Archive for the ‘Devotionals’ Category

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts. 2 Peter 3:3

We are getting perilously close to a time of terrible judgment in our nation. How do we know this? Because when God judges nations, He follows a specific pattern. And we in our land have entered into the final stage of God’s pattern for judgment. Our text identifies it as the last days, or the day of the scoffers.

The first stage of judgment is God recognizing that a nation has given itself over totally to sinfulness. We see this pattern in God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 that his descendants would inhabit the land that he was living in as a stranger and wanderer. Those descendants would be used by God to punish the Amorites for their sinfulness. But it would take awhile, because the sinfulness of the Amorites had not reached God’s breaking point: ‘But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full’ (Genesis 15:16). The word translated ‘full’ carries the meaning of friendliness or friendship. This refers to the open embracing of sinfulness by a nation. This goes beyond merely allowing or condoning sinfulness, but accepting it as the common and acceptable form of behaviour. Do you see how this can apply to our nation today? We saw what happened in Genesis 19, when Sodom and Gomorrah were entirely given over to their abominable lifestyles; God’s judgment was swift and total. Their cup of iniquity was full and overflowing, just as we can see around us today.

God’s pattern of judgment also identifies the rising up of scoffers, those who deny God and mock His Word. Those scoffers are all around us today. They mock God by rejecting the Biblical record of creation, substituting for it the nonsense of evolution. They mock God by rejecting His declaration of the sanctity of life  by endorsing the wholesale slaughter of unborn children. They mock God by passing laws that not only allow but encourage and embrace the open practice of homosexuality, which God has declared as an abomination. They mock God by promoting satanic New Age doctrines and practices that make a mockery of the Word of God. And these are just the most prominent of the scoffers. There is an entire society out there today that rejects any notion of God as being relevant to them and their lives.

Before executing judgment, God always sends messengers to warn of destruction, as He did with Sodom, with the Amorites, and with the Israelites down through their history of idolatry and departure as recorded in the Old Testament. It is when the scoffers reject the messengers that God moves in judgment. Watch for them, the messengers are coming. Will it be before the Rapture? Maybe. – Jim MacIntosh

This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. 2 Peter 3:1

Our text appears as a link between two great topics in this epistle. The first topic, which Peter explores at length in Chapter 2, is the description of the great evil of the false teachers that would come among the Lord’s people to destroy them and lead them astray. These were totally false, and Peter condemns them utterly, warning his readers against them. The second great topic, in the next verse, is the identification of the Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, that make up the Word of God. In today’s text, Peter tells us the purpose of not only this epistle, but of his previous epistle written a couple of years earlier. His purpose is to use the vehicle of remembrance to stir up the pure minds of the Christians.

We use remembrance to enable us to function effectively in our everyday lives. For example, we move about our homes and workplaces by memory, and most of us could easily do so in the dark if needed. We drive our cars by memory, almost unconsciously following the steps to safe and effective travel. But nowhere is memory more important than in spiritual matters. The joy of our salvation is renewed every morning as we remember God’s dealing with us to bring us to repentance and faith in Christ. Our hope is restored each day as we recall the great promises of God that we have explored in the reading of His Word. Our appreciation of the work of redemption completed for us by the Lord Jesus on the cross is refreshed each Lord’s Day as we eat the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of His death. Remembering is a very important element of our Christian attitude and our walk.

By frequent reading of the Scriptures, many portions will become very familiar to us. And those that we have appreciated and received help from should be committed to memory. If remembering the Word of God is so important, we should devote considerable effort to it. That is why Sunday School teachers assign memory verses to their students, so that the children will have the Word of God in their minds. Most of us can still recall and recite those memory verse of early days. But we should also be able to recite verses, and sections of verses, that we have learned since then. David speaks of the importance of memorizing the Scriptures when he says ‘Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee’ (Psalm 119:11). A good help in memorizing the Scriptures is to always use the King James Version, which has a built-in cadence for memorization, a cadence that no other version has. You can memorize so much more and so much better by using the KJV. And when you recite it, everybody will know you are quoting the Bible, and not just something that you picked up from another book or person.

There is no greater use for our memory than to review all that our God has done, is doing, and will do for us. And there is no better way to do that than to flood our memory banks with the Word of God. – Jim MacIntosh

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. 2 Peter 2:9

During a heart-to-heart talk with an older Christian, a young Christian confided that he often doubted his salvation, because he encountered so many temptations. He pointed to our text today and said that if the Lord delivers the godly from temptation, maybe he wasn’t one of the godly. Wisely, the older saint reminded him that our text doesn’t say that the Lord will keep us from encountering temptations, but that the Lord knows how to deliver us out of the temptations that we do encounter. In fact, he reminded the younger Christian, the fact that he was encountering temptations was proof that he was truly saved. More than that, temptations actually do us good, if we approach them correctly: ‘My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience’ (James 1:2-3). In fact, the Scriptures have much to say about our temptations.

First of all, we are told that there is nothing unusual about encountering temptations and trials: ‘Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you’ (1 Peter 4:12). Our temptations come with a promise from God that He will never allow anything that we can’t handle: ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it’ (1 Corinthians 10:13). Another great promise from God is that He will give us the strength and grace we need: ‘And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). You and I may not appreciate our trials and temptations, but they are actually very precious to our Lord: ‘That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 1:7). Perhaps best of all, God has huge rewards, even a crown, for all those who endure tribulations as we should: ‘Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him’ (James 1:12).

Don’t be too downhearted when the temptations come. Just look into the Book for a reason to rejoice in them. – Jim MacIntosh

And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. 2 Peter 2:7

When you and I get to Heaven, we will find Lot there! That may come as a bit of a surprise when we view the record of Lot in the book of Genesis. He made some huge mistakes and displayed some poor judgment, and ended his days in a huge disgrace. He is often pointed to as a prime example of how to make a failure of living. Without making too many excuses for poor Lot, I would like to examine how this Old Testament saint is far more like you and me than we realize!

We will not find Lot’s name mentioned in Faith’s Hall of Fame, as recorded in Hebrews 11. His uncle Abraham is there, one of the greatest faith heroes of all time. And against his uncle, Lot’s faith looks pretty tiny and poorly developed. But he was a man of faith; he actually did leave the comforts of Ur and of Haran and accompany Abraham to the promised land. In this he showed more faith than his sister Milcah, for example, who chose not to go. Very few Christians today are huge in their faith, capable of stepping out for God like Abraham did. But there was a time when we acted in faith, trusting Christ as Saviour and Lord. And since then, we have acted in faith in many circumstances. Giants of faith we are not, but there is a measure of faith in our lives, just like Lot.

We live in a day that is more like the days of Sodom and Gomorrah than at just about any other time in history. The sins that engulfed and damned those cities engulf and will damn our society today. Although Lot lived among those people, their filthy lifestyle vexed his soul; it really bothered him. He knew it was wrong and was disgusted by it. Can we say the same for ourselves today? In the same type of environment, in which the world takes ‘pride’ in that which God calls an abomination, does it bother us and cause us grief? Or do we shrug it off and lose our sense of disgust at the filthiness of this evil lifestyle? Are we any better than Lot was in this regard?

We are not sure why Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom (Genesis 13:10-12). Hindsight shows it was a mistake, but at the time, he saw the good prospects for his flocks and herds. It just made good business sense to move in that direction. How many of us make major life decisions based on our perception of the bottom line? Too many Christians choose the same path that Lot did, the path that would provide the most profit for him and his family.

Why did Lot get involved in the civic politics of Sodom? We can’t be sure that it was mere pride. I would like to think that Lot became a city councillor because of his desire to help make the city a better place. That would be a good motive, even though it was a wrong approach. You and I will never improve this rotten old sinful world by getting involved in its politics and affairs. But we all know Christians who try, and it never helps their testimony for the Lord, any more than it helped Lot.

The bottom line is that, despite all of his mistakes and poor judgment, God delivered just Lot. Just like He delivers us too, despite our poor record of faith and service. But like Lot, we have the opportunity to be like his uncle Abraham, if only we would put the Lord’s things first. -Jim MacIntosh

And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 2 Peter 2:2

In 2003, an American author, Kimberly Blaker, wrote a book called ‘The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America’. In this book, she accused conservative fundamentalist Christians in America of indoctrinating young people with ‘oppressive views of women, minorities, and LGBT persons through mind-control tactics and intimidation’. At the time Blaker wrote her book, her views were considered radical and outside societal norms. But that has changed. Blaker and many others like her have succeeded in getting their devious message across to the American public. Opinion polls now show 83 percent of people believe it was wrong for Christian bakers to refuse to provide a homosexual couple with a ‘wedding’ cake that had a message that promotes same-sex marriage. The majority also believe it is wrong for Christians to take a public stand against any form of homosexuality, immorality, abortion, and so forth. But they don’t have the same problem with anyone taking a stand against Christians, the Bible, and morality. Growing numbers of influential people are attacking Christians as troublemakers and opponents of ‘progress’ in society. We are living in a day in which the way of truth is evil spoken of. And many are following those who teach it, just as our text says.

What we are seeing today is not new. Christians in the early centuries were often branded as troublemakers. When Paul and Barnabas preached the Gospel in Antioch, in Iconium, and in Lystra, they triggered a violent demonstration against the Christians (Acts 13 and 14). Christians in second-century Rome were accused of being arsonists and were savagely persecuted. During the centuries in which papacy ruled the so-called Christian world, little bands and communities of true believers were stamped as evil heretics and were quickly slaughtered. So we should not be surprised at the way in which the false teachers of today have twisted the minds of the people to view us as those in the wrong. This reality confronts us with two great challenges.

The first challenge is to understand the pernicious ways of those who falsely accuse us of evil, and not be fooled by them. Just because those around us accept the lies is no reason for us to question or doubt the Word of God and its firm declarations of truth and godliness. Lies will never become truth nor will evil ever be good just because they are accepted by the majority. The second challenge is for us to take a stand on that which the Bible declares. This will mean paying a cost for what we believe. Christians already are ridiculed and mocked for our beliefs. Some are already being persecuted for refusing to go along with evil practices. More and more of us will also face real persecution in the days that lie ahead.

What is our response when the way of truth is evil spoken of? – Jim MacIntosh

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 Peter 2:1

Our text has some strong language as it talks about the false teachers. Peter felt very strongly about these evil people who were doing so much damage to the work of God. The words ‘damnable’ and ‘swift destruction’ are not words that any Christian – and especially Peter – would use lightly. But Peter uses them here. And if we dig a little deeper, we will find ‘damnable’ and ‘destruction’ to be the same word. What a deeply serious thing it is for anyone to take upon themselves to teach false doctrines! And there is a huge warning here, because Peter tells us that these false teachers will be among us. And they will work privily, which means using sneaky and devious tactics.

One of the false teachers’ most successful tactics is to question the Bible’s record of creation. Because the world either rejects or dismisses God as relevant, the world has no problem accepting the lies of the evolutionists. But there is a theory that some Christians agree with and even teach, that says God initiated creation billions of years ago and allowed it to evolve into what we have today. That disagrees with Genesis 1, and it disagrees with the overwhelming evidence produced by creation scientists and researchers. It’s nothing but the false teachers’ sneaky way of asking ‘Yea hath God…?’ By questioning Christ as Creator, the false teachers enable the questioning of God’s Word as accurate, Jesus Christ as God incarnate, and Christ’s redemptive work as sufficient. And that’s just the start.

Another of the devious tactics of false teachers is to bring in among the Lord’s people Bibles that differ from what the apostles delivered to us. Most of the modern-language Bibles in use today are based on a set of manuscripts known as the Alexandrian text. These manuscripts, corrupted by so-called scholars in the early centuries, disagree in many points with the manuscripts used for the Textus Receptus, the Majority (95 percent of all manuscripts) text used by the King James Version translators. They also disagree among themselves, but they don’t talk about that. Their work is just a thin edge of another wedge to water down the doctrines on which our faith is based.

One of the attributes of God that is prominent throughout the Scriptures is His holiness. Over and over we read of the absolute holiness that God requires to meet His standard. But the false teachers of today would shrug off that aspect of God, declaring Him to be a loving Father Who will overlook the indiscretions of people. They downplay God’s declaration that fornication, homosexuality, and other vile practices are sinful and wrong. Young people are especially vulnerable to this false doctrine, but it can affect any of us.

