Daily Devotional – June 24, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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wonderful Wednesday. Your week is also about half over.

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How does that make you feel? Is that a good thing or not so good? Is your week going too quickly or too slowly?

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Whatever the case, it's going. So how are you doing these days figuring out what's true?

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A little challenging, isn't it? If it's challenging for you, it's not challenging only for you.

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You're not the only one who's having a hard time figuring out what's true. Andy Kessler wrote an editorial in Monday's Wall Street Journal that really brought to light what's happened to truth in these last few months.

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Here's some of what Mr. Kessler wrote. He entitled his editorial, A War of Meaningless Words.

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He begins, Truth or Consequences. When I use a word, says

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Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.

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In other words, anything. He wants it to mean anything. He wants it to mean prescient.

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Today's words are abused and truth has become so debased that no one believes anything anymore.

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The post -truth era, Mr. Kessler continues, not only has arrived. In three short months, we've descended into the depths of dishonesty, dysfunction, even numbers.

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Now, 2 .2 million equals 150 ,000. Imperial College London epidemiologist

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Neil Ferguson helped force much of the world into lockdowns with his forecast of 2 .2

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million U .S. deaths. He assumed 268 million Americans, or 81 percent, would be infected.

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So far, it's 2 .3 million who've been infected. As Bob Uecker would say, just a bit outside.

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While Mr. Ferguson then put the hip in hypocritical, having his married girlfriend break the stay -at -home order that he had inspired.

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A little later on, he writes, the World Health Organization declared in March that you don't need to wear masks, probably because of the worldwide shortage.

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California now requires them, even outside. Again, which is it?

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Whacked in the head so many times with untruths, you stop believing anyone. Again, later.

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Follow the science. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti declared residents could only use the wet sand part of the beach to go swim.

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New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that dry sandy beaches are fine, but swimmers would be taken right out of the water.

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Not very scientific. The unhealthy behavior of 250 maskless anti -lockdown protesters in Lansing, Michigan was deemed abhorrent.

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Two weeks later, thousands protesting for social justice on the streets of major cities were given a hall pass.

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If it weren't for the double standards, there wouldn't be any standards at all. It's gotten worse.

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Talking heads babbled about peaceful protesters while stores were on fire.

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NBC News's verification unit does no such thing. Formerly respected reporter

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Nicole Hannah -Jones said that destruction of property is not violence. Well, that's obviously not true, but there it is.

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So, he goes on to write about just how difficult it is for us to be able to discern the truth.

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Now, this isn't the first time I've addressed this topic in our daily devotions, but since I did a couple of months ago, things have gotten murkier rather than clearer, haven't they?

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And it all brings to mind a very sobering passage in the book of Isaiah. He writes in Isaiah 59, 14, and 15.

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Did you hear that? Truth has stumbled in the public squares and uprightness cannot enter.

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It reminds me of the body cam video footage that I saw the other day of a police officer in Seattle last weekend.

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He and several other officers had been called because of some shots fired and people injured in that autonomous zone in Seattle.

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So, off they go to try to find the people who've been shot and to rescue them, to help them, but they're blocked the entire way.

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Rebel occupiers wouldn't allow them to get into where the injured people were. These are the same people, not necessarily the same individuals, but the same people who shouted down and buffeted and kicked out a guy from Chaz because he was trying to preach the gospel.

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Well, and then this in our text in Isaiah. Truth is lacking and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

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Well, there's one sure way of getting yourself beat up these days, either verbally or maybe even physically.

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Tell the truth about the Marxist organization Black Lives Matter. Tell the truth about Christianity's role in eliminating slavery in England and in our own country.

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Tell the truth about the real cause of all racism and hatred and strife, man's fallen sinful condition.

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Tell the truth that there's as much if not more hatred being shown on the streets of many of our nation's cities right now than at any time in our nation's history.

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Tell the truth that no matter what society tries to do to eliminate racism, it's ultimately bound to fail because it society doesn't deal with man's sinful heart.

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Only the gospel can, and on and on we could go. The Wall Street Journal editorial ends without offering a whole lot of hope.

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Listen to what Mr. Kessler writes. He says, I don't know, maybe this is all someone's master plan.

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Sow enough seeds of doubt and we lay folk will look for salvation. The cool kids like to use the term gaslighting, a slow psychological torture of people until they question their own sanity.

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Slow? It took only 15 days of pandemic panic to slow the spread of truth.

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Words need meaning, but don't expect it from Humpty Dumpty in today's politics and media.

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Well, fortunately our hope doesn't lie either in today's politics or in its media.

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Our hope lies in the last statement of Isaiah 59 15. The Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no justice.

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Well, since the Lord is so very displeased with the failure of truth, with the hostility against uprightness and against the upright, with the breakdown of justice, of law and order, and since the sovereign

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Lord will deal with all evil, in the end truth will prevail. Remember the lyrics to the battle hymn of the

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Republic? Here's what Julia Ward Howe wrote back in 1861 at the outbreak of the

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Civil War. Originally this hymn was intended as an abolitionist hymn. She wrote this.

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Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

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He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.

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Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah.

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His truth is marching on. Another stanza says, he has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat.

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He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him.

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Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah.

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Our God is marching on. So in spite of all the contemporary efforts to thwart it,

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God's truth is marching on and it will prevail. And in spite of all the efforts to cast him off and decry his authority, our

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God is marching on and he will prevail. He will prevail.

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Glory, glory, hallelujah. So let's pray and give thanks to our

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God who will prevail and pray for him to bring justice to our streets and truth to be made manifest clearly.

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Our Father and our God, may that indeed be the case. May all of the current efforts to murky the waters of truth be defeated.

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May your truth prevail. May your justice prevail. So Lord, we pray.

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Do a work of grace, do a work of power, a work of glory, even in our day.

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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, may God give you a blessed rest of your midweek and hope to see you tomorrow if you can make it at noon or at six o 'clock.