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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Judges 21:25
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.
Was it any wonder, therefore, that they had so much trouble?
We saw it in the Garden; we saw it with Lot; we saw it with Jacob and Esau; throughout the early history of the Israelites and here it is again - unfortunately, it doesn’t stop here either. It’s a ‘Ring of Truth’ throughout the Bible and history in general.
With or without a king, people naturally want to do their own thing. Sadly, it is one of the reasons we have so many types of churches and even splits within those types today. Ironically, they all say they have the same King, too.
God created us as individuals and we thrive on our individuality, forgetting that God created us relational beings; firstly, to have a relationship with Him, the King, and secondly, with each other. That’s why 4 of the 10 Commandments are towards God and 6 are towards others.
Sure, as an individual, you can have an intimate and wonderful relationship with God - but God shows from Scripture that He doesn’t expect it to stop there. First, He gave us a spouse, then children, then extended families and then clans/ethnic groups and finally society. Nowhere does God visualise a hermit - a loner.
That is why solitary confinement is such an effective punishment. Deprive a person of relationship and they start to go mad unless they can draw on outside help by calling upon God for the first time or draw on their inner strength from a life given over to God already.
That is why the normal picture of Hell is wrong. It is not all the wicked together so much as all in solitary confinement forever, to bear their own torture alone with the added awesome dimension of never being able to call upon God for help or salvation. Hell’s biggest pain comes from total, eternal, separation from God. We don’t need to experience it - Christ did for us upon the cross when He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46)
God is a God of order and establishes clear lines of authority. We find it very difficult to accept or comprehend that, living in our western democracies. But democracy is not a Biblical system - it is a worldly system where we can all use our own will and discretion - where we all do as we see fit. (Values become relative and ever-changing for the worse.)
God works through His established authorities and we disobey, ignore or remove them at our own peril.
The Christian life is not about doing my own thing - as I see fit - it is about living and working ‘in community’ for the benefit of others.
We tend to be self-centred. God is ‘others’-centred. His people should be the same.
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