The sneaky lies of the false teachers will produce nothing but destruction. May it not be the destruction of the testimonies of God’s dear people! – Jim MacIntosh

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 2 Peter 1:20,21

Oh, how the Roman Catholics loved to recite the first part of our text, verse 20, during the centuries of the Middle Ages! They used this verse to keep the Bible out of the hands of the laity, insisting that only the clergy, under the direction of the pope, had the authority to read and apply the Scriptures. There are also people today who will use this verse to declare that it is wrong for the ordinary person to study the Scriptures. Those people fail to point out that the private interpretation that this text is speaking of is not the interpretation of the readers of the Scriptures, but of the writers of the Scriptures.

It is absolutely true that you and I cannot interpret the Scriptures to suit our own ideas or agendas. What the Bible declares for one, it declares for all, and what it says for one does not change when it speaks to others. It is because the Word of God is absolute in its meaning that we can study and explore it, to learn as much as we can of it. Godly Bible students will often disagree about what the Bible intends in certain portions. But those same godly students will also agree that their personal views are often the product of personalities and backgrounds. But truth is truth, and we will find that truth if we rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us what the Bible says and means. That’s because it was the Holy Spirit Who guided the writers to pen that truth.

The second part of our text – verse 21 – is the explanation of the prophecy of the Scripture being of no private interpretation. It is telling us that no prophet of the Old Testament came up with his own ideas about the future. Those holy men of God must often have failed to grasp the meaning of the words they were writing. But they wrote. And their words did not come from themselves but from the One Who was moving them. Daniel was such an example. He knew he was writing of great things to come, but confessed that he did not understand it all: ‘And I heard but I understood not, then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?’ (Daniel 12:8) Today, Bible scholars look into the book of Daniel and use it in light of other revelations to see that what Daniel wrote fits perfectly with what the Holy Spirit guided others to write. He has given to us a Book of absolute harmony and unchanging and unchangeable truth.

We hold an amazing Book in our hands today, a message from God to men, not an interpretation by men about God. – Jim MacIntosh

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. 2 Peter 1:19

Several years ago, I was watching the steady upward trend of the Dow Jones Industrial index, and made the observation that we had seen the last of the low numbers of a few months earlier. I was wrong! Within weeks, recession had struck and stock markets tanked, wiping out all of the gains of several years. Another time, I was checking the track of a hurricane in the Caribbean, and noted that it was veering to the northeast. I observed that our area would be spared any impact of that storm. I was wrong! The hurricane changed course and within a couple of days, we were experiencing heavy rains that destroyed much of our recent landscaping efforts. Whether we are talking about financial trends, weather patterns, disease outbreaks, or conflicts among nations, one thing remains constant: the inability to predict the outcome with any amount of certainty. We simply cannot rely on what people think is going to happen. That is why we stand in awe at the Word of God. Its predictions are – and always have been – perfectly accurate and totally dependable.

Old Testament prophecies concerning the Lord Jesus have been fulfilled, proving the accuracy of those prophecies. The descriptions of the seven ages of Christianity, as foretold in the seven messages to the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3 have proven accurate, as have many other of the prophecies in the Book. With this record of accuracy until now, we can be confident that the prophecies concerning the future will also come to pass just as it is recorded.

Do we take heed to the Bible’s prophecy, as Peter tells us we should? We have the admonition that we need to be working, waiting, and watching for our Lord’s return. Our lives will be worthwhile if we live them in light of the imminent return of our Lord and the rapture of His people. We can also live in confidence that many of the fears that grip our world are actually under God’s total control. For example, the world spends untold billions every day to prevent catastrophic destruction from global warming, a catastrophe that Scripture makes clear is not going to happen. The takeover of the world by Islam, one of the current fears, is also not going to happen, just like world domination by Communism, a dire threat of a few decades ago, did not and could not happen. If we examine the events and trends of the world in light of the Word of God, the more sure word of prophecy, we can rest in knowing that the world simply does not know, but God does.

Don’t worry today about what is going to happen. And don’t listen to the scaremongers of the world. Find out what the Bible says, and relax in knowing that the Word of God is the more sure word of prophecy. -Jim MacIntosh

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 2 Peter 1:16

During a chat with my grandson, he mentioned some of the things that a couple of his schoolmates believe. Their families are members of a cult, and their ideas differ sharply from ours. As we talked, Robert asked a very important question, a question that our text today answers very well: ‘How do we know that what we believe is right and that what they believe is wrong?’ How would you answer that question if someone were to ask? How do you answer that question when you wonder about it yourself? It’s critical that we know the difference between truth and error; our eternal destiny depends on it.

