The State of Dead Saints

“And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw beneath the altar the souls

of those who had been slain because of the word of God

and because of the witness of the Lamb which they had.

And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Master,

holy and true, will you not judge and avenge our blood

upon those who dwell on earth?’  And a white robe was given to each of them,

and it was said to them that they should wait for a while,

until their fellow slaves and their brothers, who were about to be killed

as they also had been, should finish their course.”

Revelation 6:9–11

We often hear it said that righteous souls who have died are now in eternal, perfect bliss, but the verses above show that such is not the case.  The souls beneath God’s altar in heaven seem to be pretty miserable.  They were filled with the Spirit (“the witness of Jesus”); they had suffered martyrdom because of righteousness; they were now dwelling in the very presence of God; and yet, here they are, obviously weary with longing for something that has not yet happened.  And God’s only response is only to give them some robes (which no doubt were wonderful) and to tell them they must continue to wait.  We should note that God did not answer their prayers!  He did not do what they were begging Him to do.  These verses reveal that while saints who have fallen asleep in Jesus have finished their earthly labors (Rev. 14:13), they are not yet perfectly happy, that they still have longings and prayers that can go unanswered, and that they still need patience to overcome frustration and disappointment.  Does that sound to you like eternal, undisturbed joy and peace? 

These verses suggest that the saints who have fallen asleep in the Lord still are a part of us, that they still pray for us and have feelings that they express to God about us.  If the wicked rich man who died and went into Torment still remembered life on earth and still felt the feelings he felt on earth (Lk. 16:27–28), it seems reasonable to assume that saints who fall asleep in Jesus and enter into Paradise can do the same.  The dead saints under the altar of God certainly remembered what had happened to them while they lived on earth (unjustly martyred), and they also were aware enough of matters on earth to know that God had not yet avenged them.  If the wicked rich man who went to hell still thought about and prayed for those he loved, surely the saints of God still think about and pray for those they loved.

 The tormented rich man’s desperate prayer for mercy in Luke 16 was unanswered because it was not the will of God to do what the rich man asked.  The dead saints underneath God’s altar were praying for something that God fully intended to do, but their prayers were also unanswered because it was not time for God’s answer to come.  Regardless of the reasons, however, neither the prayers of the wicked rich man nor the prayers of the righteous dead saints were answered, and that means that everyone who prayed, saints and sinner alike, felt disappointment.  And that means that nobody in those two stories was enjoying eternal, perfect, undisturbed peace.

That kind of peace and joy will be granted to God’s children only after Jesus has reigned on earth for a thousand years, has won the last battle, and has destroyed this present heaven and earth: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea no longer existed. . . .  And I heard a loud voice out of heaven, saying, “Behold!  The dwelling place of God with men!  And He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them.  And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more; neither shall there be sorrow, nor crying, nor pain anymore because the former things will have passed away” (Rev. 21:1, 3–4).

What I Learned from This about Believing

In spite of my having read Revelation 6:9–11 many, many times through the years, until Monday, March 13, 2017, when Jesus gave me understanding, it cannot be said that I truly believed it.  In reality, every time in my life that I thought or spoke of dead saints as already enjoying eternal, undisturbed bliss, or every time I said “Amen” when somebody else said so, I was not believing what those verses were telling me.  I was instead still confused by Christianity’s mythological version of the State of Dead Saints.

When we truly believe, that faith moves us and takes us somewhere; it leads us into the knowledge of God, into understanding, because true faith is of God and is alive, and makes us alive to the things of God.  “By faith, we understand that the worlds were created by an utterance from God, so that things that are seen were not made from visible things” (Heb. 11:3).  If you have truly believed the word of God, then you understand the truth.  If you have truly believed, then your true faith has taken you to good places.  It has taken you out of darkness and into the knowledge of God, out of strife and into holy love, out of pride and into humility, out of heresies and into fellowship with every other human being who has also truly believed.  You can’t hide it, and they can’t miss it!

May God grant us genuine faith in His word so that we may know His Son Jesus Christ, and experience the unity and fellowship of the Father and His Son!

The Only Proof

“It is the Spirit that bears witness because the Spirit is truth.”

1John 5:6b

The increase in number of scientists and educators who are not afraid to publicly confess faith in the Bible’s creation and flood stories is refreshing.  The evolution bullies are having their stranglehold on education and scientific outlets loosened a little.  We may be seeing the beginning of a revival of good, common sense in the scientific and education communities.

Before you start jumping for joy, however, let me remind you of this eternal truth: the holy Ghost is the only completely dependable witness that the Bible is true and that Jesus is Lord.  It does feel like a relief to hear scientists and scholars speak up in favor of Genesis being a trustworthy record of historical events, but if those scientists and scholars do not have the holy Ghost, they do not even belong to God, much less have they been sent to speak on His behalf!  And not belonging to God, they must have an agenda other than love for God for their defense of the Bible.

The theory of evolution has always been goofy.  God’s children have never needed help from “creation scientists” to understand that.  Genuine faith needs no scientific evidence to be strong and sure.  No matter what we know of earthly scientific facts, it is only by faith that we understand that the worlds were formed by the word of God (Heb. 11:6).  Do not be seduced into leaning on the knowledge and wisdom of men!

One of the first truths Jesus taught me as a young believer is that the closer something comes to being true, without being true, the more evil it is.  Someone who is close to the truth can deceive many more people than someone who is nowhere near right.  Likewise, men who defend the Bible, but have not yet been baptized with the holy Ghost into the body of Christ, are only close to the truth; they are not in it!  And the truth is not in them, for “the Spirit is truth.”  Guard your hearts against such men!  Do not trust those who believe in the goodness and need of the Bible but who do not believe in the goodness and need of the holy Ghost!  They are not of God!

The holy Ghost is God’s witness that everything in the Bible is true, and it is sufficient.  The geological, biological, and astronomical facts that “creation scientists” proclaim can be interesting and instructive, but they are all things the human spirit can learn and teach; they can never create righteousness and save a soul.  “If we receive the witness of men,” John wrote, “the witness of God is greater.  And this [the Spirit] is the witness of God which He has borne of His Son” (1Jn. 5:9).

John went on to say that “He who believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself,” and that “he who does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar because he does not believe the witness that God gave of His Son.” (1Jn. 5:10).  In other words, those who do not have the witness of God, the holy Ghost, are making God out to be a liar, no matter what they say about the Bible, or even what they say about God Himself!  Some men passionately argue that the Bible is one big myth, while other men passionately argue that it is all factually true, but they are all making God out to be a liar if they all do not have His Spirit.

Correction

“Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more.

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it,

but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores.”

Isaiah 1:5–6a

God chastens those He loves, and those whom He chastens show their love for Him by receiving His correction.  If, on the other hand, God’s correction is resisted for too long, He will back off and give His child over to his own way.  But the end of that way is death.

For God to care about us enough to correct us is a precious opportunity, for by His correction, we are made more like Him.  Pray to have a heart to receive the correction our heavenly Father gives, while He is still willing to give it.

The Growing Abomination

“Except the LORD of hosts had left for us a very small remnant,

we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah.”

Isaiah 1:19

The abomination of perverse immorality plagued ancient Judah, too.  Judging by what Isaiah said, homosexuality had all but taken over the little nation in his day.

Later, a hundred years after Isaiah was called and anointed by God to prophesy to the Israelites, young King Josiah began his reign.  Unlike Isaiah, Josiah had the authority and means to do something about the despicable perverseness of God’s people.  The single act that Josiah performed which best shows how far into debauchery God’s own people had sunk is recorded in 2Kings 23:7: “And he broke down the houses of the sodomites that were by the temple of the LORD where the women wove hangings for the grove.”

Yes, a hundred years after the LORD lamented through Isaiah that His people had given themselves to the demons of homosexuality, His people had become so depraved that they had built houses for homosexual activity right beside the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem.  And notice that the Bible says “houses”, not “house”.  There were so many queers in Israel by Josiah’s time that just one house was not enough.  There may have been a bunch of them; we are not told how many.

Be patient, my brothers and sisters in Christ. It will get worse in our time, too.  The abomination will increase.  But you keep yourselves pure.  Jesus will come and make all things right again, for God has promised, “though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.”  In the meantime, be still, and be faithful.

Now You Can Shake Your Head

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth!  For the LORD has spoken:

‘I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib,

but Israel does not know; my people do not consider.’ ”

Isaiah 1:2–3

Before shaking your head at Israel for not knowing where her blessings came from, consider this: Peter predicted, accurately, that many of God’s New Testament people wouldn’t know, either.  He wrote, “There shall also be false teachers among you, who shall bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them. . . .  And many shall follow them. . . .” (2Pet. 2:1–2).  How did this happen?  I will tell you.

It is the holy Ghost baptism that makes us clean in the sight of God, not repeating a few verses of scripture and “getting saved”.  You are purchased by Christ only when he puts the “down payment” of the Spirit in you (2Cor. 1:22, 5:5; Eph. 1:14)!  Paul said, “The Lord is the Spirit” (2Cor. 3:17), but when someone claims that he received the Lord (“got saved”) before he received the Spirit, he is “denying the Lord that bought him.”  And most of God’s New Testament people are doing just that.

The holy Ghost is what gives us hope of being raised from the dead (Rom. 8:11); the holy Ghost is what washes your sins away, and sanctifies, and justifies you (1 Cor. 6:11); and without it, you do not belong to the family of God (Rom. 8:9b).  But almost none of God’s children in this covenant know that, for they have been taught to claim to have been spiritually cleansed before God bore them witness, baptizing them with the holy Ghost into the body of Christ (Acts 15:8; 1Cor. 12:13).  They give more honor to the spirit under which they “got saved” than to the Spirit that comes from God and truly cleanses the soul.

Now you can shake your head.

The Sweet Influence of the Gospel

Much of the irrational, hateful behavior and judgment we see in our time is a direct result of society holding back from this generation the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus.  The sweet influence of the gospel is so great that even if a person does not become a believer, if he has been taught the gospel story, his spirit is influenced for the better by it.

This is a plea for you fathers, and you mothers, to take advantage of the precious time you have with your children still in your home, and teach them about Jesus.  Read the Bible with them.  If you want them to be reasonable in their dealings with others, if you want them to be happier and more stable persons in this life, God has given you the tools and the opportunity to help make it happen.

THE MEETINGS OF THE SAINTS ARE NOT ENOUGH!  The meetings are not the answer.  The greatest help the young will receive is in the quiet of their home, with you.

Love your children with the kind of love which does the most good.  Love them with the love you received from God as He patiently taught you many stories about His Son.

John, and the “Instead-of-Christ” Movement

In John’s first epistle, he warned that an “anti-Christ” movement had become very strong (2:18; 4:3), but to perceive his meaning, we must understand that in first century Greek, anti did not mean “against” as it does today; rather, it meant “instead of ”.  For example, Jesus said, “What father among you, when a son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or also a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of [anti] a fish, will he?” (Lk. 11:11).  So, what John meant by “anti-Christ” is “instead of Christ”, not “against Christ”.

This agrees with Paul’s description of false teachers who, he said, considered themselves to be apostles of Christ (2Cor. 11:13).  Those men did not present themselves as enemies of Christ, nor did they speak evil of him.  If they had done so, no believers would have followed them.  What those men did was to proclaim – in Jesus’ name – a gospel different from the true one, and by doing that, they persuaded God’s people of a way of worship different from the right way.  And by doing that, they were, in fact, teaching a Jesus that was different from the real Jesus, and a spirit that was different from the real Spirit of God, just as Paul said (2Cor. 11:4; cp. Gal. 1:6–7).  They were not opposed to the name, “Jesus”, or to the word, “God”; they just offered a different Christ than the true one.

John called such men “deceivers”, adding that they had “gone out [from the faithful saints] into the world” (2Jn. 1:7).  It is important to note that John did not say that the deceivers had come in from the world.  Sinners of the world would not come into the Assemblies of God to proclaim any kind of gospel at all.  These “instead-of-Christ” ministers were believers who “went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out that they might be exposed” (1Jn. 2:19).  John’s point was that those men did not stay among “us”; that is, the believing Jews.  James referred to brothers who had gone out from the Assembly in Jerusalem to teach believing Gentiles not to trust in Christ alone, but to trust also in the law: “We have heard that certain men among us, to whom we gave no charge, went out from here and troubled you with words, saying you must be circumcised and keep the law. . . .” (Acts 15:24).  These were some of the men who, as John said, “went out from us,” but “were not of us.”

Finally, it should be noted that the word “anti-Christ” does not appear in the book of Revelation.  And it does not appear in that book of prophecy because Revelation concerns the future, and the “instead-of-Christ” movement was already going strong in John’s day.  John had no need to prophesy of a future enemy of God named “the Anti-Christ”, for he said, “even now, many have become anti-Christs” (1Jn. 2:18).

You need not look for the anti-Christ to come in the future.  As my father, “Preacher Clark”, once said, “The anti-Christ has been here so long, God’s people have forgotten about him.”

Beautiful

“The LORD takes pleasure in His people. 

He will beautify the meek with salvation.”

