The Price of Rebellion

Scripture

Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled.

~Isaiah 2:11, NLT

Quote

Anything that comes from God will justly turn bitter if it is unjustly loved by people who forsake Him.

~Augustine

Jeff Strueker mentioned in his speech at the Kiwanis Club’s just prior to Memorial Day that he had his kids do four things before leaving home. One of them was to read Augustine’s Confession. At the youthful age of 27 and with a minor in Philosophy, I could not remember reading the Confessions so I had Mandy order me a copy. No, it is not an easy read. To me, it is much more difficult than Mere Christianity {C.S. Lewis}. I will try to make it simple. John Philips says that sin begins with pride and pride leads to error and error leads to rebellion. I don’t think Augustine would disagree. Augustine says that “error” is our punishment for pride. God has an ingenious plan; in one word, the plan is JESUS {salvation by grace} but to get in on the plan, a man must humble himself. This world has a prideful mindset, they refuse to humble themselves and come to Christ. Augustine was a good example. He had a very high IQ and due to his parents insistence, he was pursuing a high education in Rhetoric and Philosophy. Augustine had such extraordinary skills and he so impressed his instructors that they soon began to learn from him. Augustine experienced overwhelming success but inwardly, he had no peace. He had passionate love for beauty which he pursued with all his heart but it left him feeling empty and unfulfilled. What he learned was this: you cannot get joy or peace from loving the good things that God has created. These worldly pursuits of the good that God has created will turn bitter if we love them more than we love Jesus, the Creator of all that is good.

Jesus is the key to love, joy and peace. Due to our pride, the temptation is to revel in the gifts and ignore the Giver of the gifts. There is nothing wrong with going to the beach, mountains or the lake unless you give no thought to the ONE who made the beach, the mountains and the lakes. To get immersed in the gifts without gratitude to the ONE who made them is idolatry. If you persist in pursuing the pleasure derived from the gifts, have no fear {most don’t] of God’s judgment, the judgment will come from the error you are making. Remember the sequence: first comes pride, then error but error is followed by overt rebellion. When people reach this stage, they defy God. They literally dare Him to judge them. They are determined to do their own will no matter what the Bible says. This is exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans one. Sexual perversion is a violation of God’s intended purpose and all involved in it are in active rebellion against God and it has its own judgment. When we share the gospel with them, we are merely trying to save them from the consequences of error.

Extra

I don’t think it got as hot as they had predicted but it got hot enough and there is more today. The garden is surviving. I got okra this morning but a few more days of this extreme heat and no rain will get it, especially the corn. I have to make a trip to Athens this evening: I am carrying our van drivers to get the vans. The youth leave for camp in the morning at 7:00.

We had very good attendance last night and hopefully we will be back up Sunday. We have been down three Sundays in a row. Voter turn out this past Tuesday was poor, very poor and special interest {PACs} were the winner. I hate pork barrel politics but it continues to win in Alabama. I just don’t understand how this can happen. I guess the money wins and too many people are influenced by TV ads. It could be worse: at least these elected folks are RINOs and not out and out communist like the democrats.

Hope you have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *