I believe modern Christianity has been a sister to the Judaism of Malachi’s day. The priesthood had become lax and corrupt and much of the church leadership today has done the same. 

We will compare the setting of Malachi and the United States. After 1500 years, Israel had made no real progress. After 240 years, America has backslidden and rejected God as a nation. We have gone far from placing “In God we Trust” on the face of our money to moving it to the edge until soon, it won’t appear on our currency any longer. The founders of our great nation expressed deep strong faith in God even if not totally agreeing with one another on the details. I am reminded of a very important (Psalm 33:12) scripture “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord”. We often forget that Israel started out as a small traveling caravan with Abraham, a humble servant of God “going where God told him to go” (verse) to a recognized nation by every major country today. America had its humble beginning in the small settlement of Virginia when under the cruel edicts of the king of England (King George the third), broke free of English rule and proclaimed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as rights ordained of God for every living human being.

Now, congress believes the rights of the people are given by the government to be rescinded at will. Americans believe the proclamation of one God trespasses the rights of atheists; therefore we no longer acknowledge the presence of God publicly. The leadership of the country had failed just like the leadership of Israel.

The fall of Israel and America began with a rejection of God’s love

Mal 1:2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,

Jer 2:32 Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

It continued with the failed leadership

Mal 1:6 A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?

It spread to the people

Malachi 2:10, 17 profane the father’s covenant where is God

Mal 2:10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?

It ends with a promise and a warning

Mal 3:6-9 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (7) Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? (8) Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. (9) Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

America has fallen into the trap of secularism and has attributed its success to the intellect and ability of its founders. I believe the words of Malachi 3:7 and its inverse in Lev. 18:26-28 and 1Sa 10:19 apply today.

Lev 18:26-28 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (27) (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) (28) That the land spew not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you.

1Samuel 10:19 And ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations;…

Malachi 3:7 Return unto me, and I will return unto you…

The cry of God still echoes today, I just pray it’s not too late.

I am still struggling with my personal philosophy of life. I am both a Christian and an Objectivist. I believe that God is the objective standard by which we must gauge our lives.

I am baffled by the numerous schisms in the body of Christ. Some Christians say that all religions serve the same God; we just call him different names. I think that is the most anti-Christ statement I’ve ever heard. My Bible says there is only one true God (Deut. 6:4) with one true name – Jesus (Acts 4:12).

If I had not grown up a Christian, I don’t think I presently would be one, however,   I am not a Christian merely because I grew up one. I have worked hard at “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), yet, cannot rectify faith and reason. It is called faith because it has no proof, requiring one to believe without reason to believe.  If we abandon reason, we are forced to follow feeling, and become “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men” (Eph. 4:14) I believe we are rational beings who have been given the capacity to reason from our rational Creator and it is only through proper reasoning that all must live.

Howard Dayton said in his book Your Money Counts, “there are more verses related to giving than any other subject on money” (p.74). Financial stewardship is merely making decisions based on the knowledge that God owns everything. Once you realize that you are merely a steward of God’s resources, financial decisions are greatly simplified. There are three aspects to financial stewardship – Giving, Spending and Saving. The questions of ‘should I tithe’ or ‘how much should I save’ become much easier when we realize we are merely stewards using God’s money to further His purposes.

Get rich quick schemes don’t work. Period. Why are you trying, when it is God who supplies your needs. You may justify your actions by saying you are trying to put more money into God’s kingdom, when that is the problem. You. It is the Lord who gives everything (Job. 1:21). You can put more money into the kingdom if you will show God that you can be a wise steward with the money He has already given you, no matter how small or large that amount may be. God will see your wise stewardship and entrust you with more.

Philippians chapter four gives us good instruction concerning not only money, but also proper lifestyle. Paraphrased from the Message.

Keep living for God. Instead of worrying, pray about it! Stop focusing on your problems and focus on God’s goodness. Tell God what’s on your mind and soon, you will feel peace about the situation. Put into practice what you have learned and God will honor your discipline. Sometimes, God shows us needs in others so he can work through us, ministering out of the abundant blessings we have received. He doesn’t want His children fighting, work out your differences and stop holding grudges. The world is always striving, always seeking more and more wealth and not finding it, only disappointments immeasurable. The key to happiness is no matter how much or how little you have, be satisfied in God. Be happy in God and let him direct your path and He will bless you for following Him. It’s a win-win situation really. God provides and it flows through you to bless others, then God provides more.

Parable of the talents (Mat 25:14) Our money is probably one of our greatest spiritual indicators. It is neither good or evil, but can be used for either. It is a tool, used for God’s kingdom or satan’s. The phrase in 1 Tim. 6:10 is often misquoted as saying money is the root of all evil. What it actually says is

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Matthew 6:24 We cannot serve two masters God or mammon. Stewardship is the most important concept we can have about money. It’s not about how much our brother has or how little we have It’s about what we do with what we have been given.

