HAPPY CANADA DAY!
Oh Friends, Happy Canada Day! Our lovely country is one year older and wiser today! Wow! So let’s learn from our recent fiasco, then put away in the past and move forward to bigger and better things. As Bernard Baruch says: ‘A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it.’ And that’s exactly what we need to do; use that experience to improve our country and ourselves. Don’t worry, we have God in our hearts, which is the most important thing. And once we have that, we can overcome any and all obstacles and disasters; we won’t be afraid of evil or evildoers either. Praise the Lord! What we’re seeking is wisdom, which is everlasting. And wisdom begins with the fear and reverence of our God. Translated into our Bit, that says: ‘The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.’ Yes my people, that’s the first step in drawing close to God; to dislike evil, for evil is the very antithesis, the direct opposite of all our God is and stands for. Cousin Sol makes the point a couple of other ways and places. In Chap.3, exhortations to obedience, he says: ‘Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord and depart from evil.’ (Prov.3:7) And in Chap.16, which deals with moral, ethical and spiritual precepts, he declares: ‘By mercy and truth iniquity is purged (atonement is provided for iniquity); and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.’ (Prov.16:6) That makes it perfectly clear that only through reverence for God, and through constant contact and communication with Him, with His powerful Spirit, can man defeat and depart from evil. Why is that? Because evil is a natural part of our heritage. We were born in sin, and if we don’t have Jesus in our hearts, then we’ll also die in sin. Here’s some more stuff that wisdom, and therefore our God dislikes: ‘pride and arrogancy and the evil way.’ Yes! We now getting into heavy hitting, deep waters, for we all know that nothing makes our God as angry as the proud and arrogant man. Cousin Sol says it more explicitly elsewhere. ‘The highway of the upright is to depart from evil: he that keepeth his way preserveth his soul. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (stumbling). Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil (plunder) with the proud.’ (Prov.16:17-19) Meanwhile, Bruh Paul said it thus to the Romans: ‘Be of the same mind one to another. Mind not (do not set your mind on) high things, but condescend to (associate with) men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits (estimation).’ (Rom.12:16) In other words, don’t blow your own trumpet; don’t think you’re better than the lowly man, so much so that you can’t associate with him. Remember Jesus hung out more with the poor, lowly and humble than he hobnobbed with upper class folks. Cousin Sol reinforces this by proclaiming: ‘Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord: though hand join hand, he shall not be unpunished.’ (Prov.16:5) And my people, here’s the definitive word on the subject of humility from our leader, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. ‘And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden (invited), when he marked (noted) how they chose out the chief rooms (the best places); saying unto them. When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding (wedding feast), sit not down in the highest room (best place); lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade (invited) thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room (place). But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship (glory) in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased (humbled); and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’ (Luke 14:7-11) Yes Friends, it’s not our duty to exalt ourselves, but for others to do. So let’s not be like Ms. Thomas puss and like high seats, or Humpty Dumpty who sat on that high wall, for we’ll surely fall. (smile) And having dealt with the heart and the spirit, the last part of our Bit deals with that small but ‘tallawa’ organ, the tongue, situated in our mouths: ‘and the froward (perverse) mouth, do I hate.’ Oh my people, I don’t have to remind us of the trouble our mouths can cause, especially if our hearts and spirit are proud and arrogant. Cousin Sol solemnly reminds and advises us elsewhere to ‘Put away from thee a froward (deceitful) mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.’ (Prov.4:24) It reminds me of those mouthy, cantankerous people the old folks would describe as being able to start a tempest in a teacup. Remember too that Jesus said: ‘Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.’ (Mat.15:11) So Friends, it’s not what goes into us that spoils us, but what comes out that shows the real us, what we’re really like inside, and you can see that our Lord and Saviour surely doesn’t like the proud, arrogant, mouthy evildoer. So please, let’s work seriously on the aspects of our character which show any of those tendencies, so that we can be truly good examples of followers of Christ. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Much LOVE!…he that hath ears to hear…let him hear…
SCRIP-BITS 