As Peter notes, we do not follow cunningly devised fables. But the cults do. Like us, they claim to follow what the Bible teaches. But the JWs, for example, wrote their own perversion of the Bible to correspond with their own false doctrines. How deep will be their damnation for deliberately falsifying the Word of God! And the Mormons insist that their books written by Joseph Smith are as valid as the Bible, even though those writings have been proven to be deliberate lies. So have the teachings of Mohammed and the nonsense that he claimed to have revealed to him by an angel in a cave. These and other false doctrines have a common theme despite their differences. They all deny the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The power of the Lord Jesus Christ refers to His deity. The Scriptures clearly teach that He is the eternal Son of the Eternal God, the Alpha and Omega, the Ancient of Days, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He displayed that power during His life, in his control of the wind and waves of Galilee, of His victory over all the diseases and infirmities that people brought to Him, in His ability to transform a lad’s lunch into a banquet for thousands. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ refers to His fulfilment of God’s promise of a Messiah, of the fulfilment of everything that God had declared He would do to redeem lost sinners. The four Gospel writers declare unto us how He came into this world, lived a perfect life, and died a vicarious death for us on the cross of Calvary. These things are paramount and precious to us who have trusted in Him as our Lord and Saviour. So, how do we know it is all true?

Peter declares that he and others who have passed on the Gospel to us were eyewitnesses. Peter and the other disciples spent three years in Jesus’ company. Some of them actually beheld His glory and majesty on the Mount of Transfiguration. They saw the miracles, they heard His preaching, they walked and dined and conversed with Him on a daily basis, and they participated in the events leading up to the cross, watched with heavy hearts the events surrounding His crucifixion and death, and rejoiced when the resurrected Christ appeared to them. We believe the evidence of eyewitnesses. We believe the words spoken to us by men who died for what they knew to be the truth.

Our faith is well founded on the truth, passed onto us by truthful men who knew and loved the same Saviour that we know and love today. – Jim MacIntosh

Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. 2 Peter 1:14

For a couple of months, a large tarp hid from public view the construction of a new cafe on Main Street. As work on the project continued, passers-by could only guess as to what the builders were doing behind that tarp. Some graffiti artists had even drawn some rough sketches of what they thought was behind that tarp, but nobody except the construction crew really knew. Then one day, the project owner announced a time for the unveiling ceremony. He and some local dignitaries gathered at the site, and, after some fancy words were said, the owner’s wife pulled a rope, and the tarp fell to the ground. There for all to see was a lovely structure that caused the audience to gasp and applaud. It far exceeded the guesses and expectations of those who had wondered what was being built. And it was certainly much better than the graffiti on the old tarp that had been hanging there. It was a bit like putting off the old tabernacle that Peter talks about in our text today.

Peter’s reference to a tabernacle, or tent, reminds us of the temporary nature of our bodies. You wouldn’t know they were temporary by the way that some women (and a few men, too) slather them with cosmetics, by the way that some would-be athletes put great efforts into building up muscle mass, by the way that many folks pour constant dollars into clothing and tattoos and jewellery. As Christians, we recognize that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are not to defile that temple (1 Corinthians 3:17). That is why we don’t drink or smoke or use illicit drugs, and why it is a sin for any Christian with a lactose or gluten intolerance to eat dairy or wheat products, because these do harm to the temple. But we need to be careful that we maintain a proper perspective on the temporary nature of our use of these bodies. For the unsaved, this life and their temporal bodies are all they have, and so are very important to them. But you and I are just wearing a temporary tabernacle that will soon be replaced with that which is eternal and glorious.

A brother-in-law once told me that if we knew what Heaven is like, we would all commit suicide to get there as quickly as possible. Maybe so. The Bible doesn’t go into much detail about Heaven in regard to such things as our bodies, our activities, our surroundings, and so on. But the apostle Paul understood something about it when he spoke of ‘having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better’ (Philippians 1:23). So if departing this world and entering the next is to Peter merely the shedding of the old tabernacle, and to Paul ‘far better’, it should not cause any dread or concern for you and me.

The word ‘shortly’ in our text is actually the word for suddenly. You and I are going to be changed, whether by death or by the Rapture, into that which is far more wonderful than we can imagine. – Jim MacIntosh