Our challenges today are many. We have competition with television and all the programs, commercials about this new medicine and that, and new names being created without number.
Today, we face many challenging situations and circumstances. Although, difficulties have always existed from the beginning featuring as headliners the deception of Eve and the disobedience of Adam.
Our first parents set a lasting trespass over us and cast a memory and shadow, which affects all of our lives until this day. God said that He saw from the beginning that man did evil even from his youth. We saw man consistently did want and continues to want to be God rather than recognize and acknowledge Him as “The Almighty God” to be heeded and obeyed.
This attitude of “desired supremacy” echoes throughout scriptures. God put Moses in charge, who accomplished the phenomenal commission and duty to free the Israelites from hundreds of years of slavery, and after Moses, God set judges as the governmental example to govern His people, who he called,“His chosen, special, peculiar people.”
One might say, why them? He told us that it was only because He loved them and foreseeing the future, it is because He loved us, too, and giving us the example to follow according to His commandments, His mercy, His lovingkindness and His grace by faith!
Today our faith is challenged daily and even sometimes, moment by moment. He set judges as examples of how to govern. But now, all who place our choice to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the door has been thrown open wide accessible to all who accept Him by faith!
No, there is no race involved here. All this about race is manmade and doesn’t align with God’s ways. No exceptions. We have access to our Savior to call on him at any time and any place. The door is not shut unless we decide to reject entering this open door of faith. He tells us, “I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it” except you yourself.
Now, let’s get back to talking about government. The religious authorities during Jesus time confronted Him with difficult questions to answer. They didn’t like His answers. Why? Because too many people don’t want truth. He brought home to them by speaking in parables.
Their eyes were blinded, choosing to reject. They choose to challenge God and find excuses and reasons, which in their own minds and hearts are good enough so that they can go their own way and do whatever they want to do. AND that’s okay, because it is their choice and option “to choose.”
However, there are dire consequences to go against and challenge “The Almighty God!” Any person who decides to reject accepting Jesus Christ as Savior is in devastating trouble and in for a destructive future because NO MAN has the power or authority to save!
That is unique to Jesus Christ because He is the Son of God. He is the only resurrected Savior and He has ascended and He will return. He offers today divine protection and security beyond words. But, we must call on HIM in faith.
When Samuel (the great prophet and judge) became old and his sons were disobedient and were scoundrels (even though they had been ordained to handle temple matters), the people told Samuel, “You are old and your sons are not worthy to carry on your duties in the same Godly manner as you have” because they were governed by God speaking through the prophets.
Samuel judged Israel and talked to God about decisions to be made. Samuel did not like the idea of making a king for the people and God did not like it either. What happened? God said, “Okay Samuel, listen to their desires. They are not rejecting you, they are rejecting me.”
This is a pivotal point in scriptural history because it marks the pattern of how people are today. God will oftentimes give us what we want, but there may be a price for it. All over and everywhere, people, citizens and nations have rejected God and continue to reject God. No worries, He sees all and He is watching. He knows who is accepting Him, obeying Him and He is watching.
Samuel said, “Okay, you can have a king.” The history of Saul as the first king of Israel and his tragic life are recorded in Samuel and Chronicles. After Saul died a tragic death in war at the hands of the Philistines, the kingdom passed to David and it was a monarchy. Samuel was the religious leader and Saul was the previous political leader before David.
Now, what do we have? We have what is a two-party system. There is no mention that I can see where there is a two-party system in the Bible. When the political leader accepts the leadership position, he cannot be also the religious leader.
As it is today, some political leaders want to trespass over and disregard the ordinances of the church which means, in my mind, that he wants to be the religious leader, too. Sounds like a dictatorship to me in the long run. When that happens, you can bet disaster lies ahead.
When any leader doesn’t set the right way to lead, the following will disintegrate or the attempt to install a different kind of government. It’s duplicitous. It cannot stand. The leader is making an open statement that he doesn’t want to follow God’s ways and the ordinances of the church and wants to make his own rules.
I ask you, “How can that stand?” It will crumble. People start thinking they can get away with whatever they want to get away with and nothing is beyond breaking the rules! Remember the tower of Babel. Did that stand? No. God made a pivotal decision and stopped it! The entity will implode.
Anyway, God decided to divest Saul of the perpetuity of his dynasty and took away his kingship as well. Saul was disobedient, unfaithful. He resorted to asking advice from the woman at Endor, (nowadays called a psychic). God equated his disobedience to stubbornness and idolatrous behavior.
And you know how God hates idolatry. Remember what He said, “Thou shall have NO OTHER gods before me.” What is God to do? He had to remove Saul. You can see why. It is a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the angry “God.”
AND judgment must begin at the house of God and if it first begins with us, where then will the unrighteous appear?? I ask you. Walk in love and accept Jesus. I urge you! Save yourself by faith through Jesus Christ. There is no other pathway.
Thanks for reading! Jeanette Grattan Parker is founder-superintendent of Today’s Fresh Start Charter School, 4514 Crenshaw Boulevard, L.A. 90043, 323-293-9826, www.todaysfreshstart.org (Ask Dr. Jeanette TM) Inquiring Minds Want to Know” All articles are copyright. All rights reserved © Errors? Let me know. Join Sundays for music & message: 11:30am {1-712-775-8971—code 266751} Keep praying and keep hoping.