From the Chapel Glen Church of Christ Bulletin: IT SEEMS LIKE A SMALL THING “And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?”- Isaiah 7:13 By Glen Owens October 27, 2013 To some people the study of the Old Testament is boring and tedious; however, this is not the attitude of the writers of the New Testament. “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Rom. 15:4) Paul wrote in Gal. 3:24 that the law (of Moses) was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. Hebrews 11 gives us a listing of the Old Testament people who were noted for their faith. Chapter 12 begins with this warning: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” It is important for us to know the stories behind the people mentioned as having faith so that we can follow their example. There are many warnings in the bible about our sins robbing us of eternal life with Christ in heaven. Hebrews 12:16 mentions Esau who sold his birthright for one morsel of meat. He entered a plea with his father but to no avail. He had lost his birthright. Jesus gave warnings in Mt. 7:21-23 and 25:41-46 that many will believe they have a right to eternal life but that they lived a life on earth that did not deserve to be rewarded with eternal life. A review of many stories in the Old Testament might cause us to believe that God was very short with those who sinned. The Lord said in Ezek. 18:4 & 20 that the soul that sins shall die. These are very terse words without any conditions attached to them. We will mention some of the instances in the Old Testament where God gave a person one chance and he punished them for that sin. How many times did Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit before God drove them out of the Garden? Genesis 3 tells of only one time that they ate of the fruit before God punished them. In the next chapter, Cain killed Abel and he was punished for that sin. God chose Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt and he was with Moses through many trials. Moses was almost to the Promised Land when he made a grave mistake. During the trip, the people were constantly murmuring against Moses for one reason or another. This of course grated on his nerves. At last, he could take it no longer when they complained for lack of water. Numbers 20:2-12 records the event where God told Moses to take the rod and speak to the rock and it would give forth its water. Moses gathered to people together at the rock and said; “Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?” And he struck the rock twice with the rod and water came forth. Because he took the action of striking the rock and taking the glory for himself, God told him he could not enter the Promised Land. Saul was anointed as the first king of Israel but he did not always follow the Lord’s commands. 1 Samuel 13 tells of Saul preparing to go fight against the Philistines and was supposed to wait on Samuel to come and offer a sacrifice before going into battle. Samuel delayed his coming and Saul offered the sacrifice in his stead. (This was the task for the priest) God took the kingship away from Saul because of this act. Later, Saul disobeyed God by not destroying all the Amelekites in 1 Samuel 15. Samuel told him that since he had rejected God’s command, God had rejected him as king of Israel. There are many other instances of God’s judgment against those who sinned in the Old Testament but these should serve as examples of his judgment. We are fortunate that we do not live under the law of sin and death but under the law of Christ where grace and mercy abound. Throughout the New Testament we are told that we are saved by grace. However, we should not take advantage of that grace as though it cannot depart from us. Romans 6:1-2 asks if we should sin that grace may abound. The obvious answer is no.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 12:11:34 +0000
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