A Word About If I Didn't Laugh, I'd Cry

Laughter is said to be the best medicine, but sometimes, as we will see today in our series “Family Business” our laughter can be more like a snort of derision.  This is where Sarah was in Genesis 18:1-15:

Then the Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting in the entrance of his tent during the heat of the day. 2 He looked up, and he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed to the ground. 3 Then he said, “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, please do not go on past your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, that you may wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 I will bring a bit of bread so that you may strengthen yourselves. This is why you have passed your servant’s way. Later, you can continue on.” “Yes,” they replied, “do as you have said." 6 So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Knead three measures of fine flour and make bread.” 7 Meanwhile, Abraham ran to the herd and got a tender, choice calf. He gave it to a young man, who hurried to prepare it. 8 Then Abraham took curds and milk, and the calf that he had prepared, and set them before the men. He served  them as they ate under the tree. 9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he answered. 10 The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 So she laughed to herself: “After I have become shriveled up and my lord is old, will I have delight?” 13 But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ 14 Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.” 15 Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid. But He replied, “No, you did laugh.”

Every pastor has stories they can tell about events when if they didn’t laugh, they’d cry. Many of these seem to stem from baptisms. For example, one pastor was baptizing a large man in a small baptistery. He banged the man’s head against the side of the baptistery, and the man came up out of the water cursing. Another pastor was baptizing a young girl who decided to do a “cannon ball” dive into the baptistery. The choir got baptized that day as well.

Finally, a pastor and a revival speaker did a joint baptism service together. After the baptism, the pastor rushed back to change clothes for the rest of the service. After he got back into the sanctuary, he noticed his feet were hurting. He didn’t realize why until the revival speaker almost fell on the way to the pulpit to preach. The pastor had put on the evangelist’s shoes, which were one-and-a-half size smaller than his own!

In every family, a time will come when tough situations face us. Actually, in every family, many tough times will come, so much that if we didn’t laugh, we’d cry. As we look at our Scripture for today, we find a find a time when Sarah, the wife of Abraham, also laughed. Let’s see what this event may mean to us today. 

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Disbelief:

When we are intimately involved in a situation, we often grasp it well. The details to us are crystal clear and they are very important. The details to us loom as big as a mountain. One thing that pastors and chaplains have learned is that people involved in a tragedy must “tell their story” until they have finished telling it.

The reality here was that Sarah couldn’t have a child. She was too old, and Abraham was too old. It was humanly impossible. 

I remember as a pre-teen working on solving a math word problem in a group work setting that included some girls. My solution had the mother giving birth at age 70, which caused a great deal of derision on the part of the girls. Even in the 21st Century giving birth at that age is unheard of, and Sarah was two decades older than that!

The thing is, Sarah forgot something vital: Nothing is impossible with God! God made the rules by which the world works and, He can also suspend them! As Jeremiah 32:27 tells us,

Look, I am Yahweh, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Fear:

On the other hand, it is possible that Sarah believed God. Maybe she knew God could do impossible. Afterall, this was obviously a family of great faith. 

Maybe she knew exactly what God was going to do and it scared her to death! Giving birth is hard enough for a young woman, but for a woman over 90. . . ?! This is like watching a train wreck about to happen: you’re horrified; you can’t so anything about it, but your eyes are glued to the scene.

We are often that way, too when God asks us to serve Him or when God asks us to witness for Him. Maybe, when God asks us to live for Him, we are just too frightened.

Apparently, Sarah, like we do today, forgot who God is:

• God is the Great Physician.
• God is the Good Shepherd.
• God is the Ultimate Counselor.
• God is the Prince of Peace.

If God wanted Sarah to have a baby, she could have it safely, and without undue difficulty. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:9: 

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Bitterness: 

There is no doubt that Sarah was bitter about her childlessness. She had no child of her own and her plan to get a child by Hagar backfired. She wanted a child so badly she could taste it so maybe she got angry with God!

Sarah as not the only person in the Bible to get angry with God. Jonah did. Job did. He did not curse God, but he was angry. The Children of Israel did on several occasions as Moses led them to Canaan. Even the great prophet Elijah did.

Many of us have also gotten angry with God. We can even see evidence of this in popular culture. For example, in the 1972 disaster movie, “The Poseidon Adventure,” Gene Hackman’s character was a minister who became angry with God because of the deaths of so many victims. 

Like we do from time to time, Sarah forgot some truths that would have helped her with her attitude. She needed to remember that God is good, loving and kind and that God is righteous and just. God never does evil and the evil that does exist is from Satan, and also from our own human sin.

Jesus Himself taught us in John 10:10-11 that:

A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Resistance: 

Maybe Sarah’s laugh was more of a snort. Maybe she thought, “No way Jose!” Maybe she thought, “There’s no way you are going to get me to do that!” Maybe she was looking around to see who else God was talking to.

Again, Sarah is not alone in resisting God: Cain resisted God.  Jonah resisted God. The Rich Young Ruler resisted God.

We also resist God leadership. A pastor I once knew was leading his church to reach out to their community, and to help people find their faith in God through innovative outreach ideas. Things had gotten off to a strong start until the next deacons’ meeting, in which the young pastor was told, “Preacher, if you want to go where no man has gone before, you’re going alone!” By the way, that church is no longer open.

Sarah forgot that she was a part of God’s Plan of Redemption. She was a partner with God, and she was given an opportunity to be an agent of salvation. She was offered a chance to share with God the glory of His work. God, in His grace, has chosen to do His Holy work of salvation through people! The church is not just a civic club; what we do has eternal consequences. 1 Peter 2:5-10 remind us: 

. . . you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it is contained in Scripture: Look! I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame!  7 So honor will come to you who believe, but for the unbelieving, The stone that the builders rejected— this One has become the cornerstone, 8 and a stone to stumble over,  and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the message; they were destined for this. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Joy: 

Maybe Sarah was filled with the joy of what God was about to do. Maybe she was like my wife’s elementary school student who once wrote on his paper, “100 A+, You Go, Billy!” Afterall, God’s glories are so big, our hearts can’t contain them, and we often burst out into joyous songs of praise and adoration. We recently saw how the Psalmist rejoiced because he could worship God in Psalm 42:1-4,

As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?” 4 I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.

Like Sarah, many others in the Bible had reason to celebrate. 

• David danced with joy at God’s victories
• Mary burst out into praise after the angel told her she’d become to mother of the Savior
• Simeon was so moved by seeing the baby Jesus that he cried out to God that he could now die happy  
• The crowds along the road to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday

In fact, we, too. need to get ready to laugh with joy. Revelation 5:13-14 tells us this about Heaven: 

I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them say: Blessing and honor and glory and dominion to the One seated on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever! 14 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Conclusion:

Why are you laughing today? Out of disbelief, or fear, or resentment, or resistance, or joy?

As Our Lord Himself said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear”

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

A Word about Family Business: Casey at the Bat

 

Today in our series “Family Business” we will see that life situations outside of his family can cause stress and pressure on a father.  If these are not handled well, failure inside the family can result. Let’s begin by reading Genesis 6:1-7:

When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. 3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men. 5 When the Lord saw that man’s wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe off from the face of the earth mankind, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.”

Every child in Sunday School learns the story of Noah and the Great Flood.  Geologists, archeologists, and other scholars have debated whether this flood happened or not, but none have been able to prove that it didn’t happen the way that the Bible says it did. In truth, every ancient civilization includes a flood in the story of their beginnings. 

Of course, since we accept the Bible to be God’s Inspired Word, we know that the Flood did happen, and we must come to grips with what it means in terms of Gods eternal plan.

When I think of the Flood, I think of Noah, and when I think of Noah, I think of Ernest Thayer’s poem, “Casey at The Bat”. So, why does this poem remind me of the flood? Well, because the hero of both stories had feet of clay.

First, we can See the Failure of Creation:

The poem begins with the Mudville nine in a dire situation,

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.  And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, a pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.  A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast. They thought, "if only Casey could but get a whack at that. We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."  But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake; and the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake. So upon that stricken multitude, grim melancholy sat; for there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

At this time, the condition of this world was also dire! God had made a perfect, beautiful world. Satan had struck back at Him through His creation and had spoiled it through sin. Now man had followed suit and was wallowing in his rebellion, like a child playing with a cake at a first birthday party. Go big or go home, right?

God had had it; He was fed-up with human sin! God is perfect and He cannot abide sin. God is also righteous, and He cannot allow sin.  Like Popeye, God had “stood all He could stands, and he couldn’t stands no more,” or as a friend might say, people had, “. . . gotten on God’s very last nerve.” Yet God was loving; He gave them 120 years of probation to change their way of life. Still, they refused to repent.

James Dobson has taught for many years that the key to child discipline is not to yell or scream, but to act, and God decided to act. He decided to blot out sinful humanity. Yet, like the poem “Casey at the Bat,” there was a possible hero, a man named Noah. Let’s read Genesis 6:8-22,

Noah, however, found favor in the sight of the Lord. 9 These are the family records of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries; Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth. 13 Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth. 14 “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and outside. 15 This is how you are to make it: The ark will be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. 16 You are to make a roof, finishing the sides of the ark to within 18 inches of the roof. You are to put a door in the side of the ark. Make it with lower, middle, and upper decks. 17 “Understand that I am bringing a flood—floodwaters on the earth to destroy every creature under heaven with the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will die. 18 But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives. 19 You are also to bring into the ark two of all the living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of everything—from the birds according to their kinds, from the livestock according to their kinds, and from the animals that crawl on the ground according to their kinds—will come to you so that you can keep them alive. 21 Take with you every kind of food that is eaten; gather it as food for you and for them.” 22 And Noah did this. He did everything that God had commanded him.

Next, we can See the Faithfulness of Noah:

Like a diamond in Mudville, Noah’s character shined. He found favor in God’s sight, and he was just towards people. Noah also walked with God like Enoch had done. He was not perfect, but he was righteous in serving God, and so he was chosen to save the remnant of humanity.

One might say, that like Casey was for his baseball team, Noah was humanity’s only hope. This was not only a great honor, but a huge challenge!

I once counseled with a young pastor who had been told that he was the last hope of a struggling church. No pressure, right? Well, in truth that church had great expectations of him, in the same way that the crowd did when they saw that Casey was going to get to bat:

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all, and Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball; and when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred, there was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third. Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell; it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat; for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat. There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place, there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face. And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat.  Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt.  Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.

Like Casey, Noah seemed to be up to the challenge. And for the most part, he was. He was given an outrageous task, but he was both obedient and diligent to accomplish it. The Ark was probably a 450 foot-long, 75 foot-wide, 4,000-ton ship. Can you imagine what his neighbors said? His wife? And yet Noah did it all!  Not part, not most, but all of it! 

Not only that, but Noah did it without arguing or delaying in any way. He was like Abraham, who got up and went when called by God, or like the Disciples who became fishers of men when called by Jesus.

So, all was good right? Noah was like the U.S. Cavalry in an old west movie, charging in to save the day, right? Not so fast! In fact, he was more like Casey than he should have been. Our poem ends the same way that Noah’s service ended:

The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate. He pounds, with cruel violence, his bat upon the plate. And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, and now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.  Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.  The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light. And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,  but there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out.

We also can See the Failure of Noah:

Noah was given a unique opportunity to do something that no other human since him has been given the chance to do as we can see in Genesis 9:1-7,

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear and terror of you will be in every living creature on the earth, every bird of the sky, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are placed under your authority. 3 Every living creature will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything. 4 However, you must not eat meat with its lifeblood in it. 5 I will require the life of every animal and every man for your life and your blood. I will require the life of each man’s brother for a man’s life. 6 Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in His image. 7 But you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out over the earth and multiply on it.”

Noah could have worked with God in creating a new life for humanity. He could have become the father of a renewed race of faithful people of God and thus erase the stain of sin upon mankind. We can only imagine what our lives here on earth would be like if Noah had fulfilled his potential in God. But, like Casey, Noah struck out as we can see in Genesis 9:18-27,

Noah’s sons who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These three were Noah’s sons, and from them the whole earth was populated. 20 Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21 He drank some of the wine, became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a cloak and placed it over both their shoulders, and walking backward, they covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father naked. 24 When Noah awoke from his drinking and learned what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said: Canaan will be cursed. He will be the lowest of slaves to his brothers. 26 He also said: Praise the Lord, the God of Shem; Canaan will be his slave. 27 God will extend Japheth; he will dwell in the tents of Shem; Canaan will be his slave.

In the end, Noah could not stand the strain. Even Noah, as good as he was, could not do it. He was not perfect, and his flesh was weak. He crumbled under the pressure. He “choked”. 

Noah was like Casey who struck out, and he was also like Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner who missed an easy ground ball in the 6th game of the 1986 World Series. His error allowed the New York Mets to tie the series and then go on to win the championship in the 7th game. 

Noah’s error had much greater consequences, but not only did he perpetuate the sin that God had wanted to eliminate, but he also wasted all his own gargantuan efforts.

Noah’s real failure, his real sin, was that he failed to continue to walk with God. He lost sight of what God was to him and he lost sight of what God wanted to do through him. He got wrapped up in his own problems and he had a pity party. Like many people who experience stress today and who react poorly to it, Noah self-medicated.  With Noah’s collapse, all seemed to be lost, but . . . God . . . Genesis 9:9-17 tells us,

“Understand that I am confirming My covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you—birds, livestock, and all wildlife of the earth that are with you—all the animals of the earth that came out of the ark. 11 I confirm My covenant with you that never again will every creature be wiped out by the waters of a flood; there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all future generations: 13 I have placed My bow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 Whenever I form clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember My covenant between Me and you and all the living creatures: water will never again become a flood to destroy every creature. 16 The bow will be in the clouds, and I will look at it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all the living creatures on earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have confirmed between Me and every creature on earth.”

Finally, however, let’s See the Faithfulness of God: 

God has made a covenant with Noah and his descendants, including us! He will never destroy the Earth again by a flood, and the rainbow is the symbol of that promise. When we see the bow we will remember God’s promise, like putting our Bible by the bedside to remember to read it.

Noah may have wasted his promise, but God is perfect and faithful and has made many promises to us. Unlike Noah, God always realizes His promise. He loves us and wants the best for us. He wants to help us and bless us, and He does. 

God also knows that we are frail and weak, and that we can only withstand so much pressure before we, too, choke like Casey and like Noah. He knows we want to do right, but we can’t. God loves us so much that he gave His very best to help our weakness. That way, of course, is Jesus. 

Jesus can help us withstand the external pressures of life, and He can also help us withstand the internal pressures of life as well. Jesus can do this because He walked in our shoes, and He overcame the stresses that trip us up. He mastered them, and He offers us the power to master them as well!

Conclusion:

Have you ever felt that, like Casey, you let your team down? Have you ever been stressed out because you felt the weight of the world on your shoulders? Have you ever let the stress of life and work affect your relationships at home? Have you ever felt like you let God down?

If so, you probably have. If you haven’t, you probably will.

The good news for all of us the help of God to overcome our frailties and to help us bear up under the loads of life. Will you accept His help today?

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

A Word about Like Father Like Son

Today in our series “Family Business” we will see that apples don’t fall far from the tree as we consider Genesis 4:1-15. Let’s begin by reading Genesis 4:1-7,

Adam was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, “I have had a male child with the Lord’s help.” 2 Then she also gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel became a shepherd of flocks, but Cain worked the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent. 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? 7 If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

From time to time all of us make verbal faux pas. One of my favorite stories about such mistakes was told by former FBI agent and criminal profiler John Douglas in his book Mindhunter. He told of how his boss had once held a news conference about a murder case.  In it his boss said, “This is not an uncommon event.  People have been killing each other ever since Cain shot Abel.”  That’s funny enough, but Douglas went on to say that none of the brilliant members of the Fourth Estate who were present caught it!

So far, in this series, the main culprit has been Satan.  Lucifer became proud of his beauty, forgot that it had been bestowed upon him by God, and tried to stage a coup in heaven.  He was defeated, and he and his followers were cast out of heaven, but sin and evil had come into being.

In reaction, God, out of His loving personality, created the heavens and the earth, and all living creatures therein, the highest of which was humanity.  As we saw in Genesis 2 and 3. Satan counter-punched, striking back at God by tempting Adam and Eve to sin.  Satan accomplished his goal of enticing God’s greatest creations to defile themselves and ruin God’s perfect plan for them. Now we will begin to see the impact of the sin of Adam and Eve as Cain followed their lead and sinned in his own right. Let’s begin by considering verses 1-7.

Cain Failed to Worship God:

Worship is “job one” for a Christian.  For over fifteen years, the slogan of the Ford Motor Company was “Quality is Job #1.” The company wanted to differentiate itself from other auto manufacturers by highlighting its focus on quality at every stage of production and so high quality, ostensibly, became its highest priority.  In the Christian life, worship is our most basic function as a disciple individually and as a church collectively. If we fail to worship, we fail God and we fail ourselves.

Worship is declaring the “worth-ship” of God. It is praising Him and extolling His glory. He deserves our worship, and we have an innate need to worship Him as well. Some have put it this way: there is a God-shaped place in our hearts that only He can fill. The Scriptures support this idea; Psalm 42:1-4 says,

As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?” 4 I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.

Worship allows us to connect with a higher being and a higher purpose than just ourselves. Life will never be empty or meaningless for God’s people if they worship Him in spirit and in truth and with all of their heart, all of their soul and all of their mind.

These verses tell us that Cain’s worship was flawed. Like someone giving their cast-off clothes to a charity shop, Cain brought his leftovers to God. And verse 5 shows us that even when he did that, he had a bad attitude about it. He did not care enough to give his very best to God. Abel, on the other hand, worshipped well. He brought his best, his first fruits to God, and his attitude was to make pleasing God his number one priority.

Let me be clear that the issue was not the type of offering that Cain provided. Yes, animal sacrifices were central to the Law of Moses, but it also included provisions for grain and liquid offerings as well. We also must note that the Law of Moses had not yet been given. No, the issue was not with the type of offering, but the quality of it, and the attitude in which it was given.

Steven Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, said that in life, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” For the Christian, worshiping God is the main thing. Author and Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe has said:

Heaven is a place of worship, and God’s people shall worship Him throughout all eternity. Perhaps it would be good for us to get in practice now!

When we do the right thing, we are often criticized by others who don’t. For example, the first American to orbit the earth, John Glenn, was the object of jealousy by the rest of the first seven astronauts because of his “Mr. Clean” persona. We can see this same thing taking place in the first family as we read verses 8 and 9,

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s guardian?”

Cain Failed to Love His Brother: 

Cain not only failed to worship God, but he also failed to love his brother. Cain’s failure to worship originated in his failure to love.

A number of words are used for love in the Scriptures including phileo, which means brotherly love (and from where we get the city name of Philadelphia) and agape which is God’s type of love which is extolled in 1 Corinthians 13. In any case, Cain failed to love his brother to the extent that he lured him out into the field and killed him.

Detective Joe Kenda, who solved 356 murder cases in his career, has said that the three basic motives for murder are money, jealousy, and revenge. All of these things can provoke an immature person into hurting another. 

Fear is another reason people hurt others. 1 John 4:18 tells us that, “Perfect love casts out all fear,” but sadly our love isn’t perfect. In fear, we can give way to the idea that we should, “Do unto others before they do it unto us!” Our national fear after the 9/11 attacks caused our government to believe that Sadam Hussein possessed and had the will to use weapons of mass destruction, and yet after our invasion of Iraq, none were ever found.

Sometimes people are simply callous and hardhearted. As James 2:14-16 reminds us, 

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?

For whatever reason, Cain gave place to his anger. He planned and plotted to kill his brother. Then he lured Abel into an isolated place, and he killed him. Afterwards he dismissed his act with a cruel and dismissive comment.

