Posted on 01/12/2018 6:16:20 PM PST by metmom
"In [Christ] we have redemption through His blood" (Eph. 1:7, emphasis added).
Redeeming grace is free to us, but its cost to God is inestimable.
Sin is not a serious issue to most people. Our culture flaunts and peddles it in countless forms. Even Christians who would never think of committing certain sins will often allow themselves to be entertained by them through television, movies, music, and other media.
We sometimes flirt with sin but God hates it. The price He paid to redeem us from it speaks of the seriousness with which He views it. After all, we "were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold . . . but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ" (1 Pet. 1:18-19).
In Scripture the shedding of blood refers to violent physical death—whether of a sacrificial animal or of Christ Himself. Sin is so serious that without bloodshed, there is no forgiveness of sin in God's sight (Heb. 9:22).
The sacrificial animals in the Old Testament pictured Christ's sacrifice on the cross. That's why John the Baptist called Jesus "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). The Old Testament sacrifices were necessary but incomplete. Christ's sacrifice was perfect, complete, and once for all (Heb. 10:10). No further sacrifices are needed other than the "sacrifice of praise to God" for what He has done (Heb. 13:15) and our very lives in service to Him as "a living and holy sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1).
By His sacrifice Christ demonstrated not only God's hatred for sin, but also His great love for sinners. You could never redeem yourself, but Christ willingly paid the price with His own precious blood. He "gave Himself up for [you], an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma" (Eph. 5:2). His sacrifice was acceptable to the Father, so your redemption was paid in full. What magnanimous love and incredible grace!
Suggestions for Prayer
Worship God for His wonderful plan of salvation. Worship Christ for the enormous sacrifice He made on your behalf. Worship the Holy Spirit for applying Christ's sacrifice to your life and drawing you to Christ in saving faith. Ask God to help you guard your heart from flirting with sin.
For Further Study
Read 2 Samuel 11.
What circumstances led to David's sin with Bathsheba? How did David attempt to cover his sin? How did David finally deal with his sin (see Ps. 51)?
The worshipers of Molech burnt their children alive.
Now here is the God haters dilemma.
They criticize God for destroying the nations that practiced this hideous form of human sacrifice, claiming that GOD is the mass murderer for wiping out nations.
OTOH, if God did nothing to stop the practice, He would be criticized for not doing anything about it.
So they demand that God do something about it and when He does, they condemn it.
IOW, Nothing God does is good enough for them.
Which brings us to the point....
Those who are looking for excuses to reject God will find them, even if they are hypocritical in doing so.
So they deign to sit in judgment of God, as if they were better than He, and yet offer no suggestions of how to better deal with the situation.
So then the question arises.
If one of these God hating people were to be living next door to someone and listened to the screams of those children in the house next door as they were being tortured and abused.
What would they do?
Yes, he does. It isn't a matter of conception. The laws for slavery are there as plain as day. The commandment to commit genocide is there. If you take the Bible as the word of God, then you have his position on slavery and genocide. Now if you think those things are immoral then I get that you don't want to face this since it makes the practice of your religion problematic.
Like how slaves were to be set free during the year of Jubilee?
I don't have a problem with that.
Why do you?
Like how masters were supposed to care for their slaves and protect them?
As far as your claim of *genocide*, you still haven't answered the questions about ritual child sacrifice and what you would do if you lived next door to someone who was torturing and abusing their children.
Evasion duly noted.
You don't believe or like God. That's your prerogative.
However, understand this.
God does exist....you yourself confirm this with your argument.
He is just even though you may not think so.
He is Sovereign over all things and people.
One day you will have to stand before God and give an account of your life. If you are not a believer in the Son of God you will be judged and found guilty.
You will be cast into the Lake of Fire which is an eternal torment from which there is no escape or pardon.
The choice is yours to make.
You can choose to follow Jesus Christ or reject Jesus Christ.
The consequences are eternal.
They regulate it. They do not command people to take others as slaves.
The commandment to commit genocide is there.
There is no command to commit genocide.
If you take the Bible as the word of God, then you have his position on slavery and genocide.
His position on slavery.
Leviticus 25:8-12 “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field.
Leviticus 25:35-55 “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired worker. If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Now if you think those things are immoral then I get that you don't want to face this since it makes the practice of your religion problematic.
You never addressed the issue of the practices that the nations surrounding Israel were engaged in regard to child sacrifice and what to do about it.
But I get that you don't want to because then it would provide no opportunity to think that you could bring a charge of wrongdoing against God and thus prevent Him from holding you accountable for your own actions and life.
God does not command us to take slaves and He does not command us to commit genocide. The Israelites dealing with nations that burned their children alive does not make the practice of my *religion* problematic in any way.
Nor does God's humanitarian treatment of those who had the misfortune of falling into slavery.
Your attempts to bring charges of wrongdoing against God or Christians has failed.
No, they weren’t all freed after 7 years. Male Hebrews were freed only if single when purchased. Their children weren’t freed. And if they wanted to stay with their children after their term was up they had to become slaves for life.
Non Hebrew slaves were just property
I don't have a problem with that.
You should
Why do you?
Because slavery is immoral.
Like how masters were supposed to care for their slaves and protect them?
That you’re OK with this practice is chilling. I guess you’re just the kind that does what you’re told.