God challenges us in Malachi 3:8 “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.”

King Manasseh was an evil ruler in the wake of King Hezekiah’s godly reign.  He was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 55 years. He did wickedly, instituting massive idolatry in the land and defiling the holy things.  Though he was young, he did these things knowingly, purposely (II Kings 21:6) to provoke the one true living God of heaven and earth, yet God allowed him the longest reign in history. I did some research on some of the idols, and found out there is still a thriving business today in the idols of old (http://www.hocuspocus.co.uk/index.html).  It is understandable the explicit warnings in Exodus and Deuteronomy:

Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Deut. 5:8-10

Those idols seem to just be cute little figurines, but how often I have seen women with large glass cabinets full of such figurines and how heartbroken and upset they become when one figurine is broken.  It is important for husbands to limit such idolatry in their own homes. Anyway, Manasseh allowed the whole nation to go astray with this until God finally had to humble him.  God allowed the Assyrians, also known as the Ninevites (http://www.nineveh.com/whoarewe.htm) to capture him and take him to Babylon where he was tortured.  Clarke’s commentary gives some interesting detail:

“For the Chaldeans made a brazen mule, pierced full of small holes, and put him within it, and kindled fires all around it; and when he was in this misery, he sought help of all the idols which he had made, but obtained none, for their (sic) were of no use. He therefore repented, and prayed before the Lord his God, and was greatly humbled in the sight of the Lord God of his fathers.”

Interestingly, there is an apocryphal transcript of his prayer at sacredtexts.org (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/apo/man001.htm#001)

Thus, Manasseh was allowed death bed repentance, but by then it was too late for his son. Amon not only did the same bad things as his father, but somehow, did worse! (2 Chron. 33:23)

Perhaps he did as many youth of today do and plan for repentance later.  Unfortunately, his servants conspired against him and killed him before he had the chance. (2 Chron. 33:24)

Amon’s son Josiah didn’t have a godly heritage to look back on. At least Amon could look at his father Manasseh’s repentance and decide for himself how he would live, but not Josiah.  Josiah began to rule an ungodly kingdom at the tender age of eight years old. He was tenderhearted like his ancestor David, and did that which was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).

That is, until the priests found a book (II Kings 22:10). King Josiah had begun a neighborhood renovation project, but after hearing the book of the law, began to remake his country according to God’s plan. He rebuilt the house of the Lord, read the law to the people, covenanted himself and the people to follow it and began to destroy the idolatry of the land.

Huldah the prophetess said that he would die in peace before he would see God’s judgement on the people (II Kings 22:20) however, he later died in battle at Megiddo (II Kings 23:29-30). He was at peace during his death because he had the comfort of knowing that now he would finally be with his God whom he had served since he was a child.

The Sermon on the Mount is probably Jesus’ best know sermon. It extends from Matthew chapter five through chapter seven. These chapters discuss our purpose in life along with general instruction, our relationship with God and our relationship with others. It is helpful to know some of the background of the period to understand Jesus’ purpose in speaking.   Since the time of Moses, people had become very legalistic in their approach to God. We begin to understand the extent of this legalism as we read through the text. Note: all verses are from Matthew unless otherwise noted.

Jesus begins with the Beatitudes (5:3-11) and introduces the concept of true worship (John 4:23). People took the law literally as a step-by-step guide on how to live and forgot their true purpose in worshipping God. The law had become a tradition and changed.   People no longer had a heart for God, but merely went through the motions of worship. This is why Jesus’ teachings caused such uproar! He had to explain that he hadn’t come to destroy the law, but to give full meaning (5:17). Jesus truly taught with flair! He didn’t say, “Just believe me because I say so” no, he gave them a valuable tool for finding truth. He said you know a man by his fruit, his character and by looking at the result of his teachings. If good things happen, believe him (7:16). The people had a choice as we do today, the narrow path to life or the wide one to destruction (7:13-14). He also says you are wise if you not only hear the teachings, but do them (7:24). There certainly would be a lot less trouble in the world if people would follow Jesus’ teachings.

Howard Dayton said in Your Money Counts, “there are more verses related to giving than any other subject on money” (p.74). It is interesting how your giving is a part of your relationship with God, and without it, your relationship is missing something. He wants a true relationship with his creation and will not share time, money or resources with anyone or anything else. We should give, pray and fast without trying to get sympathy or respect from others (6:1-18). Jesus said we can’t serve both God and money (6:24), but if we will put our treasure in the kingdom, our heart will also be in the kingdom (6:21). God desires not only to get money and time from us, but to give good things to us if we would just ask (7:7-11).  He truly is our heavenly Father.

Jesus taught that the second most important thing in this world is loving people (22:39), even our enemies (5:43-48)! One thing to help us along with this is to treat people the way we want them to treat us (7:12). Part of being a salt and light witness (5:13-16) is not holding a grudge against someone (5:21-30), even if they wrong us, we shouldn’t fight back (5:38) or criticize them (7:1-6).

