Listening to the lessons of the Bible and looking for ways to please God

Yesterday and today’s readings (2 Kings 7-8, Lamentations 3-4, 1 Corinthians 16– 2 Corinthians 1-2) bring to us very practical chapters demonstrating how God knows the future but also how He is willing to share His knowledge with us so that we can prepare ourselves for the hard times to come.

In this week where aggressive Iranian actions in the Persian Gulf were very similar to harassment by Russian warplanes and ships to American vessels in the Black Sea, we also found a lot of talks on the way people should cloth themselves or should have bare skin, as well bringing in the light how a peace of cloth or piece of textile could bring fear over certain people and how racist our society is becoming.

Today there is in our regions still an abundance of food and lots of people should have no reason to complain, though others are facing more poverty by the day and in certain regions, like yesterday around Charleroi in Wallonia, having 7000 people loosing their job, because Caterpillar, which had tax advantages in Belgium and made a lot of gains, decided to leave the country, have all reason to fear the near future without better prospects.

Those being fired having to look for work also see the many immigrants coming into Belgium as competitors for the same job, and when those people also have an other religion and dare to clothe themselves differently they become even more irritated.

When we listen to the lessons of the bible we know that nations will end up fighting against nations, children arguing with their parents, religions standing up against each other.

A lesson for us which surely we have learned in view of the way aspects of prophecy about “the last days” have already been fulfilled – that we can be confident the rest will wonderfully come to pass – indeed, maybe very soon!
But we must be careful to distinguish between plain prophetical statements and those which are not so plain. Jeremiah in his ‘lamentations’ (3:37-41) has an appropriate comment;

Lamentations 3:37 The Scriptures 1998+ (37) Who was it that spoke, And it came to be! Has יהוה {Jehovah} not commanded it?

adding,

Lamentations 3:38 The Scriptures 1998+ (38) Do not the evils and the good Come out of the mouth of the Most High?

We have God’s Word to guide us and should know that it is the Word of that One Who does not tell lies, but also Who let us hear what came out of the mouth of the Ěl, יהוה {Jehovah} Most High, good and bad, and showed us how mankind used their own way of thinking to make their own way of living. Today it is not much different from those ancient days.

Those who love God, want to find Him and want to have a good relationship with Him are doing their best to know His Word and serve Him. But they all have different ways and follow different teachings. Also for that we should have an eye and should recognise that we may find real lovers of God in all sorts of religious groups. In the same way we may find different ideas of pleasing God. But mostly the common factor is that believers in God who sincerely love Him, the Most High Divine Creator, that they want to take distance of this present world. They have no aspirations to clothe and behave themselves in the way many today want to do.

In certain countries this created conflicts. Certain women who are loving God more than this world, prefer to cover their body before God. Their covering by many is considered a threat, strangely enough. Their garments, a nihab, hijab, niqab, and a burkini, seem to bring those who say we are living in a Christian nation, in fear of an islamisation, which would mean that those so called Christians could easily be converted by the behaviour of those women.

Should they than not wonder more how it can be possible that so many Westerners would come to believe the Quran and would prefer to become a member of that religious group that follows the prophet Mohammed?

They better also should listen to the prophet Jeremiah who asked to test and examine our ways, and return to the Only One True God, the Host of hosts and God of gods. In our Western nations we see that still most Christians adhere a false three-headed god instead of the One and Only One True Divine Creator, the same God or Allah as the Jews and Muslims worship.

But we also must see the danger that there, in the Muslim world, are also false teachers who want to give wrong ideas about people in the West. There are those who want their brethren and sisters to believe that all Christians worship a false god and believe in the Trinity. Others want to have them believe that all people in the West live a spoiled ungodly life, or that people in the West do not know how to behave and to keep certain matters private.

Today in Christendom as in the Islam we may find people who are under pressure by their surroundings or the world. We can find places where women are constantly under scrutiny by society or where people do think women can not think for themselves and have to be guided by men. Lots of women today may find that others want to take over from them and want to tell them what to dress or not how to be dressed, what to do or not to do or how to do it. There are those who say

“Hijab will protect you from rape!”

whilst others will say

“Hijab is intrinsically oppressive!”

