SCRIP-BITS

Well a good Sunday morning to all you beautiful people out there in Scrip-Bit Land! I hope the day has found you in good spirits, and for those who celebrate the Sabbath on Sundays, you have either gone or are preparing to go to church and fellowship with other believers. And for those who celebrate the Lord’s Day on Fridays and Saturdays, I sure hope you fellowshipped with those of your faith, that it was good, you praised and worshipped in genuine communion, and that you are set to endure another week in this evil world, furthering God’s kingdom. Now some of you may recognize our Bit from Nehemiah’s prayer, when he was told in Babylon that Jerusalem was a sad mess; the people were in great distress, the walls were broken down and the gates burned. (Neh.1:2-3) This caused a great sorrow to rise up in Nehemiah’s soul, leading him to fast and pray to the God of his fathers, confessing the many sins of the Israelites against Him over the centuries. Then he gets to our Bit: ‘We have dealt (acted) very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgements (ordinances), which thou commandedst thy servant Moses.’ Oh Friends, words like those have been used throughout all of mankind’s association with the Lord God Jehovah. I’ll quote two here, that of Ezra, the prophet before Nehemiah, who laid the groundwork for Jerusalem’s rebuilding. In his prayer, Ezra said: ‘Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil (plunder), and to confusion of face (humiliation), as it is this day.’ (Ezra 9:7) And the second comes from Psalm 106, where the psalmist declares with great sadness: ‘We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly.’ (Ps.106:6) But my brethren, at no time in man’s history has that kind of prayer been more urgently needed than right now when our society is filled with confusion, and our world is on the brink of destruction because we have become so sinful, evil and ungodly. Few generations have been as corrupt, idolatrous and given to worldly, fleshly matters as ours. We have gone out of our way to remove God from public places, schools, and in too many instances our very lives. No wonder our society and our world is suffering such disturbing calamity. Things like poverty, sickness, homelessness, hunger and joblessness are running rampant, even in the supposed first world nations. And why is that? Because the wealth is being hoarded by a few, and the majority are being slowly but surely impoverished. Oh Friends, it’s not the total amount of wealth that’s the problem nuh, but the inequity of its distribution. Those who have are greedy, refusing to share, just piling it up more for themselves and their families, not caring if the masses suffer. Even in the supposed poor nations, the rulers are gratifying themselves, while their subjects live in abject poverty. They are allowing their greed to colour their wisdom, failing to realize that the constantly oppressed, in their desperate state of hopelessness, with nothing left to lose, eventually turn on their oppressors. Oh my people, all around our world today, the rich and powerful are blatantly and unconscionably living high on the hog while the ordinary man sinks deeper in the mire. But check out the Arab Spring of 2011 and our own Occupy Movement; the people are so tired of being oppressed and/or marginalized by the wealthy and powerful that they are rising up. Though not with as much success as expected or needed, for the masters refuse to take off their blinkers, thinking that their arms, armies and lackeys will protect them and allow them to continue their evil, oppressive ways. But everything’s only for a time Friends, and one by one they will eventually crumble before the wrath of the people. Sadly too, many of these evil, greedy masters, claim godliness in their talk, but fail to show it in their walk. Just check out the Republican Primary in the U.S. All the rich men vying for the Presidential Nomination claim to be some sort of Christian, but their actions certainly don’t reflect that. My brethren, the whole thing just boils down to plain and simple disobedience to God’s will. Listen to Moses warning the Israelites re the consequences to disobedience. ‘But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto (obey) the voice of the Lord thy God, to (carefully) observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curse shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.’ (Deut.28:15) And my people, if we read the rest of that chapter, verses 16-68, we’ll see the terrible stuff the Lord allows to happen if we continually disobey His ordinances. Please take out your Bible and read it. Then compare it to the stuff that’s happening in our world today, and if after that you still want to and /or keep disobeying God, then all I can is that I’m truly sorry for you. Our God doesn’t make empty promises. We have seen this from the days of the stubborn, disobedient Israelites right up to our time. But for some reason we seem to think that we’re above those other nations who met a sad fate because they disobeyed the voice of God. Oh Friends, if the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is our Creator, Provider and Protector, as we claim, then why are we so insistent on disobeying Him eh? That’s the million dollar question for us to ponder today. Much LOVE!…he who refuses to hear…he will certainly feel…