Psalm 149:4

The new, glorified bodies that Jesus has promised us are beautiful, every one of them, and every person who receives a glorified body when Jesus returns for us will be a stunningly beautiful creature.

Let’s live meekly in the beautiful life of holiness now, so that Jesus will crown us with a beautiful, glorified body at his return.

God’s Dwelling Place

“Let them praise the name of the LORD . . . .

His glory is above the earth and heaven.”

Psalm 148:13

God does not live in heaven; He lives somewhere far above it.  When He glorified Jesus to sit at His right hand, He glorified him, Paul said, “far above all heavens” (Eph. 4:10).

This heaven and this earth shall be destroyed.  Jesus said so (Mt. 24:35).  But God’s dwelling place shall never be destroyed.

“Don’t Internalize Me”

“I cried to the LORD with my voice;

with my voice did I make my supplication to the LORD.”

Psalm 142:1

Jesus spoke to Brother Gary not long ago and told him, “Don’t internalize me.”  What Jesus meant was that he wants us to speak out loud when we pray.  He wants us to really talk to him, the way David said he did, “with our voices”.

God Has Done His Part

“He shows His word to Jacob,

His statutes and His judgments to Israel.

He has not dealt so with any nation.

And as for His judgments, they have not known them.

Praise ye the LORD!”

Psalm 147:19–20

Just “a remnant” in ancient Israel obeyed God, but that sad reality does not negate the fact that God chose and blessed Israel and blessed as He did no other nation.

In this covenant, just a remnant in the body of Christ walk in the Spirit, but that sad fact does not negate the fact that God has chosen and blessed the body of Christ as He has no other people.

God has done His part.  He has always done His part.  And He is doing His part right now for those who trust in Him.  Praise ye the LORD!

Prisoners

“The LORD looses the prisoners.”

Psalm 146:7

“The LORD does not despise His prisoners.”

Psalm 69:33

When God has prisoners, He does not despise them, but works with them so that they might be free again.  Because of their rebelliousness, God cast the whole nation of Israel into a prison of spiritual darkness, but He loved Israel, and Jesus said in his very first sermon in Nazareth that God sent him to set the captives free (Lk. 4:18).  He could have plainly told them that day that God sent him to set them free, but he knew they did not want to hear that.  And later, when he did tell them, they were outraged: “‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’  They answered him, ‘We are Abraham’s seed, and we have never been slaves to anyone.  How can you say, “You shall be free”?’  Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I tell you that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.’ ” (Jn. 8:32–34).

The Father, through Isaiah, told the Son that the day was coming when He would “give you for a covenant of the people . . . saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out!’  And to those in darkness, ‘Show yourselves!’ ” (Isa. 49:8b–9a).  And again through Isaiah, He spoke to the Son, and said, “I, the LORD,  have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and keep you hidden.  And then, I will give you for a covenant for the people, for a light of the nations, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house” (Isa. 42:6–7).

If you feel imprisoned by anything – sickness, spiritual weakness, a bad memory, or any unpleasant circumstance – please do not be discouraged.  God does not despise you!  He sent His Son to set you free and make you happy again.  Just admit you are in prison, and Jesus will bring you out!

Abundantly Telling

“They shall abundantly utter the memory of your great goodness,

and shall sing of your righteousness.”

Psalm 145:7

We “utter the memory of God’s greatness” by giving our testimony.  But to do just that is not the way of the righteous. No! The righteous “ABUNDANTLY utter the memory of God’s greatness”.  They repeatedly tell what God has done for them because they love it!

The whole congregation knows what God has done for the righteous soul, the one who has “abundantly” told them about it.  So, how well does your congregation know what God has done for you?

Spiritual Beauty

“Praise ye the LORD!  For it is good to sing praises to our God,

for it is pleasant, and praise is comely.”

Psalm 147:1

“Give the LORD the glory due to His name;

worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”

Psalm 29:2

In the realm of the Spirit, a righteous person who praises God is beautiful.  Isaiah agreed with this.  He said, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD!  My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He has clothed me . . . with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Isa. 61:10).

The Bride that Jesus will come back for and take for himself will have the kind of beauty found only in the holy Spirit of God.

Jesus Upholds and Raises All

“The LORD upholds all that fall, and raises up all those that be bowed down.”

Psalm 145:14

If something has tripped you up in your walk with the Lord, look to Jesus! He will forgive and uphold you! And if you have been discouraged by any of the multitude of earthly trials we may face, Look up! Jesus is well able – and eager – to make you feel encouraged again.