An infantry veteran of the Korean War once told me that he had gotten so accustomed to death, that, to avoid sitting on the frozen ground, he sat on an enemy corpse to eat his rations.  This was a battle-hardened and battle-scarred soldier, not someone who was new to death and violence, yet Cain’s attitude was equally callous. Let’s continue by reading verses 10-12:

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s guardian?” 10 Then He said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! 11 So now you are cursed, alienated, from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood you have shed. 12 If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

Cain Failed to Love God:

Sin against people is rampant in our world. Theft, murder, rape, child abuse, the list is endless, yet we often forget that, as King David admitted after conspiring to murder Uriah, sins against people are also sins against God. 1 John 4:7-8 tells us,

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

We must remember the true nature of love. It begins on the inside before it shows itself on the outside. This is like the sauce leaking out of a paper bag of barbeque sandwiches; it comes from the inside out. Putting barbecue sauce on the outside of a bag will not season the food on the inside. In the same way, love that is all show has no go. 

All through the Bible we see inner love coming out into the open. Abel and his proper worship of God. Abraham willing to sacrifice Isaac. Jonathan who protected David from Saul at his own cost. Mary who sat at Jesus’s feet and learned from Him. Mary who anointed Jesus with perfume. Jesus with the woman at the well.  Jesus dying on the cross.  As the song says, when He was asked how much He loves us, Jesus stretched out His arms wide, and then He died.

So, it is obvious that Cain failed to love God. What about us? If God loved us like we love Him, where would we be? Vance Havner, a noted revival speaker of the late 20th Century commented that, 

"We have left our love for Christ, and when love for Christ dies, love for each other, for the Bible, for souls, dies." 

In our world today, if we had more respect for Divine guidance, we’d have less need for guided missiles!

Cain failed to worship God, and he failed to love both his brother and God. Is there any hope present in this story? Yes, there is and we can see it in verses 13-15, and 25,

But Cain answered the Lord, “My punishment is too great to bear! 14 Since You are banishing me today from the soil, and I must hide myself from Your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 Then the Lord replied to him, “In that case, whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” And He placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him . . . 25Adam was intimate with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for she said, “God has given me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”

God’s Love Didn’t Fail:

In this sordid tale of rebellion, jealousy, and murder, is there any hope? Is there any bright spot? Yes, of course. The Bible is full of disappointing incidents, but the one element that will never disappoint us is the love of God. We can see clearly here that God’s love didn’t fail.

First, God gave His grace to Cain. Grace is the unmerited favor of God, and we know that this was given to Cain because God did not kill Him. The payment for sin is death, and God could have taken Cain’s life, but He didn’t. He gave Cain the grace to continue to live and to have the opportunity to repent and grow in love for God and for humanity.

Next, God corrected Cain. The Bible tells us that God will discipline the one whom He loves, and He disciplined Cain. We should not fear God’s correction; on the other hand, if we sin and God does not correct us, we need to be concerned, if not alarmed! If we sin and God does not correct us, then that might mean He does not consider us His own, and that is a serious problem!

Also, God protected Cain. When Cain begged God to change his punishment, God did not, but He did offer Cain His mercy. Mercy is the power of God that helps us to live in painful or difficult circumstances. In His love, God showed His mercy through His protection to Cain.

Finally, God showed His love to Adam and Eve in that He gave them a new son, Seth, and later a grandson named Enosh. Usually, the children in a family suffer the collateral damage from family strife, but in this case, it was the parents. No doubt what happened in that field grieved them, and God, in His love, gave them His mercy also.

Conclusion:

The impact of the sin committed by Adam and Eve didn’t just affect them but their family as well. The story told by the murder of Abel by Cain is a sad one, and not just because of its impact on the first family, but also because it is a story that has repeated itself an untold number of times down through the generations.

The good news is that God’s love has also perpetuated itself infinitely down through the ages. Even when we destroy our family relationships, He is eager to give us His correction and discipline so that we can feel and be blessed by His grace and peace and mercy.

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

A Word about a Child of Promise

Today in our series “Family Business” we will see God fulfilling His promises to frail human beings in the middle of family drama as I comment on Genesis 21:1-21. Let’s begin by reading Genesis 21:1-7,

The Lord came to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him. 3 Abraham named his son who was born to him—the one Sarah bore to him—Isaac. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.” 7 She also said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne a son for him in his old age.”

The birth of a child is usually a joyous event.  It is joyous because we see the potential in that young life.  We see a child who has promise and we want to encourage that child to achieve that promise.  Our encouragement can sometimes have unintended consequences, however:

A teacher was trying to encourage her students to catch a vision for what they might become.  Time and again she told them, “You can be anything you want to be!”  Then, she asked them to share their expectations with the class.  One child wanted to be a policeman, another wanted to be a doctor, and a third wanted to be a soldier.  The teacher was flabbergasted by her fourth student’s response.  That little girl stood up and said: “When I grow up, I want to be a lion.”  The teacher replied, “A lion? You can’t be a lion, you’re a person.”  “But,” the child fired back, “you said we could be anything we wanted!” As Art Linkletter used to remind us, “Kids say the darndest things!”

As we continue to observe people conduct their family business in the Scripture, we come to the birth of a child, who was also a child of promise.  Let’s begin by considering verses 1-7.

The Promise to Sarah:

Every person has emotional and spiritual needs. A list of ten common emotional needs among people includes: Acceptance, Appreciation, Affection, Approval, Attention, Security, Comfort, Encouragement, Respect, and Support. A common mistake we make in our interpersonal relationships is to assume that our priority needs are everyone’s priority needs. Jesus did tell us to, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but in that case He meant that we should want to bless, affirm, and enrich others in principle, but not necessarily in detail.

For example, my wife enjoys eating yellow crookneck squash. I dislike yellow crookneck squash to the point that I wish that that species had never been created! Therefore, my wife would have a vastly different reaction to being presented a steaming helping of that food than I would. She would feel appreciated, but I would feel nauseated. Well, that would be hyperbole, but I certainly would not appreciate a dish of yellow crookneck squash as much as she would.

What was Sarah’s need? She needed personal fulfillment. She needed to resolve an emotional deficit in her life. She needed to feel personally useful. She needed a baby!

Again, not every woman, and not every couple, need a child. Gone are the days when people needed to have children so that they would have extra hands to work the farm. No, as my brother-in-law said, “In today’s world there is no logical reason to have children. The only reason to have a child is to share your love.” The Social Security Administration might argue the point in general, but in terms of individual couples, my brother-in-law had a point.

Sarah needed a child for her own reasons, but she also needed a baby to fulfill God’s promises to her, and He obviously did so, even if she had doubted Him. Both she and Abraham did doubt God, but, in no surprise to us, God was faithful and in doing so, He fulfilled His promises and Sarah’s need. 

Sarah had her baby and named him Laughter!  She rejoiced and shouted with happiness, which reminds me of the actress Sally Field receiving her Oscar and shouting, “You like me; right now, you like me!”

God not only fulfilled His promise to Sarah, but He also fulfilled His promise to Abraham as we see in verses 8-13,

The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son mocking—the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave with her son, for the son of this slave will not be a coheir with my son Isaac!” 11 Now this was a very difficult thing for Abraham because of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be concerned about the boy and your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac. 13 But I will also make a nation of the slave’s son because he is your offspring.”