As far as your claim of *genocide*, you still haven't answered the questions about ritual child sacrifice and what you would do if you lived next door to someone who was torturing and abusing their children.
The PD is right around the corner. 30 seconds, tops.
As far as the Hebrews go, Abraham didn’t have a problem with child sacrifice which is flat out evil. God didn’t bother killing him for that. Hmm. Also, the text suggests that Hebrews did at some point practice ritual child sacrifice.
Because slavery is immoral.
On what basis? What is your basis for moral behavior since you reject God?
As far as the Hebrews go, Abraham didn’t have a problem with child sacrifice which is flat out evil.
Prove it.
Also, the text suggests that Hebrews did at some point practice ritual child sacrifice.
Them practicing it does not mean God condones it. God specifically prohibited the Israelites from adopting the practices of the surrounding nations.
They didn't listen so later God punished the Israelites for doing so.
Since you refuse to address the issue of the ritual child sacrifice practiced by those nations that God told Israel to kill off, then one can easily conclude that you are also opposed to capital punishment and you would oppose something like the Nuremberg Trials where the SS and Gestpo officers were tried and executed for their crimes of torture and abuse of people.
Apparently holding people accountable for crimes against humanity, or just outright murder and torture, doesn’t show up on your radar.
The amount of hubris you have displayed in your posts is breathtaking.
You have judged God and found Him wanting.
You have crammed Him into some make believe box you set up, decided how He and His followers should act, and then hold them accountable for behaving or not according to your opinion of how it should go down.
So just who are YOU that you think you have the right or authority to hold others accountable to yourself?
I don't answer to you. Nor does God.
As far as your original comment about God lightening up over sin, I'm sure you do wish He would.
I don't doubt that you'd like to get away with as much as possible without having to answer for it.
But then God would not be just if He did not punish sin. ALL of it.
However, if you really don't want to have to bear the responsibility of paying for your sins yourself, God provided the option of faith in Jesus.
All you need to do is repent of those sins and turn to Him and by faith accept the death He died as having been done in your place.
God will forgive you for the sake of Jesus, who took the payment/penalty of your sin and will pass it on to you, free of charge.
You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus.
Acts 10:34-43 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Hebrews 1:1-3 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
Bottom line ..... there is evil in the world and people who practice it which is why God raises up others to fight against it.
There’s a difference between a slave and a servant. Though true that the duties of slave and servant may overlap to some degree, there is a key ‘distinction’ between the two:...... servants are hired; slaves are owned....
... Servants have an element of freedom in ‘choosing’ whom they work for and what they do. The idea of servanthood maintains some level of self-autonomy and personal rights...... Slaves, on the other hand, have no freedom, autonomy, or rights.
In the Greco-Roman world, slaves were considered property, to the point that in the eyes of the law they were regarded as things rather than persons. To be someone’s slave was to be his possession, bound to obey his will without hesitation or argument
There are 613 commandments in the Bible. Commandments 596 (Deuteronomy 20:17), 597 (Deuteronomy 20:16) and 598 (Deuteronomy 25:19) REQUIRE the commission of genocide. In fact, 598 does not even stop at the original act of genocide. It actually requires Jews to kill all descendants of Amelek that they may encounter in the future. So, technically, all Jews alive today are still subject to this genocide requirement.
I am left to wonder how well you really know this stuff.
I know it plenty well.
So why would that be a problem for me practicing my religion?
And I notice that you still avoid answering the questions asked you about those nations and their of practice of child sacrifice and what to do about it.
So you’re big on criticizing God for *genocide*, as if there is no reason for it other than “because” and you offer nothing better as a solution to the child sacrifice those nations participated in.
You have failed in your effort to bring charges of wrongdoing against God.
But if that all satisfies you in your looking for an excuse to reject God as if you’re better than He, have at it.
Enjoy it while you can.
I don’t think you do. You have a preconceived notion of what you want to believe. You cherry pick the text to find passages that support that belief and you ignore the ones that don’t. You hold that belief either because it makes you feel good or because other people told you that you were going to be punished if you don’t agree with them.
So why would that be a problem for me practicing my religion?
Because your religion requires you to believe that an atrocity can be justified if a god says it’s OK.
And I notice that you still avoid answering the questions asked you about those nations and their of practice of child sacrifice and what to do about it. So you’re big on criticizing God for *genocide*, as if there is no reason for it other than “because” and you offer nothing better as a solution to the child sacrifice those nations participated in.
The Hebrews practiced child sacrifice. They did it because Yahweh commands them to do it in Exodus (13:2). Notice there is no distinction drawn here between babies and animals. The consecration (fire) awaits them both. A later addition to the text re-writes the command in an attempt to sanitize it. I guess the fear and extortion stops working after a while. The Abraham and Isaac story is an attempt to whitewash the original child sacrifice command.
You have failed in your effort to bring charges of wrongdoing against God.
The wrongdoers are the priests, scribes and hucksters who try to control and extort people with lies, fear and threats of future violence.
Oh, grow up! You want to nitpick Scripture but you don’t want to accept its premise:
“God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”—Ecclesiastes 7:29
Trace the Fall back to its source: Man (believing the Lie). All that’s left is for you to slander God for decreeing a CHOICE be made. Tread carefully.
You swallow the premise you have been spoon fed without examination of what the text actually says. You believe the parts that support what you desperately want to believe and you ignore the parts that don't support your preconceptions.
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