The Bible teaches us many things, and it is interesting how Jesus clarifies the Old Testament teachings and shows God’s true intent - that the world might be saved through Jesus Christ.

Each of us has our life represented by a book.  The book begins at conception and ends at death.  The contents are filled with our daily activities, the things we spend our time on, the things we care about or are passionate about. Life changing events write a new chapter in each of our books.  Each of us will have a completed book whether we pass away in our twilight years at 70, 80, or 90 or in what we call an “untimely” death in our teens, early adulthood or childhood.  We all have a book.  It is hard to understand the death of a child.  I just stopped by a visitation for a friend of mine who just lost her grandson.  He was four years old.  His father accidentally ran him over with his motorcycle.  A truly tragic event in that family’s lives and one more completed book, but that isn’t the end.  Life does go on and we have our own books to fill.

I look around me and people live as though they have all the time in the world.  There are things they will do when they get around to it, just not right now.  We really aren’t guaranteed tomorrow or even the rest of today.  I choose to live my life in such a way as to have no regrets.  I don’t fear the “what-ifs”, I don’t believe in riding the fence or doing things half-heartedly – there’s no time for that!  I am a Christian because I choose to be.  Therefore, I choose to be the man of God He desires me to be.  What does God desire of me?  I ask Him that all the time and He answers me.  It is my reasonable service to live for Him after all he’s done and is doing for me. 

I don’t know when my book will end and you don’t know when your book will end, but we all die someday.  Isn’t it time you made the most of your time here on earth? The amazing thing though, is that we have some say as to what’s written in our books by the choices we make!

What do you want written in your book?

This past weekend, attended Promise Keepers in Peoria @ the Civic Center on Aug. 8-9.  It was really cool and I had the opportunity to meet some really nice people.  I volunteered as the asl (american sign language) supervisor, managing the deaf section.  I tried to find 3 certified male volunteer interpreters, but there are only 4 in the surrounding area.  Bill Mchie had a prior engagement and Dave Schmidt had back surgery, so they were out.  One other flat-out told me he "doesn't volunteer" and the last one never called me back.

So instead, two wonderful female interpreters helped me.  Martha Muller and Kelly Gulley.  They were so skilled and professional, I was really impressed!  We had two deaf men come and enjoy the event.  It really blesses me to see people worshipping and praising God, and to know I had some small part in that is amazing.   It is great that they have so many volunteer opportunities (around 800 different positions).  Normally it costs to get in, but because I volunteered, I got in for free and just had to do a little work and I was able to enjoy the event.  If you ever get the chance to go, whether as an attendee or volunteer, I strongly encourage you to. 

 

No luck yet with the house hunting, but that also depends on what job I get.  We decided not to move too far away yet, so we are staying in Illinois. I have a promising job offer in Bloomington, IL about 30 minutes away.

Earlier this month, we decided that we have to give away our dog (Pawpit) until we decide where to live.  This way if we have to live in an apartment for a while or something we can also, she has allergies and needs lots of care and medicines which are expensive! The house we are living in now has an extensive mold problem and we can't bring the baby here.
 Sad Pawpit.

My brother in law said he could help us out with Pawpit's expenses until we get moved so we can keep her a while!
 Happy Pawpit.

My wife and I are expecting our first child.  He is due December 7th, 2008 and we are very, very excited about him.  We are waiting to name him until we see him because I want to know if he looks more like one name than another.  I like Lucas Donovan and my wife likes Daniel Robert.  We'll just have to wait and see. 

We waited a long while for this little one.  We have been married for about six years now and had numerous doctor visits.  They found various problems that would cause difficulty, but nothing to exclude her from conceiving.  We found comfort in the fact that God is in control of everything.  Even if the doctors said we would never have children, if it's God's will, then we would.  Often times the Bible talks about barrenness and all it took was a woman of God to pray in faith, dedicating her unborn children to Him to make it happen.

It has been a different experience being a daddy.  I didn't really "feel" like I was a father until I saw the baby moving on the sonogram machine and could see the body parts.  It was amazing!  I have tried feeling the baby through my wife's stomach, but can't yet.  Other people can for some reason, so that's a little upsetting.  I think it's because I am a mechanic and have rough hands.  Maybe when she is further along I'll be able to feel something.

I picked up a few baby books and have been leafing through them.  They seem ok, but different books give different advice.  Which is right?  Oh well, I guess you just have to decide for yourself what's right.  Even different people have different advice. Some say lay them on their stomach, so if they puke it will drain out of their mouth, others say never lay a baby on their stomach, because it increases the risk of SIDS.  Whatever we decide though, we will listen to the pediatrician.  He should know best.

Do any of you have any advice for first time parents?  Please leave a comment.