March 2020 – Fraglen Inkwell Diaries

Listen Carefully

He said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes,

if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees,

I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.”

Exodus 15:26

“We, too, pass through the Red Sea,

through the desert,

across the Jordan into the promised land.

With Israel we fall into doubt and unbelief and through punishment and repentance experience again God’s help and faithfulness.

All this is not mere reverie but holy, godly reality.

We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of our God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there He still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together, p 53 Harper & Row 1954

Now Make Confession

March 26, 2020 jakin7

“And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.” Ezra 9:2b

When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled.

Ezra 9:3

Then,…I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my God and prayed:

“O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens.”

Ezra 9: 5,6

“But now, for a brief moment, the Lord our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place in his sanctuary, and so our God gives light to our eyes and a little relief in our bondage.”

Ezra 9:8

“But now, O our God, what can we say after this? For we have disregarded the commands you gave…”

Ezra 9:10,11

“What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this. “

Ezra 9:13

“Now make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his will.’

Ezra 10:11a

They Do Not Even Know How To Blush

March 25, 2020 jakin7

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,

and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that
cannot hold water.

Jeremiah 2:13

Have you not brought this on yourselves by forsaking
the Lord your God when he led you in the way?

Jeremiah 2:17

Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will
rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter
it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have
no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

Jeremiah 2:19

They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’ and to stone, ‘You
gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to me and not
their faces; yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come
and save us !’

Jeremiah 2:27

Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?

Jeremiah 2:28a

Let them come if they can save you when you are in trouble!

Jeremiah 2:28b

… ” ‘Return… ‘I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will not be angry forever.

Jeremiah 3:12

Only acknowledge your guilt- you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me,’ ” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:13

Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.

Jeremiah 3: 15

O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?

“You struck them, but they felt no pain; you crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.”

Jeremiah 5:3

“So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.”

But with one accord they too had broken off the yolk and torn off the bonds.

Jeremiah 5:5

“Should I not punish them for this?” declares the Lord. Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?

Jeremiah 5:9

” From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.

Jeremiah 6:13,14

Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even no how to blush.
So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them,” says the Lord.

Jeremiah 6:15

Hear, O earth: I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law.

Jeremiah 6: 19

“Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: ” ‘When men fall down, do they not get up? When a man turns away, does he not return?

Jeremiah 8:4

Why then have these people turned away?

Jeremiah 5:5a

I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right.
No one repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?”

Each pursues his own course like a horse charging into battle.

Jeremiah 8:6

Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons,

and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration.

But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.

Jeremiah 8:7

” ‘How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,”
when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?

Jeremiah 8:8

The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what kind of wisdom do they have?

Jeremiah 8:9

No one is like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power.

Jeremiah 10:6

Who should not revere you, O King of the nations? This is your due. Among all the wise men of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.

Jeremiah 10:7

They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols.

Jeremiah 10:8

But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King.

When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath.

Jeremiah 10:10

The Bride

March 22, 2020 jakin7

The Bride of Christ ought take her stand.
Her time is always, but particularly now.
If she doesn’t, she has no legs, no heart,
no brain, no voice, and no face.

Will the Bridegroom return for a ghost?
He will prepare her for His appearing.
The true Church will be made ready. God is
holy and will be glorified.

The true Church will prevail.

Walley

But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating
of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of
cattle that I hear?” I Samuel 15:14

Why did you not obey the Lord? I Samuel 15:19a

“But I did obey the Lord,” Saul said.” I went on
the mission the Lord assigned me. I Samuel 15:20 a,b

But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt
offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the
voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion
is the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of
idolatry. I Samuel 15: 22-23a

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight
in his commands. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is
steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Psalm 112:1b,7

All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations will bow down before him,
for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over all the
nations. Psalm 22: 27,28

Religious Tranquilizer

March 18, 2020 jakin7

But hear, O ye heavens, and be astonished, O earth, for a mighty derangement has occurred in the relative position of the church and the world, a transposition so radical and so grotesque as would not have been believed if it had been foretold but a few years ago.

The church has lost her testimony. She has no longer anything to say to the world.

Her once robust shout of assurance has faded away to an apologetic whisper.

She who one time went out to declare now goes out to inquire. Her dogmatic declaration has become a respectful suggestion, a word of religious advice, given with the understanding that it is after all only an opinion and not meant to sound bigoted….

But let us be more specific. About whom am I speaking here? The liberal who denies the authenticity of the Scriptures? I wish it were so. No, I write off the liberal as long dead and expect nothing from him.

It is of the evangelical church that I speak, and of the so-called gospel churches.

I speak of the theology of popular evangelism which quotes the Bible copiously but without one trace of authority,…

offers Christ as a religious tranquilizer who is without sovereignty and without any semblance of Lordship, …

I refer to the masses of Christians who have “accepted” Jesus, but who turn their churches into playhouses, are entirely ignorant of worship,

misunderstand the cross and are totally blind to the serious implications of discipleship.

…Christians in bondage have no authoritative message to declare…

But what is the church called to declare?…The first is that God is all in all. He is the great Reality which gives meaning to all other realities….

The next great fact is that we are made by God and for Him…

The Christian is not sent to argue or persuade, nor is he sent to prove or demonstrate; he is sent to declare “Thus saith the Lord.”…

…Seeing who God is and who we are, a right relationship between God and us is of vital importance.

That God should be glorified in us is so critically important that it stands in lonely grandeur, a moral imperative more compelling than any other which the human heart can acknowledge.

To bring ourselves into a place where God will be eternally pleased with us should be the first responsible act of every man.

There is one thing more: the Christian witness includes also the faithful warning that God is a just and holy Being who will not trifle with men nor allow them to trifle with Him.

He is long-suffering and waits patiently to be gracious, but after a while the friendly invitation of the gospel is withdrawn. The effort to persuade the incorrigible sinner is discontinued, death fixes the status of the man
who loved his sins and he is sent to the place of the rejected where there is for him no further hope.

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) from God Tells the Man Who Cares pp. 35-40

Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

To Stand Still

March 12, 2020 jakin7

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Ephesians 6:13

“In our struggle with Satan, we need to take our stand with Jesus, waiting for God to deliver us.

Charles Spurgeon wrote:
I dare say you will think it a very easy thing to stand still,

but it is one of the postures which a Christian soldier learns not without years of teaching. I find that marching and quick marching are much easier to God’s warriors than standing still.

It is, perhaps, the first thing we learn under the Captain of our salvation. The apostle seems to hint at this difficulty when he says, “Stand fast, and having done all, still stand.

To stand at ease in the mist of tribulation, shows a veteran spirit, long experience, and much grace.

It is hard to be still and wait for God. Our temptation is to run away, cry out in fear, or try to fix things on our own. Instead, God orders us to stand our ground.