The Pilgrim Path---Deuteronomy 8: 11 – 14

Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…

“TAKE CARE LEST YOU FORGET…”

We human beings develop spiritual amnesia rather quickly. Forgetting who we are---and whose---we are. All a part of the battle of sanctification---which is imperfect in this life! Moses had to prompt the people of God repeatedly, even after stark judgments and warnings. Come to think of it---I’ve had to be “prompted” repeatedly---even after stark measures of discipline and correction (for the LORD chastens those whom HE loves). As the late Rev. Ben Haden liked to say, “You cannot live like Hell---and expect to go to Heaven!” We all must remember that God’s Word is not simply some advice---on the same level with what you read in Politico, Salon, The New York Times, Breitbart, or the Wall Street Journal. As John Calvin reminded his readers, “The Scriptures are the voice of God.” So, whatever the Scriptures reveal about money, sexuality, relationships, politics, marriage, the church, the home---God’s Word is the authority---not the latest array of men’s opinions. You do not have to be ornery or adversarial, but just realize---God’s Word has provided great light on most every area of life. To walk toward the light is life and peace. To walk away from the light is ultimate darkness and despair.

Lest you surmise the LORD Jesus did not get “caught up” in all these squabbles about Scripture---listen to this,

As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Luke 11: 27, 28

The LORD Jesus, as The Living Word---wants us to take the written Word seriously. It is given as a gift from Heaven to reveal God’s Will to us and enable us to bring HIM glory---and bring rest to our souls!

From George Swinnock: If you are a child of Adam, you have a deadly wound by neglecting the Word. You are like a frantic patient that throws away the only medicine that will give a cure…

From Theophilus Gale: Don’t let worldly cares choke your sense of God. Bring your natural desires into a narrow compass, and let your hearts be enlarged toward God. Let us love nothing greatly but what we shall love forever and let us labor after the highest strain of love to God.

From Samuel Rutherford: Learn to believe Christ better than his strokes; himself and his promises better than his glooms…’For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,’ ergo, shipwreck, losses, etc., work together for the good of them that love God: hence I infer, that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses, or country, are God’s workmen, set on work, to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you.

Grace and Peace in Jesus, the Only Redeemer of broken and wretched souls, Pastor Jason

*** Greetings Precious Souls, this will be my last written post for a while. Starting NEXT week, I will be “away” for a while. It may take me weeks to get back in the saddle on “writing.”