Worship for Today: God provides us righteousness to escape his judgment.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Zephaniah 1:18,

 

 "Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord's wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth."

 

This prophecy of the coming judgment of the Lord for sin reminds me of Proverbs 11:4, "Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death." Nothing can spare the sinner from the horrific and terrible judgment of the Lord for any sin ever committed. Wealth won't help us in the least. Neither will fame, acclaim, our influence or our attainments in this life. God's judgment will have its way. Every sin ever committed will have to be paid for. "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Revelation 21:8.

 

As we read about God's judgment for sin we are told of a book of life, "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

 

Since none of the trappings of this life, wealth, fame or our accomplishments will spare us from being cast into this fiery lake of burning sulfur for an eternity, what is this book of life? How can we insure our names are written in it?

 

God's justice will be satisfied. He sent his Son to die a horrible death to pay the penalty for every sin every person has ever committed. All who embrace him in faith will have their name written in this book of life. Trusting in Jesus Christ provides a person with righteousness, what God requires to enter into his family. Wealth won't do it, but righteousness will.

 

How I thank my God for making a way for me into eternal life by sending his Son to pay the penalty for my sins!

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: God's terrible swift judgment.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Zephaniah 1:12,

 

"At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, 'The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.'"

 

Our God is compassionate. In his compassion he desires that all men might come to him. Paul tells Timothy that God "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2:4. When God revealed himself to Moses on Mt. Sinai he he said, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." Exodus 34:6-7.

 

God is patient with us in his desire that we come to him. Peter says, "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9. However, some, to their peril, presume on God's patience, misread it and interpret it that God either doesn't exist or won't do anything "either good or bad". Paul warns the rebellious among his readers, "So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" Romans 2:3-4.

 

Misreading God's patience for a lack of passion for justice is a deadly peril. "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." Galatians 6:7. The writer of Hebrews tells us, "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Hebrews 10:31. When it comes time for God's judgment, it will be deadly and swift!

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Rescue, judgment and transformation.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Zephaniah 3:11,

 

"On that day you will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me, because I will remove from this city those who rejoice in their pride. Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill. "

 

In this verse I see rescue, judgment and the transformation of man at the hand of God. The Lord speaks of the wrongs committed against him, "all the wrongs you have done to me",. In Judah's past, rebellion and idolatry was a perennial problem. They turned their backs on their creator God. Likewise, all mankind has done so. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23. Sin and rebellion against God is a universal trait of mankind. Israel was judged by the Lord for it and so will all mankind.

 

Yet, God here speaks of a time when sinners will not be "put to shame". This will take place because of the judgment God will visit on sinners "who rejoice in their pride". Who is it that will escape God's judgment and not be put to shame, since all sin? The following verse provides us the answer, those "who trust in the name of the Lord."

 

The Lord tells us this proclivity to sin will eventually be eradicated, "Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill." Paul speaks of this in our lives today. He tells us a process starts within us when we place our trust in the Lord. We become a new creation, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 2:17. Although at times believers struggle with that sin nature that persists, there remains a future time when sin will eventually be removed from our lives altogether. "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:3-4. As in the above passage from Zephaniah, this new paradigm of life is seen following the horrific judgment of God, the great white throne judgment when all sinners who have not embraced the Lord in faith will be cast into a fiery lake of burning sulfur, Revelation 20:11-15.

 

God is in the business of rescue, judgment and transformation. He always has been, as the history of Israel illustrates what will take place on the stage of all human existence.

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: God displays himself in bold colors!

 The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Zephaniah 1:17, 3:17,

 

"I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth."... "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

 

Look again at the seventeenth verse of both chapters 1 and 3 in this book! Judgment and love! Not judgment in pastel colors and not love in pastel colors, but judgment and love in bold, breathtaking strokes of the brightest, most vivid colors!

 

God reveals himself to us in the pages of Scripture. It is the primary purpose of our Bibles. The Lord produced the Scriptures through his prophets whom the Holy Spirit carried along to write what they did for us. Two very clear things the Lord wants us to know about him is his intense sense of justice and his boundless love for us, for all mankind. When Moses asked God to reveal himself to him the Lord spoke these words, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

 

How can anyone miss the two defining character qualities of God? He tells us plainly "abounding in love" and "he punishes". His love is intense and so is his judgment. We will never plumb the depths of the love of our Lord in this life. Likewise, the nature of his wrathful fury is terrifying. So many within the church miss the revelation God gives about himself. They seem to paint a portrait of him in soft pastel colors. Our God is anything but that! On the one hand, some see him as their lovey-dovey daddy that wouldn't harm a fly. On the other hand, others, and this is a big group these days, attempt to minimize our understanding of this boundless love of our God. They reject the notion that God loves all mankind as in "For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son..." John 3:16. They reject the notion that Jesus Christ endured the pain of payment for all the sins of all mankind, as in, "He [Jesus Christ] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." The atonement of Jesus Christ is efficacious for every human being to have ever lived! However, it is only appropriated if we embrace him in faith.