The only people who fall and don’t get up, or who are discouraged and stay that way, are people who do not want to try again and will not let Jesus help them. Jesus does his part for all who want him to do it for them.

The Psalmist went on to say this: “The LORD is nigh to all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their cry, and will save them. The LORD preserves all them that love Him” (Ps. 145:18–20b).

Every Day Means Forever

“Every day will I bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever.”

Psalm 145:2

If your life blesses God every day, He will see to it that you continue to live so that you may praise Him forever.

Strange Children

“Send your hand from above!  Rid me, and deliver me

from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaks vanity,

and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children,

whose mouth speaks vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood!”

Psalm 144:7–8, 11

“Strange children” in the family of God are children of God who speak or act as if they do not belong in His family.  What comes out of their mouth is worldly, and their “right hand” of friendship cannot be trusted.  In the above verses, the Son is pleading with the Father to rid him of such strange children, and we know that the Father will do whatever the Son asks.

Then, let our words be seasoned with God’s grace, and let our friendship be fellowship in the light.  Otherwise, we will be as strange children to God, and He will answer His Son’s prayer to rid him of us.

Merciful Destruction

“Bring my soul out of trouble.  And of your mercy cut off my enemies,

and destroy all them that afflict my soul, for I am your servant.”

Psalm 143:11b–12

It will be of God’s mercy to destroy the wicked in the Day of Judgment – mercy for the righteous whom the wicked had persecuted.  On that day, when the wicked are destroyed, the righteous will greatly rejoice in God’s mercy.  As for the wicked, they will not rejoice, for they will feel no mercy whatsoever.

No Hell for Us

“The enemy has persecuted my soul;

he has smitten my life down to the ground;

he has made me to dwell in darkness,

as those that have been long dead.”

Psalm 143:3

This was the Son of God speaking through David, foretelling that he would be persecuted, and killed, and then would descend into hell, in the heart of the earth.  Those who believe in Jesus have also been persecuted, and some have also been killed, but because Jesus descended into hell, no one who believes in him will ever go there.  God’s faithful children who die now go up, not down, and enter into Paradise, where Jesus is.  As Paul said, for God’s New Testament saints to be absent from the body means to be present with the Lord (2Cor. 5:8).

The Help of the Spirit

“Enter not into judgment with your servant,

for in your sight shall no man living be justified.”

Psalm 143:2

There is no way that man, on his own, can stand before God clean and acceptable.  Jesus said it this way: “With men, it is impossible” (Mk. 10:27).

Thankfully, that is not all that Jesus said.  Here is the whole sentence: “With men it is impossible, but not with God.  For with God all things are possible.”  In other words, with God’s help, men can stand clean and acceptable before Him.  Jesus suffered and died to make God’s help available to us, the help of the Spirit.  Without the Spirit, no man will be acceptable to God on the Day of Judgment.  But God will save those who receive the Spirit and walk in it.

Prisons

“Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise your name!”

Psalm 142:7a

There are many prisons in this life.  Sickness is a prison; fear is a prison; confusion is a prison; ignorance is a prison; being surrounded by people who slander and hate you is a prison; the human body itself is a prison; and death is a prison.  

The Son of God from heaven came into our prisons.  But the Father set him free from them all, and He promised the Son that he would be surrounded forever with the people who followed him out of the prisons of this life.  That precious promise thrilled the Son.  It is what the Son was speaking of in the last half of the verse quoted above, when he said to the Father, “The righteous shall compass me about, for you shall deal bountifully with me” (Ps. 142:7b).

Demons Love Holy, Joyous Singing

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.

Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

For there, they that carried us away captive required of us a song,

and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,

‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ ”

Psalm 137:1, 3

The wicked who take God’s people captive love their holy, joyous singing, and want to hear it.  The singing of the children of God reminds demons of the music they once heard in heaven before they were forever cast out.

A Living Testimony

“Let my prayer be set forth before you as incense,

and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

Psalm 141:2

This was the Son, asking the Father, for our sakes, to replace worship in ceremonies with worship in spirit and truth.  God answered His Son’s prayer, but for it to happen, the Son first had to come to earth and pay the awful price of the cross.

To worship in ceremonies denies that God ever answered the Son’s prayer.  Ceremonial worship is a testimony that the Son prayed that earnest prayer of Psalm 141:2 in vain.  But every time we worship in spirit and truth, we are part of God’s answer to the Son’s prayer, and living testimonies to God’s love for His Son.

If Our Life Is Good

“The upright shall dwell in your presence.”

