Partial In Judging Ourselves


This week is Sanctity of Life Week. In my newsletter The Truth, I write about what it will take to finally defeat the scourge of abortion. This morning I want to look at a much deeper-seated issue than abortion; one that is personal for each of us.

As you look across our country you can identify many a problem with our nation. Wise men have said that these are merely the symptoms of the real cause of our problems in America. Many rightly ask, “How can we expect God to bless America when we murder 3,000 babies a day.” They say this is the deep-seated issue of our nation.

I’ve come to realize abortion too is a symptom of something much deeper in the soul of our nation.

We are an unrighteous people. And it is not our materialism, or abortion, or war, or any other actual symptom you might want to point to.

It simply comes down to our disobedience to God’s Word, which is sin. And when we have unrepented sin we are an unrighteous people. King Solomon wrote:

    “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the hearts. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.” (Proverbs 21:2-3)

Abortion is usually chosen because of an unwanted pregnancy. Unwanted pregnancies almost always come from fornication, sex outside of marriage. In God’s design, sex comes after marriage and children are a blessing from God.

Debt comes from covetousness in desiring your neighbor’s riches; wealth redistribution and huge credit card balances come from not wanting to wait on material goods. Some would say that politicians use wealth distribution as a political tool to gain political power by getting elected and reelected. Again, this is a symptom. Voters who want the ill-gotten gain the politicians promise are the problem. These politicians would disappear if these types of voters did not exist. God gave us the 10th Commandment last because the first nine are about our actions, while the 10th is about our attitude. If we get the 10th right many of the others will fall in place. This is why our LORD commanded:

    “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17)

America, and the church specifically, is a self-righteous people. Oh we do more good for the world than any other nation. I’m not apologizing or condemning the United States. But if we are to get to the deep-seated root of our nation’s woes, we must have an honest conversation. If we, as Christians, do not come to understand our unrighteousness, which is from our self-righteousness, we will continue to spiral downward as a nation. We are the generation, which is the seed of the past generation, of which Agur speaks:

    “There is a generation that curses its father, and does not bless its mother. There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, yet is not washed from its filthiness. There is a generation—oh, how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and whose fangs are like knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.” (Proverbs 30:11-14)

I pray, like so many of you do, that revival will come to our land. But who is it that needs reviving? It is we the church! So many claim this verse for our nation:

    “… if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

No doubt many of you have heard a sermon or two with that verse, but how many of you have heard “the rest of the story”?

    “But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.” (2 Chronicles 7:19-20)

We Christian men pray and pray for our nation, but too many of us fail to realize that in our disobedience and unrighteousness our prayers go unanswered. How many of us take seriously the position of pastor of our homes and treat our wives in a Biblical manner? Dear Brother, if you are not keeping the homefront right, no way you’re going to be as effective as the Lord intends you to be. If you want your prayers to be heard then treat your bride as Christ treats the church:

    “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” (1 Peter 3:7)

Please do not take this as a beating; allow the Holy Spirit to work in your life as I am trying to do so in mine. Remember that these devotionals are you eavesdropping on God’s conversations with me. I have been calling for our nation to become righteous all the while I’ve been looking at my own life with jaded eyes. Our old friend Matthew Henry puts it this way:

    “We are partial in judging ourselves and our actions. Many deceive themselves with a conceit that outward devotions will excuse unrighteousness. Sin is the pride, the ambition, the glory, the joy, and the business of wicked men.”

“Lord Jesus, help me to judge me and my actions not through my eyes but through Your Holy Word. Let not conceit excuse my unrighteousness. Reveal to me my sins so I may confess them to You Precious Jesus and repent from an unrighteous life. Amen.”

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2012 David Jeffers

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