French mayors dismiss suspended burqini ban — French resorts were defiant after a ban on the burqini in a Riviera town was overturned, vowing to keep the restrictions in place and continue imposing fines on women who wear the full-body swimsuit.

So many try to have others to believe they are oppressed but at the same time they themselves are forcing their views on those women.

At the same time Western and Eastern governments try to bring it so far that their citizens would not think for themselves any more. The inabilities to secure the citizens and the country is hidden by having the people focussing on bagatelles and on privacy matters of the different cultures living in that country. At the same time the people in charge of that country are forgetting that by doing so they themselves create the seed for division and internal disputes and even war, if they are not careful.

It is there were religious people have to step in and take action. They should show others the aims of the governing people and the dangers of imposing restrictions to others who live around us.

Those who are lovers of God should also lift up their hearts, and show their love for others by helping those who are in danger or humiliated or maltreated. Those lovers of God should show others the way to God but also the love of God and of his son to humanity.

In the New Testament we completed Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians – and verse 13 of the final chapter provides an appropriate concluding thought.

1 Corinthians 16:13 The Scriptures 1998+ (13) Watch, stand fast in the belief, be men, be strong.

Many may be tempted to go against those who have an other faith and an other way of living. As Christians though we should respect the other creatures and may not hurt them or do them any damage. At the moment we see that many women are humiliated and maltreated by western people who say they want freedom, but who themselves limit the freedom of those women who want to cover their body because they do find that an element of living their faith.

In the early times of Christianity there was also diversity of thought and many were opposing the apostle Paul. They too had to see that when persons like Timothy and Paul came, the community could be without fear.

1 Corinthians 16:11 The Scriptures 1998+ (11) Therefore let no one despise him. And send him forward in peace, so that he comes to me, for I am waiting for him with the brothers.

We should come to recognise those who love God and should give them our hand showing our brotherly love and showing that we do not fear them. When we would be fearful for those Muslims who sincerely follow the Quran and really love God, if we can not convince them of our love for God or should be fearful they would pull more people to their faith than we should wonder if our faith is enough grounded in the seed our teachers have sawn.

Paul feels the need to urge the Corinthians not to despise Timothy. Were they so blind as to not be able to discern a trustworthy brother by themselves? How are we seeing others today? Are we focussing on the wrong things so that we do not see that there are really people over there in our surroundings who sincerely want to love God and serve Him more than they want to please the world?

We should have an open eye for those who have a heart open for the Most Highest and should welcome them in our community to show them other ways than the world wants to force on them.

Today several ecclesia may not need others any more to join them or support them and may feel safe in their own cocoon, not wanting to interfere with what goes on outside their building. They are perhaps not seeing the danger of becoming institutionalised, complacent, and removed from the biting reality that we should be demonstrably different from those around but that we also still should go out into the world to protect those without a voice, those who are poor and/or maltreated and to show were the world goes wrongly.

If we notice that certain people want to bring other values than Christian values as the ones everybody should adhere to, we should show them those older less fashionable moral values are the better, and that those who want to cover their body have less reason to be opposed to than those who want to propagate their ‘libertarian’ values where any body may go to have sex with everybody as much as they like and where they like.

Today we find people shouting at Muslim women they should take on our Judeo Christian values, but they themselves do not love according to those Judeo Christian nor godly values.

As Christians and lovers of God we should show the atheists the reasons why they should allow people the freedom to cover their bodies. To those who want to cover their bodies and think others do not love God and are not interested in living according God’s Law, we also should show that there are many more lovers of God than they would think at first sight. To all we should show the works of God and should show how we best can comply to the Law of God.

In this time we should be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong and show that we are lovers of God, willing to show others the way to God.”

After we “test and examine our ways” let us commit ourselves to doing that.