If you got lost in the woods what would be your best course
of action? It would be to first admit
you were lost (difficult for guys) and then to attempt to retrace your
steps. In retracing your steps you would
at least know that there was some point along the way in the past where you
weren't lost. You would at the very
least go back to where you began and there you weren't lost. The prophet says to Israel, do the same
thing. Admit your problem is that you
have sinned and go back to that beginning point of relationship. Confession and repentance, the literal
turning around and going back to a previous state before you made a wrong turn,
is how we are restored to a right relationship.
Here, they will take vows and make sacrifices because that was
required. We plead the blood of the
sacrifice of Jesus once offered and eternally accepted. Those actions restore not only relationship but
blessedness is the promise of God to the nation.
When we submit to a leader we need to know the character of
that leader and we need to know where the leader gets wisdom. Following an unregenerate man, a worldly
teacher, is futile if our ultimate destination is not worldly. That leader has a limited store of wisdom to
offer and has only that which is evil because it is of this sinful and broken
world. A leader who is unwilling to deal
with sin in his own life should not be attempting to fix someone else. There are two types of blindness, one by not
seeing the truth about the world and about God and the other where we believe we
see but our vision is obscured by something like sin. Either of these disqualifies that person as
someone I should follow. Instead, seek
that wisdom that comes from above and build on that foundation. All other ground is sinking sand.
With respect to Paul's not knowing that Annanais was chief
priest at the time we need to know one thing and remember another. The office changed hands regularly and
therefore unless you made the effort to keep up you might well not know who was
chief priest and Paul wasn't spending much time in Jerusalem worrying about who
was chief priest, such things no longer mattered to him. This mistake is one measure by which we can
see how completely Paul was converted. This
piece of knowledge was once something that would have concerned him greatly and
now he simply doesn't care. He does,
however, remember one thing, that he can create division on the council without
mentioning Jesus, all he had to do was mention resurrection generally and the
parties would go to war. Can you see
Paul's smile when it worked? Blind men
fighting with blind men, none of whom would accept the real truth about
resurrection, that Jesus was the canary in the coal mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment