?

So we see Solomon, anytime he added wives and anytime he had things added to him, there was a case where he had the potential to idolize those things. And the same is true of material wealth as well. And we have to guard against those.

And that's why there's these warnings in the Bible for us, because we know that many of these things are good things. But we have a tendency, as Chris pointed out so succinctly, to make idols all the time.

I'll let you come up, Brian. Oh, Daryl. Huh? I know. Riley wasn't here so I needed to.

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