 

I never want to lose sight of God's terrifying judgment nor his boundless love for us!

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

 

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: God's judgment - God's love.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Zephaniah 3:8,

 

"'Therefore wait for me,' declares the Lord, 'for the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them— all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger.'"

 

As I consider the sinful condition of mankind, of all of us, myself included, there is something about God I will never understand. This something speaks volumes to me about his heart, what he is like and what his intentions are for us. The one thing I will never understand (well, maybe in the resurrection...) is "For God so loved the world that he have his one and only Son..."

 

Mankind rebelled against God, turned his back on him in sin. Having done so, we have cultivated a sinful nature that permeates every fiber of our being... and yet God still loves us. To be sure, he hates the sin. But he loves us so that he desired to send his Son to die a horrible, miserable death on that cross that we might have an opportunity to join his kingdom, his family!

 

Those who reject God's offer in the gospel will suffer God's judgment as described above. But for those who embrace his offer, we celebrate with those to whom God says, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17. Just how wonderful is that?!

 

How astonishing it is to me that our God loves us so!

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: God is jealous!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Zephaniah 1:4-6,

 

"I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem. I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the pagan and the idolatrous priests- those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord and who also swear by Molech, those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him."

 

I am reminded that idolatry is a severe sin in the sight of God. Idolatry has been a sin that has brought great judgment from the Lord in the past and will so in the future. I am reminded of Revelation 21:8, "The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Right in the midst of this list of those who will find themselves cast into a lake of fire are idolaters- along with unbelievers, murderers, the sexually immoral, etc.

 

The first two commandments, in Exodus 20:3-4, read, "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God..."

 

God is a jealous and wrathful God. We read about the coming of Jesus Christ to visit God's judgment on the world in Revelation 19:15b, "He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty." The writer of Hebrews says, "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Hebrews 10:31. And, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire.'" Hebrews 12:28-29.

 

God is not to be trifled with. I am reminded of the severity of his judgment of those who would replace him with anything else they might exchange him for. Where I might not carve out a figure, place it on my mantle and bow down to it, I could replace God as he has revealed himself in the pages of Scripture with a god, in my mind, that I think he should be. That is, one fashioned from my own idea of what I think God ought to be like. People do this all the time. For instance, a god who would never cast people into a lake of fire, because he is too loving, too forgiving. This is an idol that has replaced our true Creator God in many people's minds. Other idols people have invented that, according to the Scriptures, will bring his certain swift judgment are: a god who will accept people from all "faiths", a god who will not condemn homosexuals, a god who is not intolerant of sin, a god who is not judgmental, a god who only loves certain people and not others, etc.

 

Woe to me if I don't worship the one true God, just as he has revealed himself to me! Where I have had many so-called idols in the past, how thankful I am that Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for those sins of mine and made a way for me to his table!

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Men spoke from God!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Zephaniah 1:1,

 

"The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, during the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah..."

 

I find interesting the way the prophets of old began their prophecies. Here we read, "The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah..." The words of this book never had their origin in Zephaniah, they came to him from the Lord.

 

There are many authors of Bible commentaries that miss a point in my estimation. They begin their analysis with the assumption that the content of the various books of Scripture had their origin in the historical, cultural, geographical, political, religious, etc. contexts within which the biblical authors wrote (if indeed the "biblical author" wrote it!).

 

Zephaniah clearly states at the beginning of his prophecy that what he says had its origin in the Lord himself. Very relevant to our understanding of the prophecy, of course, is the historical, cultural, geographical, political, religious,etc. context within which the Lord addressed his hearers through Zephaniah, but it was to this context, not from it that the prophecy has its origin.

 

This may seem like a splitting of the hairs here to some, but for me, it is important. It speaks to the authority, authenticity and relevance of each one of the volumes in our sacred library. Peter speaks to this issue in his second letter, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:20-21.

 

I find it both wonderful and a marvel as well as sobering that the Creator of all has chosen to step into his creation and speak to us. Recognizing this causes me to acknowledge that what we find in the pages of our Bibles is of vital importance, true and binding on me. After all, the One who spoke is he to whom I will have to give an account of my life on that day...

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com