DAILYWORD March 18, 2014 Jdg 10:15 And the children of Israel sayde vnto the Lorde, We haue sinned: doe thou vnto vs whatsoeuer please thee: onely we pray thee to deliuer vs this day. Jdg 10:16 Then they put away the strange gods from among them and serued the Lorde: and his soule was grieued for the miserie of Israel. Israel now finds herself, because of sin, again oppressed by the enemy, and severely so! The Philistines on the west and the Ammonites on the east “vexed and oppressed them.” These words may be translated “broke and crushed them.” In earlier days when serving one false god, they were oppressed but on one side. But now, serving a multitude of idols, they are oppressed on both sides. Sin has no stopping point, ever taking the person deeper into its clutches. Its aim is total destruction! But there was sufficient energy of life in Israel to bring out the cry of confession. To be conscious of misery is a sign of life. Because of the deceitfulness of the heart, and because of the deceitfulness of sin, bondage is accepted after a slight struggle; then, after a time, the slave becomes unconscious of the slavery. The confession, “We have sinned against You,” showed true Repentance, for it showed a sense of injury done to God, not merely sorrow because of the miseries that lay upon themselves. Remorse is not repentance—mental distress because of the painful results of sin is not repentance; but a sense of the grief and dishonor occasioned to God and sorrow because He has been sinned against—that is Repentance. David and Simon Magus illustrate true and false repentance. The one cried out, “I have sinned against the LORD.” His first thought was God and His Glory. The other said, “Pray for me that none of these things come upon me.” His first thought was himself and how to secure exemption from punishment (Ps. 51; Acts 8:24). True Repentance demands that the Believer repent not only of the bad that has been done, but the good as well. To be sure, it is a struggle of the flesh to repent of the good. The “good” is our crutch, our bargaining power with God; however, we must come to the place that we utterly realize that we have no bargaining power with God. Our only hope is to throw ourselves on His Mercy and Grace, confessing the evil and repenting of the good, i.e., “dependence on good things.” We must know that our only hope is Christ and what He has done for us at the Cross. Faith in that Finished Work always brings spiritual relief (Gal. 6:14).
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:11:49 +0000
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