Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Her lord rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine had fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up, and let’s get going!” but no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place. When he had come into his house, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, and divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the borders of Israel. It was so, that all who saw it said, “Such a deed has not been done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt to this day! Consider it, take counsel, and speak.””
(Judges 19:27-30)

“These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error; promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him. For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns to his own vomit again,” and “the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire.””
(2 Peter 2:17-22)

This section (chapter 19) is reminiscent of Lot’s experience in Sodom. What had once marked the Canaanites now marked the Israelites. They had taken their gods and their morals and followed them into depravity. No one fares well in this account. It’s heartbreaking. No one is protecting anyone. No one is taking the moral high ground. No one is willing to do the right thing. And in the end while the man gets the Nation caught up in righteous indignation, the way he does it reveals his own depravity. The people of Israel see this as the lowest point that they had come to – and they do not consult the Lord about it. All they do is talk about what THEY think THEY should do.

We can go through the motions of ceremonial purity, but if we are hanging onto the source of our defilement, nothing good will come of it. God is RIGHTEOUS. And He has called us to be like Him. Not to conform to this world, but to be TRANSFORMED by Him. By our knowledge of His Word. God judges justly. He didn’t spare rebellious angels. He didn’t spare a world that knew better yet still turned away from Him – in spite of warnings. He didn’t spare people so far into their own wilful sins that they didn’t care what the world around them thought about them. We are not under the Law, but the Great Day of Judgment is coming and we need to hold onto the Way of Righteousness so that we will stay aligned with the Lord and not give up the freedom we know to willfully and willingly reject God and His Way.

Summary

We are called to live properly. We are called into a relationship with the Lord. We are called to thrive on godly teaching, not every doctrine that humanity thinks up. We are called to stay in Jesus, remain on the straight Way, and rely on the Lord for our needs and our wants. When we stop hanging onto Jesus and what He taught us, we open ourselves to compromises and false doctrines. Holy Spirit lives inside us! We can ASK for wisdom. We can ASK for some commentary on what faces us. The Word is before us. We can hunker down and spend time learning it and about it. We don’t need to chase ancient books, modern thought, or AI interpretations. We have the Spirit of the Living God to ask. We can let ourselves be under God’s Lordship and rule. We can be corrected, guided, led, and encouraged. We can have a good spiritual life nested in Him. But we have to choose it. And we have to feed it with the Word.