The Promise to Abraham: 

At this juncture we must realize that every event that is included in the Bible is meant to be there, but it may not be included to give us a model to follow. In fact, many Scriptural passages are there to give us an example not to follow, and also to issue to us a warning.  For example, it is a common plea among pastors for their congregation to become a New Testament Church. That sounds great until you read 1st Corinthians, James, and the first three chapters of Revelation. These passages might give a different impression of what a New Testament Church might be like.

This passage is one of those which you must consider carefully with the help of the Holy Spirit. Abraham and Sarah had failed to trust God, and they had done a foolish and sinful thing.  People often do things because they can, without asking if they should. In that day it was perfectly legal to create an heir by requiring a female slave to have a master’s child. It was legal, but it was also wrong. And in this case, the result was familial chaos. 

Abraham had been called of God to serve God by being the father of a great people. That had not happened yet, and Abraham was frustrated. He needed to fulfill God’s will for himself. I understand that frustration. I was called to the ministry in college, yet I waited 8 years to become the pastor of a church.

We all have a need to play our parts in God’s Kingdom.  God has a mission: to reconcile sinful humanity with Himself. God has established His people as a tool to make that happen. God has given us a commission and He has equipped us for His work. We need to be about the Father’s business, but we don’t need to get ahead of Him

Despite Abraham’s rash actions, God fulfilled Abraham’s need as well, He provided Isaac, a son of promise, and He was going to use Isaac in His plan. From Isaac came the nation of Israel and from Israel came Jesus. From Jesus comes the promise of reconciliation with God for all of us!

So far, so good, but there are other people in this story as well. Let’s continue by reading verses 14-21:

Early in the morning Abraham got up, took bread and a waterskin, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her and the boy away. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I can’t bear to watch the boy die!” So as she sat nearby, she wept loudly. 17 God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What’s wrong, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy from the place where he is. 18 Get up, help the boy up, and support him, for I will make him a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the waterskin and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy, and he grew; he settled in the wilderness and became an archer. 21 He settled in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

The Promise to Hagar: 

Next, we see someone with some acute and immediate needs, Hagar. She was totally innocent of wrongdoing over the birth of her son, because, tragically, she had no say in the matter at all. Her life was completely in the hands of Abraham and Sarah, and all she could do was comply. That is not to say that she did not make mistakes, however.

The Biblical record shows that she did develop a disdain for Sarah which was expressed on more than one occasion, but that’s what happens in a relationship that has three people in it instead of two. As Princess Diana said about her marital difficulties with the then Prince Charles, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” 

In Genesis 2:24, we read,

This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.

I believe that this is not only descriptive, but also prescriptive. When we violate God’s Word, we suffer the consequences. Not only that, but collateral damage can also happen, and especially to children.

So, what was Hagar’s need? She needed a savior! She was lost, and out on her own. She had no way to save herself. She had no way to save her child. Hagar was not alone in this need; we all have a need for a savior! 

We may not be cast off into the desert, but in our natural state, we are all lost in the wilderness of sin. There is none righteous, no not one, and all our righteousness is like filthy rags before God! All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! We are like someone who has fallen down into a well; we can’t save ourselves and we need a savior.

God, of course, saved Hagar. He heard her cry for help, and He revealed salvation to her. He made a great nation of the child at death’s door. He will help us, too today, when we call upon Him!

The Promise to Us:

We, as God’s people today, have needs. We have a need for salvation. We have physical and emotional and relational needs. We also have a need to fulfill our role in God’s Kingdom. Who can help us with those needs? God can! 

Part of the Good News is that God does not change:

• The God of Abraham was the God of Isaac.
• The God of Isaac was the God of Jacob.
• The God of Jacob was the God of Joseph.
• The God of Joseph was the God of Moses.
• The God of Moses was the God of David.
• The God of David was the Son of Man.
• The Son of Man was the God of the founders of the church.
• The God of the founders of the church is our God today!

Thus, we can be assured that He can and will answer our needs! He did it for Sarah. He did it for Abraham. He did it for Hagar. He will do it for us!

Conclusion:

The children in this story were fulfilled promises of God, and they remind us of the multitude of promises that God has made to His people in His Word. We also can see today that God willingly and perfectly can fulfill all of our needs. What needs do we have today? Give them to God and watch Him work!

A Word About Getting Off to a Rocky Start

Today in our new series “Family Business,” we will see how the first couple got off to a rocky start as I comment on Genesis 2 and 3. Let’s begin by reading Genesis 2:15-25:

The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.” 19 So the Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found as his complement. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. 22 Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man. 24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

My wife and I dated for over three and a half years before we got married, and we were one of the last couples among our friends who wed. A couple of years before that, my best friend married a young lady; they were both members of our church and my wife and I both participated in their wedding ceremony. All seemed well, that is until they left for their honeymoon.

First, on the way to a family-owned beach house they suffered car troubled, and it was late in the afternoon before they arrived. Next, when they opened the door of the house, they were met with a horrific odor. A freezer full of locally caught fish had malfunctioned and all the catch was now rotting in the summer’s heat. After several hours of smelly effort, they cleaned out the freezer. After taking showers, they decided to go out to eat and let the beach house air out.

The only place open at that late hour was a fast-food restaurant. As they ordered their food, they shyly told the counterman that they had just been married. As they did so, my friend’s wedding ring slipped off his finger, fell to the floor, rolled the length of the restaurant, and then it fell under the crack at the bottom of a door. The counterman just shook his head, and commented, “Well, that didn’t last too long, did it?”

Our friends are still married today, but there is no denying that they got off to a rocky start. As rough as their marriage began, it was nothing compared to the very first couple, Adam and Eve. They, too, got off to a rocky start, and their experience still echoes down the ages until today.

Ground Rules:

Every ballpark has ground rules which address the specific characteristics of the diamond. They exist to make sure both teams are treated fairly. The home team will play there for at least half of their games, and they will come to understand the peculiarities of the ballpark very well, but the visiting teams, not so much. Ground rules prevent those who know too much from taking advantage of those who don’t know enough.

God knew that Adam and Eve were innocent in the truest sense of the word. They were unaware of Lucifer’s rebellion against God in Heaven. They were unaware of God casting Satan and one third of the angels out from Heaven. They were unaware that the Devil would counter-punch God where he thought he could hurt Him the worst, by attacking Adam and Eve, God’s most precious creation, and the highest manifestation of His divine love.  Therefore, God set ground rules for Adam and Eve.

These ground rules were quite generous. They could eat freely of any tree of the garden. No tilling, no pruning, and no harvesting was required. Basically, it was a 24/7, 365, all you can eat, free buffet with only one restriction: they were only forbidden to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That was their only limitation.

