Daily Devotional -August 31, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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Enjoy some of those cooler temperatures, a good day at God's house yesterday worshipping together and some good fellowship with God's people, and hearing from the

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Lord, appreciated that opportunity yesterday, it was a great one. Well, I came across the other day a quotation from Thomas Manton that reminded me of an experience

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I had a few weeks ago, out in our backyard, oh maybe 7, 8, 9 years ago,

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I planted a series of, kind of a scrub evergreen, it was just meant to be like a wall of evergreen, just a screen from our yard to the neighbor's backyard and so forth, and so I planted these things and they all grew up very rapidly, very, very rapidly, and one of them, it got to be about,

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I don't know, 16 feet tall or something like that, and I noticed late last year that it was dying, and before I knew it,

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I mean that whole tree was just completely dead, there wasn't a green branch on it at all, and by this time the trunk of that tree was probably about 8 inches diameter, and I knew

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I needed to get it cut down, and there's another tree that we need to have taken out, and I called a tree service about having it taken out, and that was a year ago, and they said they were going to do it, and I figured when they came to take that other tree out,

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I'd have them take down this, you know, dead 18, 16, 18 foot evergreen.

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Well, the tree service has not shown up yet, and I don't think they're going to make it this year either, so I decided

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I need to get this thing down, I don't want it to cause disease or problems to any of the nearby trees or anything like that, but, you know,

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I don't have a chainsaw, and I don't have any real experience at cutting trees down, the only thing

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I know is what I've observed, and so, some of you are going to laugh at this, but you know, this is the way it is.

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I do have a sawzall, and so I got a blade, you know, a very rough cutting blade for the sawzall, and it was like a 12 inch long blade, and I took it out there by that tree, and what

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I knew I needed to do, at least I figured I did, was to cut some wedges into the trunk of this tree, you know, down near the bottom, and so I first cut, you know, a little wedge into the trunk, and once I got that wedge cut, then

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I could cut a little deeper into the trunk, and so forth, and eventually it worked, you know, eventually the tree came down and I was able to cut it all up and everything, well, anyway, that experience reminded me, or I was reminded of that experience when

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I read this statement by Thomas Manton, he says this, when a man cleaves a block, he first pierces it with small wedges, and then with greater, of course he's talking about a block of wood, a chunk of wood that you're getting ready to, you know, cut up for firewood, and you're going to put a wedge in it, and that helps you cut the piece apart, so anyway, when a man cleaves a block, he first pierces it with small wedges, and then with greater, and eventually he's able to cut the block apart, then he says this, so does the devil make an entrance into the soul by degrees,

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I want to think about that for a minute, and especially in terms of Judas, Manton alludes to Judas when he gives this quotation, and think about Judas, and what you know about Judas is for the longest time, he didn't know there was a problem with a guy, but when we get closer to the betrayal and the arrest of Jesus in the crucifixion, we learn a lot about him, we find out that the first wedge in his soul was he was greedy, he helped himself to the disciples group money bag that was used to pay expenses for the group as they traveled around, but then he, another wedge, a deeper wedge is driven when he reacted very badly to Mary, who took that very expensive bottle of perfume and poured it on Jesus feet,

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John 12 tells us that Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, Jesus' disciples, who was about to betray him, said, why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor, and John goes on to tell us, he said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was greedy, he loved getting his hands in the money bag, he loved money, but that second wedge, criticizing this person,

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Mary, who showed great affection toward the Lord Jesus, and then

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Jesus rebuked Judas, remember that? Jesus replied to Judas and said, leave her alone, she's doing a good thing, leave her alone, then comes another wedge, expressed by Judas' hatred toward Jesus for that rebuke,

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Matthew tells us that after that rebuke, he says, then, then, on the heels of that rebuke, then

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Judas went to the chief priests and said, what will you give me if I deliver him over to you, and they paid him 30 pieces of silver, and from that moment on, he sought an opportunity to betray

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Jesus. You see how the wedges are getting deeper and deeper, first it's a little one, a little bit of greed, maybe stealing a few bucks out of the money bag, and that greed is deeper now as he sees this very expensive bottle of perfume that could be sold and he could get so much more out of the money bag if he did, and he rebukes that display of affection,

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Jesus turns around and rebukes him, and the wedge is driven deeper, now it's not just a matter of greed for money, now there's an antipathy, there's a hostility toward the one who rebuked him, toward Jesus, who rebuked him, and then he set out determined to find a way to betray him, so then he covenants, makes a covenant with the enemy, the wedge is being driven deeper and deeper into his soul until he finally walks up to Jesus and kisses him on the cheeks as that sign of betrayal.

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And you know the end of Judas, right? After that, he claimed, apparently he didn't realize that they were going to kill

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Jesus, they thought they just wanted to arrest him and so forth, and so Judas ended up going out and just hanging himself, the only way to get out of his misery was to hang himself.

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How deeply the wedges were driven by the wicked one, started small, deeper and deeper and deeper until the tree tumbled completely.

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In commenting on this statement of Manton, Charles Spurgeon says this, he says,

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There is no dealing with the devil except at arm's length. Those little wedges of his are terribly insinuating because they are so little.

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Keep them out or worse will follow. The egg of all mischief is as small as a mustard seed.

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Are there some wedges that have been driven into your soul?

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Think about it, may seem to be so little, it's just a little thing, you may think, it's the ploy of the devil, a little thing here, a little thing there, a little more here, a little more there, until finally the wedge is driven so deeply that the mischief is going to permeate your soul and your life.

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Let's pray with Spurgeon as we close today. O Lord, let us not fall little by little.

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Let us not think ourselves able to bear the indulgence of any known sin because it seems so insignificant.

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O our Father, keep us from sinful beginnings lest they lead us on to sorrowful endings.

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This we pray in the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen. Amen. Well, I hope you have a good rest of your

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Monday and watch out for those little wedges. They don't seem like they cause any problem, but they do.