Psalm 140:13

It is useless to spend time worrying about whether or not we will be saved in the end; that decision is not ours to make.  It is wiser to give our attention to how we live our lives.  If our lives are good in God’s sight, our eternal peace will be secured.

The Best Way To Cover Your Head

“O GOD the Lord, the strength of my salvation,

you have covered my head in the day of battle.

As for the head of those who compass me about,

let the mischief of their own lips cover them.”

Psalm 140:7, 9

To have God “cover your head” with His strength is to have Him protect you.  But He can also cover heads with trouble and sorrow by causing the ungodly to reap their sinful deeds.

The safest thing to do is to have Jesus as your head.  He will always be covered with God’s greatest blessings, for God has made him “most blessed forever” (Ps. 21:6).

Perfect Hatred

“Do not I hate them, O LORD, who hate you?

And am not I grieved with those who rise up against you?

I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.”

Psalm 139:21–22

Hatred, like anger, can be a holy thing.  After reproving the pastor in ancient Ephesus, Jesus told him that there was something about him that was pleasing to God; namely, “You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Rev. 2:6).

Pray for the wisdom to hate what God hates, and for the power to hate the way God hates.  His is perfect hatred.

Choose Good Companions

“You will surely slay the wicked, O God.

Depart from me, therefore, you bloody men!”

Psalm 139:19

God will indeed slay the wicked.  That is why it is not wise to have wicked companions.  Companions are those with whom you have such a close relationship that they influence you.

Show respect and do good to everyone, but choose your friends, your companions, carefully.  Solomon told us why: “He who walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Prov. 13:20).

The First Thing Created

“You created my inner parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

Psalm 139:13

The word translated “created” in this verse is not the usual word for “create”, but since God is the One doing the work, “create” is appropriate.

“Create” is also appropriate in Proverbs 8, where the Son of God is talking about how he came into being: “The LORD created me the beginning of His way, the first of His works.  I was anointed from eternity, before the beginning, before earth existed” (Prov. 8:22–23).

What wonderful things about our heavenly Father are revealed in the fact that in the beginning, of all the numberless possibilities available to Him, the first thing He created was somebody – a Son – to love!

He Knew You

“In your book all my members were written . . .

when as yet there was none of them.”

Psalm 139:16

The Son of God was declaring in this verse from Psalm 139 that God wrote the name of every member of the body of Christ in His Book of Life before there was a body of Christ.  In the New Testament, this is confirmed for us by John when he said the names of those who are in Christ were written in God’s Book before the world began (Rev. 13:8; 17:8).

God knew you, and loved you, and wrote your name in His book a very long time ago.  When you were born again into His family, He was very glad to finally have you actually be here.  It was His good pleasure to give you His Spirit.

The Rod of God

“For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous,

lest the righteous put forth their hands to iniquity.”

Psalm 125:3

It is always God’s chastening rod that is upon the righteous, not the rod of Satan, or of evil men.  If the wicked were in charge of chastening God’s children, they would be so abused that they would be driven to resort to measures that are not godly.   God chastises His children, not the wicked, and in doing so, He never goes too far or provokes His children to do evil.  David was comforted by God’s rod, not tormented by it.  He even sang a song about it: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.  Your rod and your staff they comfort me” (Ps. 23:1–2, 4).

Before the Gods

“I will praise you with my whole heart! 

Before the gods will I sing you praise!”

Psalm 138:1

The “gods” before whom David said he would sing praise to God were men who were in high positions on earth.  They were the wealthy rulers and judges in Israel.

Only a few are so consumed with love for God that they are not concerned with who is watching when it is time to pray or praise God.

Our Jerusalem

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Psalm 137:5--6

“But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.”

Galatians 4:26

“And I [John] saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,

coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.”

Revelation 21:2

Nothing in this world compares to our hope of entering the new Jerusalem.  It is so precious that many have given up their lives for it.  In everything you do or say, remember the new Jerusalem, a place of perfect peace and joy, where there is no sadness, pain, or death.

What a happy day it will be when we enter into God's beautiful new Jerusalem!

Becoming Like What You Worship

“The idols of the heathen are silver and gold,

the work of men’s hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak;

they have eyes, but they do not see;

they have ears, but they do not hear;

neither is there any breath in their mouths.

They that make them are like them;

so is every one that trusts in them.”

Psalm 135:15–18

You become like what you worship.  Your soul is shaped by the object of its praise.  Those who worship falsely become false.  Then, worship the true and living God so that you may become true, and live.