Once people know the reality of evil and violence, they are never the same. Their innocence is lost, and it can never be fully regained. I know this to be the case by personal experience. I once witnessed the aftermath of an accident in New Orleans, in which a pedestrian had been hit by a semi-truck; I will not elaborate on what I saw, but that image is still with me! The ground rules that God put into place were not punitive, but protective; yet they also came with penalties for violating them.

In baseball, a play that results in a violation of a ground rule might prevent a run from being scored or an out from being recorded. The penalty for violating God’s ground rules is much more severe, because the risk to spiritual life is so much greater than the result of a game. God was not playing around when He established these ground rules, for the wages of violating them was death. As Paul reminded the church in Romans, “For the wages of sin, is death . . .” (Romans 6:23a). 

God sets up boundaries (temporal and eternal) for our own good (temporal and eternal). When we violate them, we grievously wound ourselves! God was serious, and Adam and Eve should have taken Him at His Word, but unfortunately for humanity, they didn’t, as we will see in Genesis 3. Let’s begin this chapter by reading Genesis 3:1-5:

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. knowing good and evil.”

Satan’s Lies: 

Satan is the author of lies, and in this passage, we see him using his deceitful cunning to his best advantage. He took the form of a superior creature to deceive Eve.

Today serpents and snakes are almost universally reviled, although I did have a boss once who liked snakes.  When snakes were created, like all creatures, they were good. They were the most cunning, crafty, and subtle of all beasts. These are not bad traits; the serpent was not condemned before Genesis 3 for having these characteristics. The serpent was like the cartoon character that says: “I can’t help myself; I’m just drawn this way.” It was Satan who took over this creature to ruin it, and all humanity as well.

Not only did Satan co-opt and corrupt a superior animal, but he also used superior tactics. In verse 1 he used insinuation to pry open Eve’s heart. In verse 4 he made inflammatory but unfounded accusations to ignite Eve’s emotions and to incite her to resentment. Both of these tactics attacked God’s justice, authority, and power.

This was not the only time we can observe the Devil using these techniques in the Bible. He tried to show that he was superior to Jesus in Matthew 4 by use of these same tactics of temptation. He, of course, was defeated by Jesus, but since he was successful with Adam and Eve, we can assume that he will use these same techniques against us:

• The temptation to misuse power for our own gain (Greed)
• The temptation to be spectacular to gain fame (Gaudy).
• The temptation to seize power (Become God).

We face these same temptations every day of our lives. We need to see how the first humans dealt with temptation, and measure our own responses, and results, by theirs.

Next, let’s continue by reading verses 2-7:

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Humanity’s Fall: 

What we see next is like a train wreck. There is nothing you can do about it, and you know the results will be horrific, but you can’t take your eyes away from the disaster as it unfolds.  

The fall began with a faulty answer to Satan by Eve. She omitted the word “freely”.  She added the words “not . . .  touch it.” She softened the phrase, “you will certainly die.” Each of these changes distorted God’s Word and His revealed will.

In contrast, when Jesus was tempted, His reply did not alter God’s Word. His replies were quoted Scripture. He did not add or take away from the Word. He did not miss God’s revealed will!

In the end, both Adam and Eve succumbed to the appeal of the forbidden fruit. It appealed to the eye: it looked good! It appealed to the tongue: it tasted good! It appealed to the ego: it felt good! When confronted with such temptation, we would do well to remember 1 John 2:15-17, which warns us,

Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. 16 For everything that belongs to the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s lifestyle—is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does God’s will remains forever.

The bottom line here is this: when we ignore the Word of God, and when we ignore His revealed will, we will get in trouble!

Next, let’s read verses 7 through 19:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze,  and they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 11 Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 Then the man replied, “The woman You gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “It was the serpent. He deceived me, and I ate.” 14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. 15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. 16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you. 17 And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”  

Tragic Consequences:

The consequences of the fall of humanity were tragic to the point of being heart-breaking! 

First, we see the beginning of shame! 

• They were ashamed of their nakedness.  
• They hid from God.  
• They made excuses. 
• They played the blame game.

Just about the only shame response that we don’t see here is substance abuse, but that is only because alcohol hadn’t been invented yet!

Next, we see the advent of death! 

• Death entered our world.
• Death entered humanity.
• Death entered God’s economy against His expressed will.

The penalty for sin is death and so the world had been altered, ruined; it has never been the same again.

We also see the first judgment!

• The serpent would be cursed and reviled: for many people, the only good snake is a dead snake!
• The woman: she would suffer travail in childbirth.
• The man: he must work and sweat.
• The couple: they would experience a struggle for power and respect.

God is love, and His love is perfect, and as Hebrews 12:5-6 tells us:

And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or faint when you are reproved by Him, 6 for the Lord disciplines the one He loves and punishes every son He receives.

For every sin, there is an eternal penalty: death. There is also a temporal consequence as well.  Our salvation voids the penalty, but it does not void the consequences.

Finally, let’s consider verses 20-24:

20 Adam named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them. 22 The Lord God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

God’s Love:

God has expressed His love by creating the universe and by creating people and allowing them to live in it. His response to the fall of humanity was also loving:

• He killed to cover their nakedness.
• He prevented them living forever in their sin.
• He protected the garden with an angel.
• He prepared a plan for their future redemption.

Even this early, God had a plan to redeem fallen humanity. He would send His Only Begotten Son to the earth to walk among us again. His Son would live a perfect, holy life, and He would die to pay the penalty for our sin. Then, if we took His perfect life and perfect sacrifice as our own, we’d be restored to the fellowship and rest of God.

Today, God would have us take heed of what Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 10:11-13, which both disciplines us and encourages us at the same time:

Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it.

Conclusion:

Consider the tragedy we just witnessed:

• God’s creation ruined by death and destruction.
• God’s Word and will ignored and God shown disrespect. 
• God’s highest and best work abasing themselves for the cause of the flesh.
• God’s loved ones suffering banishment and multiplied troubles

But consider also the love of God we have just witnessed as well. Can we deny Him His way with us, today?

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

Salvation on the Road After The Cross

Today I want to share a word about salvation on the road after the Cross as I comment on Luke 24:13-49. Let’s begin by reading Luke 24:13-24

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

My father was a heavy truck mechanic who would work for the same company for nearly forty years. My dad grew up during the Depression era and so my father was a very frugal mam. I remember very clearly when my mother and father had a long debate one night about buying an electronic calculator so they could do their taxes.  It was sort of like buying a computer today, because some couples might debate buying an expensive computer. They were debating this purchase because my father was very frugal, and he liked to save money as well as other useful things. In fact, he never threw away a screw or a nut or a washer or anything that could be useful someday. 

My dad had a big wooden box where he had stashed all of the fasteners he saved. It was a big wooden ammunition crate that he had scavenged from somebody, somewhere. If he needed a screw or a nut for a project, he would get an old scrap of a cloth tarpaulin and he would lay that out. Then, he would tip that wooden box over, and he'd go through all those little items he had saved over many years until he found what he needed. Then he'd pack it all back up again until the next time.

