Peddling the Word of God - Day 190 Through the Bible

Rose from a Fellow Believer's garden - near Mt. Celo Church

My Lessons and Applications from Today's Readings

Reforms for the Nation but Not for Self - 2 Chronicles 15 and 16 -  Asa set out to reform the nation - to cast out evil and re-establish worship and obedience of God.  The prophetic word is sent to the king - "Hear Me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin.  The LORD is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you." Then the reasons for constant war and no peace ("for God troubled them") are given - Israel has been without the true God for a long time...without a teaching priest...without the law, "but when in their trouble they turned to the LORD God of Israel and sought Him, He was found by them."  Asa's command:  "But you, be strong, and do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded." Asa removed the idols, restored the altar, removed his queen mother for idolatry, restored the removed things from the temple, and gathered all the people, and "they came over to him from Israel in great numbers when they saw the LORD was with him." Until the 35th year of his reign he had peace, and then Israel came against him.  Asa bribed Syria to go against Israel with him.  He won the war, but was plagued with war until the end of his reign 6 years later for not trusting the LORD in battle nor in his sickness that led to his death.

My Lessons and Applications - Like the majority of "good" kings before him (few in number), Asa tries to set the nation in order, but overlooks the need for his own personal reformation.  Note the personal as well as the national command from the prophet.  It wasn't enough for the nation to seek God; the king must do so as well.  Yet, in times of trouble (!), (exactly when he had the nation turn to God and experienced 35 years of peace) he - as king -  turned to an enemy nation with a bribe to stop the attack of Israel.  The prophet reminded Asa how God had routed the 1.3 million troops of Ethiopia when the king had called on him.  "Because you relied on the LORD, He delivered them into your hand.  For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him." Yet in this less dangerous threat the king relies on Syria - not on God, and the seer calls him "foolish". Asa's reaction is more revelatory of his spiritual condition (and often ours) than his original sin. Rather than repentance, he becomes "angry...enraged" with the truth-giver, throws him in prison, "and oppressed some of the people at that time."  He continued in this obstinate-defiant, enthronement of self - even on his deathbed - "he did not seek the LORD in his disease, but the physicians."

Reformed and Unreformed Hearts - Acts 16:1-21 - Paul has called Timothy to accompany him on his mission journeys.  They are "forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word to Asia", then they tried to go into Bithynia, "but the Spirit did not permit them."  Paul had a vision in which a man begged him to come to Macedonia to help them.  This brings the gospel into Europe for the first time and the opening of the heart by God of Lydia, a prominent businesswoman in the area.  It also brought forth a spirit of divination that was in a young girl, which manifested itself as the disciples went to prayer.  While the spirit testified that the apostles were of God and showed the way to salvation, Paul cast the spirit out of her.  The owners of the slave girl were using her divination - even its power to confirm the apostles and the gospel - for profit, and they were enraged that the money would no longer be there.  They seized Paul and Silas and had them imprisoned.

My Lessons and Applications - 2 Corinthians 2 (see below) quotes Paul jut before leaving for this Macedonian journey.  Several salient points are made here to me:  1) We must follow and accept the leading of the Holy Spirit.  When the doors were closed at that time to Asia, they were opened for Europe. 2) God opens the heart of the hearer to believe and to heed, just as He did with Lydia.  We are to give and to be the gospel, but only God can change hearts.  3) This is something that has been a quickening of the Spirit within me and will likely be seen as offensive by many, but... - the "hawking", "peddling" of the gospel - especially in modern-day evangelism - does not seem Biblical to me.  Some of the ministers who have been so faithful to the Word of God in the pulpit have begun selling their wares before, during and after messages or preaching for profit, as a source of income. I am reminded of Jesus cleansing the temple in anger with whips, for merchants making the house of God a temple of thieves - using God's Word for profit.  I believe that is why Paul was so "annoyed" with the spirit within the slave girl - even though it spoke the truth.  I often wonder how much purification would be done in the church if all non-profit status were waived, if no remuneration were given for preaching the Word.  The Bible teaches that we are now the temple of God.  How does this "peddling" of the Word to us affect our relationship with God?  What does it reveal about those who do that?  How does this affect our listening to the voice of God?  How does Jesus see this selling within and to His temple now?  Note the reaction of the owners to this loss of money and the consequences to the apostles in today's readings.

How to Listen to God (video) - Charles Stanley speaks of this in the Daily Principles Bible we are using in today's reading.  You might benefit from this YouTube message of his on this topic.

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.  For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.”  

2 Corinthians 2:14-17