SCRIP-BITS

Ezekiel 20:7.    Then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
 
Oh Friends, the first order of business today is to give thanks for the safe rescue of the majority of miners trapped underground in the Chilean mine for almost two months. Thank you Lord! It’s heart-warming to see the time, money and effort spent on rescuing them, but I have a question. I don’t know how valid it is, but I’ll ask it anyway. Couldn’t they have used some of that technology, money and otherwise to better shore up the mine and prevent the accident? It’s a hundred year old mine, and no doubt the protection wasn’t up to scratch. But nowadays we seem to conveniently forget the old and true adage that prevention is better than cure. That brings to mind our big fight against cancer, spending millions of dollars uselessly looking for cures, when, if we’d get rid of the numerous carcinogens in the majority of products we use and a lot of the food we eat, the cancer problem would be greatly reduced. But I guess the business people and the researches benefit more this way. In any case, let’s hope that the remaining mine workers are safely rescued today. Please offer a prayer for them my people. Oh Friends, I just realized that our Bit could also be a warning for our scientists and business people who put so much untried and poorly tested chemicals into our food, water and air, just to make a big buck. ‘Cast ye away every man the abominations of (before) his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’ They have to stop bowing before Lucifer and his cronies and resisting one of the mighty roots of all evil; the LOVE of money, of the almighty dollar. That’s easier said than done though, so I won’t belabour the point. But we will continue looking at King Asa’s life. We’ve seen him destroy the pagan places of worship and their paraphernalia, the turn Judah and some from the other tribes back to worshipping the Lord God of their fathers. They even made a covenant to seek the Lord and anyone who didn’t worship Him would be put to death; very strong sentiments. The house of God was also restored to its former glory and life in Judah was both peaceful and prosperous. Praise the Lord my people! But, and there always seems to be a but, in the 36th year of Asa’s reign, Baasha, king of Israel, began to build the city of Ramah along the borders of the two countries to prevent people from Israel crossing over to Judah. This obviously heightened tension between them and Asa’s reaction to this tense situation was to hire Ben-hadad, the Syrian king’s army to destroy some of Israel’s cities, which they did. The ploy worked admirably, for when Baasha heard of the Syrian invasion, he stopped building Ramah and went back to fight the Syrians. Consequently, Asa and Judah captured the stuff at Ramah, took it away and built the cities of Gebah and Mizpah in Judah. (2 Chr.16:1-7) Now it all seems to have worked out in Asa’s favour. But Friends, think back to a couple days ago, as to what Asa did when confronted with an invading Ethiopian army twice the size of his. Asa cried unto the Lord his God, who smote the Ethiopians and caused Judah to be victorious. (2 Chr.14:9-15) But for whatever reason, this time with a lesser enemy, Israel, instead of turning to God again, Asa turned to vain, mortal man for help. I don’t know if he thought the matter was too small to bring to God, or simply forgot the psalmist’s words re God’s sustaining power: ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.’ (Ps.121:1-2) Oh my people, please note that there is nothing too small and insignificant in our lives to take to God. On the contrary, He wants to be involved in every decision we make, be it very big or very small. Neither does He let us go scot-free when we ignore Him in making our decisions. And sometimes we pay an inordinately high price for that ignorance, as Asa found out. Listen to the Good Book tell the tale: ‘And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host (army) of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect (loyal) toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.’ (2 Chr.16:7-10,12-13) Oh Friends Asa was summarily rebuked by God’s prophet for his breach of trust, and suffered judgement for it. He then foolishly persecuted the seer because he had the gall to rebuke him, and also oppressed some of his own people. He ended up sick, dying in shame, and even then he still refused to petition the Lord for help, but instead chose imperfect, mortal physicians. Oh my people, how soon we forget the source of our help! Now what caused Asa’s spiritual decline eh? How could he, in his right mind, forget God’s omnipotence and turn to mortal man? Was it the power? There is some truth to the saying that ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ But let’s look at another godly stalwart who faltered badly in his later years; that wisest of all men, Solomon. It wasn’t power that corrupted Cousin Sol, but the many pagan women he married. As the old Derrick Harriot song ‘Solomon’ so rightly says: ‘Solomon was the wisest man, but he didn’t know the secrets of a woman.’ And isn’t that an awesome truth men! None of us really know the workings of women. (smile) And for you ladies who are ready to take umbrage at that statement, please don’t, because it’s true, otherwise the relationship between the sexes would not be as controversial as it is. And the moral of the story Friends, is NEVER, I repeat, NEVER leave God out of your decisions and your life, because the repercussions sometimes can greatly outweigh the benefits we receive from our ungodly actions. Wow! We’ve finally reached the end of this Bit, which I originally envisioned for one day, but through the Holy Spirit’s guidance took six days. That’s just a simple example of the Lord’s mentality being so much higher than ours, and that we should learn to obey the promptings of His Spirit, and never turn our backs on Him. Till tomorrow then Friends, God in favour, walk carefully under the Lord’s protective umbrella. Much LOVE!…our first call for help…MUST ALWAYS BE TO GOD…