My dad was good at saving things that might be useful someday, down in the future. Well, our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, came to seek and save that which was lost. He was the one who saved us, as we will see in Luke 24. Let’s begin by reading verses 13 through 24 and seeing some surprised disciples.

First, We See Surprised Disciples:

After the crucifixion, the disciples were defeated, and they were demoralized. This actually began before the crucifixion, because they had been so excited about celebrating Passover in Jerusalem. That was something so exciting that it was the highlight of their life up to that day. So, they were shocked, they were dismayed, they were upset and surprised, by Judas and his betrayal of Jesus.

They'd been frightened by His arrest and by His trial. And when He was crucified on the cross, they were more than surprised, and they were more than saddened. They were shattered. They saw something they never expected to see, and it just destroyed their faith. Because of their shattered faith, these disciples scattered to the four winds.

Some of them, like these two who went to Emmaus, left Jerusalem. Some of them were holed up in the upper room. The doors were shut and barred, and they were hiding out in a place they hoped was safe from the Jews and the Romans. Later on, we see in the Scriptures that Peter decided, "I'm going fishing." When you are in trouble, “you go with what you know.” Peter was a fisherman, so he went back to what he was comfortable with. Thomas, the doubting disciple, just disappeared. Nobody knew where Thomas went. He had a bolt hole, and he went there to hide out.

Now, these two that were on the way to Emmaus were discussing these events when they were met by Jesus. They were talking about the events of the past week, because that's what people do. When someone has a situation in their life, they talk about it. They tell their story until they're finished telling it. Then, when they're finished telling it, they don't talk about it anymore. These two, these followers of Jesus, were doing just that, talking about what had happened in their lives.

When Jesus came upon them, Jesus said, "What's all this about?" They were surprised because surely, everybody knew what was going on in town. They looked at Jesus and they basically said, "You ain't from around here, are you?" Surely, everybody knew what had happened.

Of course, Jesus knew what had happened, because it had happened to Him! As was the case all through His ministry, Jesus wanted to use this as a teaching moment because they didn't understand what was happening. They had seen it with their own eyes. They had heard the stories from others, and they were at a loss, and they had no idea what these things meant. They were surprised.

• They were surprised by the betrayal.
• They were surprised by the trial.
• They were surprised by the scourging.
• They were surprised by the cross.
• They were surprised by the resurrection.

But, if we read verses 25-32, we see that Jesus had a superior explanation.

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

Next, We See a Superior Explanation: 

Jesus not only provides salvation, but here we also see Him being the master teacher that He always was. Jesus was called rabbi, which meant teacher, and He wanted people to have a saving knowledge of what He’d done for them, and for them to understand the truth of the Gospel. As He said in the Scriptures, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

These folks wanted to know the truth and they were genuinely confused. Today, many people are confused spiritually as well; even a cursory review of social media outlets will confirm that fact. But even before social media, there were plenty of spiritual ideas floating around in the world.

The key element is that Jesus said, "You need to know the truth." Then He went to the beginning of Scriptures and started to teach them all that they should have already known. We need to remember that Jesus and the early church did not have the same total Bible that we have today. The Bible that they had was the Old Testament. Jesus said, in essence, "If you understand the Old Testament and you know me, you know everything you need to know to find salvation." Again, Jesus was saying, that those who know the truth will be set free. But as Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?”

• Truth is not a philosophy of life.
• Truth is not an abstract concept.
• Truth is not a system of belief.
• Truth is not a list of principles.

Truth is much simpler than all these things. Jesus said very simply in John 14:6, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.” So instead of complex theories, what they needed was the Savior.

They didn't need to understand all the reasons why the Jews rebelled against Jesus, and they didn’t need to understand the legal reasons why the Romans were the ones that had to put Jesus to death. They didn't need to understand the reason why God worked it out so that almost all known humanity at that time were responsible for the death of our Savior and Lord. What they needed to know was there was a Savior who suffered and died for them. What they needed to know was there was a Savior who rose from the dead for them, and what they needed to know was a Savior who could warm their hearts. 

No doubt they were a little embarrassed at the situation they were in.  It's embarrassing when you don't recognize someone that you should know. These disciples were embarrassed, but what is more embarrassing than what they experienced, is to cross over into eternity without recognizing your Savior. That's much worse than anything.

Next, let’s continue by reading verses 33-43:

And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!”  But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

We Also See Scared Sinners: 

What we see in the upper room were a group of scared sinners. To put their situation in context, we need to remember who these people were. We know what they became in the rest of the New Testament. We know their ministries. We know that they all died as martyrs for the cause of Christ. But at the time that we see them here, they were just regular ordinary people. None of these folks were what we today would call opinion leaders or influencers.  

They were nobody in particular, and so when Jesus came in their midst, they were scared. They were scared because they finally understood He was different. He was the son of a carpenter, but He was also the Son of God. Because He was God, they were scared.

They also knew that they had really betrayed Him. All of them had run away. Thomas hadn't even come back yet. They were frightened. And frankly, we would have been frightened too, because they knew they were hopeless sinners in the presence of extreme Holiness. 

This situation was not really about the disciples, however. It was about Jesus coming to the disciples. They were nobody important. They were smelly fishermen, and they were rebellious people, and they were traitors, and they were scared, and they had run away, and they had betrayed Him. Yet, Jesus came to them anyway. He saw fit to come in their midst and to talk to them and to bless them. What did He say when He came in? “Peace be unto you!”. 

So, in the upper room we see some scared sinners, but we can also see a sufficient Savior. 

Let’s read verses 44 through 49:

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

 

Finally, We See a Sufficient Savior:

Jesus is the sufficient Savior.  Jesus is sufficient because He fulfilled the law. Jesus said, "I did not come to abolish the law, I came to satisfy the law."

• He satisfied the law by His life; He lived a perfect life.
• He satisfied the law by His death; He was the perfect sacrifice.
• He satisfied the law by rising from the dead and completing His work.
• He fulfilled the law that we are incapable of fulfilling ourselves.

Jesus is sufficient because He has done for us those things that we can't do for ourselves. Because He fulfilled the law, He gave us freedom from our sins by relieving us from the debt of sin. When we are in Jesus, we are freed from the power of sin. In Jesus, we can live an abundant life here on earth, and we have the guarantee of an abundant life in the hereafter.

Finally, Jesus is sufficient because He sent us the Helper.  He sent us the Holy Spirit to write God’s law on our hearts the way God said He would in the Old Testament. He sent us the Holy Spirit to help us live out our life without fear and He sent us the Holy Spirit to give us authority for being a witness. 

Conclusion:

Jesus is the one who provides us salvation. He provided salvation for these disciples, and He provides it for us also, because He is the way, the truth, and the life. 

