|
WHAT DOES GOD THINK OF WHAT YOU LOVE?
Few will take time during this hectic Christmas season to think seriously about what is really going on. People are just too busy to consider what God thinks about things. Church members are busy with programs, living nativity scenes, choirs and all sorts of religious fun this time of the year. But consider the principle Jesus laid down in Luke 16:15: “...for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” The dictionary definition of abomination is, “something regarded with disgust or hatred.” The principle stated by the Lord Jesus here is that God hates and is disgusted by those things that the world considers important and to which the world is devoted. Now “the world” is used in a multitude of ways in the Bible, but here it means those outside His sheep. Of His little traveling congregation of spiritual sheep Jesus said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you,” (John 15:19). And again in John 17:14 when praying to His Father said of this little church “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” (John 17:14-16). The Lord's true churches are most certainly not held in high esteem by the world. But a great many things are “highly esteemed among men.” Consider the things on which the population spends the most money – things beyond necessities. Lumped all together they can all be be seen to be pleasures. While some people take great pleasure in one thing, others are given over to near addiction to another, etc. So it is seen that the natural man is a pleasure-seeking animal bent on pleasing himself. Look around! You can compile your own list of those things that are “highly esteemed among men.” And when you have made your list of these things you can say as the Lord Jesus did, these things and such like things are an “abomination in the sight of God”! This preacher is well are that few will bother to read these few lines and fewer still will agree with them. How dare anyone to bring into suspicion the things that the majority of people hold dear and in which they take great pleasure! Old stick-in-the-mud! Old fogy! Bible thumper! Religious fanatic! Dinosaur! And worse names as these! But it matters not what either you or I say. What is important is what God says: and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, said, “...that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” |
