Tag: Christianity

This is What Got Them Banned from the Promised Land

So, there were the Israelites. God had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt, saved them from the Egyptian army by parting the Red Sea, allowing them to pass on dry ground, led them with the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, fed them with the manna and provided water for them, but here they stood on the edge of the Promised Land, uncertain if God will help them.

God told them to go into the land and take it. Instead, they sent in spies. Of the 12 spies that went in, 10 said the land was unconquerable. Only 2 said they could take it, because God was with them. The Israelites refused to go into the land and began considering whether to go back to Egypt.

This is the day the Lord calls “the provocation,” or “the day of temptation.” This is the day the Israelites unequivocably told God, “We don’t trust you.”

There is no greater sin against God than that… the sin of unbelief. The sin of refusing to trust Him.

Conversely, there’s no greater way to please God than to simply trust Him. It’s faith that impresses God. It was the faith of the centurion that caused Jesus to marvel. It was Abel’s faith that pleased God with his sacrifice. It was Abraham’s faith that made God want to make him the father of many nations.

It was David’s faith that labeled him, “A man after God’s own heart.”

But the Israelites in the wilderness?

They saw the plagues of Egypt. They experienced the deliverance through the Red Sea. They were fed miraculously. They witnessed the power of Mount Sinai.

Yet, here they are in the Promised Land, with God leading them in, and they refused to follow, because they didn’t believe. That, according to Hebrews 3, is what provoked the Lord to anger.

God then told the Israelites that they (that current generation) would never enter into the Promised Land. They would wander in the wilderness for 40 years before He would lead their children in.

As I sit here and type this, I wonder how they could be so faithless, after seeing God do so many mighty works in their presence. But then I think about my own faithlessness.

How often have I seen God come through for me. How often has He delivered me, carried me through a storm, and answered my prayers. Seeing God’s history of caring for me, why do I fear, even though the current storm seems to rage longer than the ones before?

This lack of faith comes from the hardness within my heart, which comes from me forgetting Who the Lord really is. I forget His love, His grace, His goodness and His character.

So, I allow my heart to become hardened with bitterness and unbelief sets in, which sets the stage for sin, and possibly a spectacular downfall.

Hebrews 3 gives us the remedy for this. Hebrews 3 encourages us to get to know the Lord better, to be vigilant against the hardening of our own hearts, to watch for unbelief creeping into our lives, and to gather together and encourage each other in our faith.

Wednesday night, 10/8/25, at 7 p.m., we will take a closer look at Hebrews 3 at First Baptist Church of Hermleigh, 483 Harlan Ave, Hermleigh, TX. We’d love to see you!

Not Even Satan Will Do This…

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

If you look at the world today, and examine human history, you will see that evil often runs rampant, and at times, seems unbridled.

In the years following World War II, hundreds of veterans surrendered to the ministry and returned to the fields in which they fought in order to deliver the Gospel. Whether it was the concentration camps of Germany, or the cruelty of the Japanese empire, these men saw what a dark place the world becomes when denied the light of the Gospel.

Rewind the clock a few centuries, and you will see the cruelty of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Dark Ages (appropriately named), and the Romans had cruelty down to a science.

Today, the world remains a cruel place, with genocide being common in the third world, and human abuses and degradation common in the first world.

When one looks at the evil in the world, and comes to the realization that all this came into the world when man sinned in the garden at Satan’s temptation, one rightfully concludes that Satan is the source of the evil in the world.

Furthermore, one wonders just how much worse things can get? How much farther down this rabbit hole can society go?

We will learn that when the Great Tribulation comes. In the meantime, as we take all this in, it is interesting to note that there is one sin in which Satan has never been guilty. Atheism.

This notion hit me this morning when a quote from Charles Spurgeon popped up on my social media feed. Concerning atheism, Spurgeon said, “Atheism is a strange thing, even the devils never fell into that vice, for even the devils fear and tremble.”

Of all the lies, evil and sin that Satan has perpetrated onto the world through his willing accomplices, atheism is not one of them. Mainly because Satan knows as well as anyone the existence and power of God.

Which makes atheism even stranger. Because, despite the universal belief in God in the spiritual realm, and the centuries of wisdom guided by a belief in God (even among non-Christians), the modern atheist sees himself as wiser than everyone else. But, he’s a fool.

Psalm 14:1 says “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Romans 1:21-22 tells us that, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²²Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

The modern atheist has rejected God, has convinced himself there is no God, and in doing so, has become vain (empty) in his thoughts and dreams, and darkness has filled his heart.

Even though he thinks himself wiser than those around him, he is a fool.

Both Psalm 14 and Romans 1 go on to show us the darkness and sin that follow once someone convinces himself that there is no God. But, there’s another side to this story as well.

Often, the fool that says in his heart, “There is no God,” is not an avowed atheist. In fact, he may even be a professing Christian. However, he is living as if God didn’t exist.

You see, to engage in sinful behavior, you have to at least temporarily convince yourself that either God does not exist, or that He is not watching, or that He doesn’t care. Because if you did believe in that moment that God was present, watching and that He cared, you wouldn’t do the sin you are about to do.

This is not something a Christian does consciously, but rather a state of mind one unknowingly enters into when they are in the process of backsliding. It works like this.