The question for today is this, have you met the Truth?  Has your heart been warmed by His presence in your life? Have you allowed Him to save you from your sins?

My daddy loved to save stuff. Jesus does too. And He would love to save you today.

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

A Word about Determination on the Road to the Cross

Today I want to share a word about determination on the road to the Cross as I comment on passages from Luke, Matthew, and John. Let’s begin by reading Luke 18:31-34:

And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.  And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

Introduction:

We often live in dread of our fate. For example, I once received an e-mail from a man which told a tale from years past that illustrates this: 

“I was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital after my wife had gone into labor and then the nurse walked out and said to the man sitting next to me, ‘Congratulations sir, you're the new father of twins!’ The man replied, ‘How about that, I work for the Doublemint Chewing Gum Company.’ The man then followed the nurse to his wife's room. 

About an hour later, the same nurse entered the waiting room and announced that Mr. Smith's wife has just had triplets. Mr. Smith stood up and said, ‘Well, how do you like that, I work for the 3M Company.’ The man then followed the nurse to his wife's room. 

The gentleman that was sitting on the other side of me then got up and started to leave. When I asked him why he was leaving, he remarked, ‘I think I need a breath of fresh air.’ The man continued, ‘I work for 7-UP.’”

Jesus’s human fate was nothing less than gruesome.  He was beaten, and abused, and He was whipped until His flesh was flayed.  He was hung from a Roman cross which was the means for a cruel, lingering, and horrible death.  Who would choose such a fate as this?

Jesus. Only Jesus.

As we continue to see Jesus as the masterful person that He is, we will see clearly that not only did Jesus allow this fate, but He also actually chose it.  We’ll begin to see why as we review our first text for today.

Jesus Predicted His Fate: 

Jesus came to the Earth with a purpose. From the beginning of human sin, God had a purpose: to redeem the world. Satan’s rebellion and sin had ruined God’s perfect creation, and this was something God could not abide, and so Jesus had come to redeem a lost, dying, and decaying world. In Luke 19:10 Jesus said, “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."  Therefore, His whole mission was focused on this purpose, and He, as always, was still on task.

The Disciples, however, were distracted by other things. They had just come into Jerusalem. Now they felt as is if they were in the “big leagues.” They had just experienced the Triumphal Entry, but they didn’t know yet how fickle the crowd can be. They were also looking forward to Passover in Jerusalem, which emotionally, was like attending the Super Bowl or celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem. Trouble was far from their minds!

As we see in the passage from Luke 18, Jesus was focused on His purpose, and He reminded them of it. This was the third time He’d done so, and both times before were near in time to an exciting event. The first time was just after Peter’s profession of faith in Matthew 16, and the second time was just after the Transfiguration in Matthew 17.  Each of these (Peter’s Confession, Transfiguration, and Triumphal Entry) were important, but . . . they would be meaningless unless Jesus went all the way.

Jesus, of course, intended to go the distance and do what needed to be done!

Jesus Attracted His Fate: 

Let’s continue by reading Matthew 21:10-16:

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”

In Jerusalem, Jesus was a threat to the establishment:

• He threatened the traditional way of interpreting the Word of God.
• He threatened the political power of the Sanhedrin.
• He threatened the bankrupt fundamentalism of the Pharisees.
• He threatened the bankrupt liberalism of the Sadducees.
• He threatened the security concerns of the Romans.

Jesus was like a thunderstorm: you couldn’t ignore him, and no one could predict where He would go and what He would do.

Jesus was no different in Jerusalem than He was in the Galilee or in Samaria. The difference is that in Jerusalem, He brought a disruption to the power structure of that day that they did not expect or desire. 

The snobby people of Judah expected there to be disturbances in Galilee.  What more could you expect from low-class people? Likewise, nobody cared much about what happened in Samaria, either.  Those “half-breeds” were beneath the notice of the elite. Now, however, like the attack on Pearl Harbor or the attack on 9/11, Jesus brought the threat home. Something had to be done!

In response to this threat to their power, the forces of evil were going to strike back: They were going to kill this “man” if it was the last thing they did.  Just like when David was caught with Bathsheba, they were caught in their sin. They were going to cover it up with a murder conspiracy, just like David. And Jesus, being God, knew exactly what they were doing. What do you think He did?

Jesus Embraced His Fate: 

As we read in John 18:33-38, Jesus embraced His fate:

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him . . .”

People have different reactions when they are confronted by their fate. For example, Adolph Hitler committed suicide, while Saddam Hussein fled and wound up hiding in a hole in the ground. Saddam Hussein’s sons died in a shoot-out with the US Army, but others try to plea-bargain their way out of trouble. A few will trust in God, like the teenaged girl asked by the shooters at Columbine High School, “Do you believe in God?”  When she said “Yes,” she was shot and killed. One thing is certain, however: all of them would rather be somewhere else, doing something else. Not Jesus, however.

• He embraced His arrest.
• He embraced an illegal, night-time trial to take place.
• He embraced the experienced of being brutalized and killed.
• He embraced the fact that in all these things there was a purpose.

What Jesus did was literally, out of this world! What Jesus did was based on a different reality than the one that humans embrace. Only in God’s economy could defeat be victory. Only in the spiritual realms could this suffering bring succor!

Jesus came to give us what we couldn’t give ourselves. To do this, He had to be crowned King with a crown of thorns. He embraced this fate without reservation!

Jesus Allowed His Fate: 

Finally, John 19:5-11 tells us that Jesus allowed His fate:

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” The Jews[a] answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

Those in power thought that they had Jesus right where they wanted Him. The Romans had Him in custody, so He was contained. The Sanhedrin were going to kill Him and so He would be out of their hair. The Disciples had been scattered to the winds and so they could threaten neither the Roman nor the Jewish establishments. Satan had manipulated it all, or so he thought. 

In truth, they had all been caught in Jesus’ trap. In fact, Jesus was right where He wanted to be, with the same attitude that the legendary Marine, Lewis “Chesty” Puller once expressed when surrounded by the enemy, “All right. They’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us … They can’t get away this time.”

Jesus had come for this purpose and in an example of spiritual Jujitsu, He was using His enemies’ own actions against them. Jesus was in control, not the Romans, nor the Jews, nor Satan. He could have had armies of angels come release Him. He could have spoken and rained fire down on His captors. He did not, not because He couldn’t, but because He wouldn’t. He was right where He wanted to be.

Why would Jesus knowingly, willingly, and determinedly, inflict the trauma He experienced upon Himself? Because He loves us, and He wants to save us. Because He wants to give us righteousness, and He wants to have a relationship with us. Because He wants to give us a relationship with God that we need, and that God desires.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10

Conclusion:  

Jesus embraced His fate on our behalf. Have you embraced what Jesus did for you? Don’t you think you should? 

Does your life honor what Jesus did for you? Don’t you think it should?

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt