Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Help Us
To Not Be Lost
In The Woods
Confused by the Devil’s Wiles and Smoke
That Obscures Your Light.
Psalm 119:43
Do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your ordinances.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
Words of Grace For Today
The time is coming, or it has arrived already, when society will fail, because “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
Of course this was said by Socrates who lived from 470 to 399 BC, more than just a few generations ago … and it has been true in many generations (among the privileged of the world) ever since.
The time is coming ….
In every generation about many and various failings of humans it is repeatedly said (as if it were said for the first time) For the time is coming when people will [and then fill in the sinful thing of humans since the beginning of time.]
Some people of all generations have always refused to put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they have accumulated for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and have turned away from listening to the truth and wandered away to myths.
The truth has always been knowable if one would humbly listen to God’s Word, provided to us in many and various ways, and most clearly in the old, old story of Jesus and his love.
The danger in life is that one not only refuses to acknowledge that disaster has been part of human history since forever, but one builds up habits of denying reality (when reality is something one does not want to deal with.) The danger of this refusal is that one chooses to remain ignorant about what history can teach us, and ignorant one acts stupidly and often dangerously for oneself and those effected by one’s actions (which can be those distant in place and in time!) The danger of denying reality when one does not want to deal with it is that one ‘allows the lion’ to consume one’s family and oneself, and more significantly, one loses the ability to see God’s reality: that God created everything and everyone, oneself included. With that one loses the ability to know anything real of God, and anything real about oneself. One is truly lost in the clutches of the Devil’s hell on earth.
One is then not only a danger to oneself, but to everyone!
So we pray: Do not take the word of truth utterly out of our mouths, for our hope is in your Word. Save us from seeking comfort for our itchy ears in myths and falsehoods. According to your promises to us, guide us and use us as vessels of your truth and grace which brings life to all people.