The Christian becomes lax in his Spiritual discipline. He is not praying as he should, is not spending time in God’s word, and is not gathering with his church. As he drifts, so does his consciousness about God.

As that consciousness about God drifts, so does the Christian’s moral compass. He begins to lose sight of his God-given responsibilities, of God’s authority and expectation, and finds himself justifying the things that please his flesh in the moment.

As he does this, he backslides. Until God intervenes and disciplines him. Then, he repents.

The backslide is foolish to the point that even the Christian thinks to himself, “What was I thinking?” Often, there’s no answer to that question. But we know what he wasn’t thinking… and that is that God is present, active, and watching. So, even though he didn’t say “There is no God,” he acted as if that were true, and thus acted foolishly.

When Satan sins against God, he does so in cognizant opposition to God with the misguided thought of either overthrowing God, or hindering His will. When man sins against God, it’s often with the misguided thought that God either doesn’t exist, or doesn’t care.

Don’t fall into that pitfall. We will sin. We will miss the mark. But let’s not backslide by neglecting our Spiritual lives, and let’s not fail to preach the Gospel to ourselves daily and remind ourselves of God’s truth.

Stealing God’s Glory, the Sermon

The Storm Rages On

I knew the look in her face. I had seen it many times in the eyes of the caretakers of my hospice patients. Exhaustion.

When Mom gets sick, you take off time from work to take her to the doctor. There are the tests, the follow-up visits, the referrals to specialists, a new round of appointments and tests, and a new round of follow-up visits before a treatment plan is established.

Then, there’s the treatment process. The trips to Dallas or Houston, the recovery time from the treatments, and then the follow-up visits with the specialist to see whether the body responded to the treatments.

From there, Mom may have gotten better, or she may have gotten worse.

If she’s gotten better, there is a season when things go back to normal, until the disease flares up again. Then, this whole process starts over.

It becomes a vicious cycle. Mom gets sick, treatments, Mom gets better, but not quite as strong as before.

At some point, Mom loses her independence. The daughter may move Mom in with her, or the daughter may place Mom in assisted living or in a nursing home. Either way, she is caring for Mom daily and spending a lot of time with her at the expense of her family, her career, and her own self-care.

Then, the doctors finally tell her, “There’s nothing more we can do. We can’t beat this disease, we can only manage its symptoms moving forward.” As a hospice chaplain, that’s usually when my organization was engaged, and when I got to meet the family.

Each story is as unique and precious as it is common. The people, places, diagnoses and struggles are different, but the story arc is the same.

Daughter is tired.

Often, the family has been devout in their faith, and they turned to the Lord and the church for help. They prayed constantly, yet things didn’t get better.

Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels.com

As the Bellamy Brothers famously sang, “And behind each wave of tragedy, they waited for the joy.”

But the joy never came.

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Yet, the morning hasn’t come, and we’re not even seeing the first light.

I don’t believe in the “too blessed to be stressed” Christianity. My faith cannot fit on a bumper sticker, and it won’t sell many t-shirts. I’ve seen the real world.

The real world is brutal, heart-breaking, devastating, and at times, merciless.

But God is good! All the time! And the heartbreak He allows to touch our lives serves His purpose, and serves our good. It’s just hard to see through the tears, sometimes.

In Psalm 13, King David asked, “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? ²How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”

You get the idea from these verses that King David, too, experienced times when the world was overwhelming, and he was unsure of how he could survive. King David also prayed, consistently, over long periods of time, only to hear no answer back from the Lord.

Just as our storm often continues to rage, King David also saw his storms rage violently and bitterly over long periods of time. There were times when, like us, King David felt as if God were hiding His face from him.

This is when you find out what you truly believe.

This is when you find out if your religion were a cultural exercise, the right thing to say, or whether it was something you truly believed to the point that it shaped your core.

For King David, his faith shaped his core, because even in these desperate situations, David continued to express his unmovable faith toward God.

He went on to say in Psalm 13:3, “Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;”

Even though it appeared as if his prayers were going unanswered, David continued to pray to the Lord, pleading with him to “consider” him, meaning to observe him, be attentive to him, and see his plight. David asked God to hear him, to hear his prayer, his words, his heart and his pain.

David went on to express his faith once again.

“But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. ⁶I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:5-6)”

David trusts in God’s mercy because mercy is at the heart of who God is, and being confident, David knows that the salvation is coming, and will rejoice in that salvation.

Despite the storms of his present time David remembered how God had been good to him before, and he understood that all of life, the good and the bad, are amazing gifts from God.

Therefore, even in the midst of his suffering, David not only trusted God for deliverance, but praised God for His goodness.

And when we reach that level of Spiritual maturity, we are truly becoming the person God intended on us being.

For my hospice patients and families, this meant accepting the fact that the patient’s time on this earth was coming to a close, and that the family’s time with that patient was fleeting.

My job as chaplain was to help them manage the grief of that reality, regain their hope and trust in the Lord, approach that day with hope and purpose, and be at peace when the time came.

That job was accomplished by opening God’s word and demonstrating to them God’s goodness and love even in the midst of this trying time.

Are you in that place right now? If not hospice, maybe financial? Or is there a family situation?

And you’ve prayed over that situation, but the storm continues to rage?

Don’t give up. Remember how good God is. Keep praying, because the morning comes, and with it, the joy of the Spiritual victory God will give.