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(From Forerunner Commentary)

Exodus 12:19  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) There are seven days of Unleavened Bread but only one day of Passover, Pentecost, Trumpets, and Atonement. God knows that we tend to change slowly. He gives us seven days each year to concentrate on our duty to rid our lives of sin. Those acts that are God's responsibility—the sacrifice of one for all sin, the sending of His Spirit, the resurrection of the dead, or the binding of Satan—He can accomplish in one day. The part that involves mankind's participation—overcoming sin—requires more time and attention. The Days of Unleavened Bread represent a period of judgment when man is required to overcome. To us, overcoming a deep-seated sin can seem to take an eternity! The obvious lesson is that we must draw much nearer to the Source of the power to overcome. Staff Holy Days: Unleavened Bread

Numbers 22:26-27  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Again, the donkey proves herself wiser than Balaam. God frequently does this: First, He gets us in a wide place and allows us to make our decisions. It soon becomes apparent which direction we are going, which path we are taking. Then God begins to narrow the way, especially if He sees us going in the wrong direction. He catches us in a place where we can turn around and gives us an opportunity to make a right decision. If we do not do what He wants us to do, He will go a little further down the path—a little bit later in our life—to catch us in a place where the answer is obvious, and we can do nothing except stop, and say, "God help me! I've gone the wrong way, and I need you to open the path for me." He does this to Balaam. He gets him to the point where there is only plunging on to destruction on one hand, and on the other, stopping and retracing his steps to where he can head in the right direction. This is the point where Balaam is in these two verses. The donkey simply lies down, as that is all she can do. Proverbs 22:3 says, "A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. The donkey is the "prudent man" here, and blind Balaam is "the simple." He is so without any spiritual acumen that he is just like a foolish simpleton. He cannot see wisdom; he cannot make a wise choice. However, the dumb donkey can! As a last resort, God takes matters one more step. He is always full of mercy, willing to give us that one more chance to make the right choice. But now He has to do something drastic! Richard T. Ritenbaugh Balaam and the End-Time Church (Part 2)

Matthew 3:8  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) The original words in the Hebrew and Greek from which "repent" and "repentance" are translated, mean to turn, to change direction. And true repentance is exactly that. It is a complete about-face from disobedience toward God to obedience, love, and cooperation with Him. True "repentance" is coming to a full realization that we have rebelled against our Maker—against His way and His righteous law. It means that we come to abhor ourselves for our self-willed, rebellious, sinful past. We must be truly broken up and ready now, with God's help, to bury our old natures, quit sinning, quit rebelling, and submit to God with all our hearts. The time of repentance is the crisis of your life. It is the turning point in your entire destiny! When we are finally brought to real repentance, we mean business. We are ready, in every phase of our lives, to say: "Yes, Lord. Your will be done." In real repentance, we have become completely sick and tired of our own selfish ways. We are truly sorry for our sins—and we are ready and willing to make a permanent change. We are now ready to "turn around and go the other way"—God's way. Learning this great lesson of our own helplessness, misery and inadequacy apart from God is a vital step toward attaining the real purpose of our lives. Once we have learned this, our Creator can begin the process of creating spiritual character in us by placing within us His Holy Spirit—His nature—that will give us the spiritual power to conquer and overcome the inordinate Satan-inspired pulls of the mind and flesh. What Is Real Repentance?

Acts 3:19  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) God tells us there is something we must do before He will apply the sacrifice of Christ to pay the penalty of our sins. We must demonstrate that we no longer wish to continue in the way of life which leads to eternal death. We do so by changing our way of living. That change of direction is called "repentance" in biblical terminology. But what, exactly, do we repent of? Sin! Actions and deeds that are contrary to God's law are simply defined as "sin." Sin is the violation or transgression of any of God's great spiritual laws. Notice the definition of sin in the Bible: "Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression [breaking] of the law" (I John 3:4). Sin, however, is not always a wrong deed. Sometimes we sin by not doing what is right or good. "Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). To repent of sin, then, simply means to "change direction." We turn from the way of self-indulgence and "get" to the way of "give." We stop serving the inordinate lusts of our own flesh and begin to serve others. We turn from selfishness to selflessness. When we begin demonstrating our willingness to change and ask God to forgive our past way of life, He applies the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. We are then freed from the crushing guilt of sin and its penalty. We are forgiven and our conscience is cleared. The penalty of sin—eternal death—no longer hangs over our head. Paul explained it this way: "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14). What Is Real Repentance?

Hebrews 1:10-12  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) This verses contain a vivid contrast to Ecclesiastes 1. In nature, everything is undergoing constant change from one generation to another. In contrast, God changes not; He is permanent. Though Solomon reaches the despairing conclusion that the crooked cannot be made straight, God is saying to His children, on the other hand, that now is the time to effect positive, worthwhile changes with His help. These changes will eventually become a permanent part of our personality because the great Creator is working within us. We find ourselves, then, in a situation where life appears to be vain and absurd, but for the Christian it is not. God has designed things so that we, being able to see the contrast, consciously make the choices in our lives to move toward the permanent and eternal, effecting the changes we need to make in our character to be carried through the grave. John W. Ritenbaugh Ecclesiastes and the Feast of Tabernacles (Part 1)

1 John 2:1-2  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Propitiation is "an appeasing force." The law spells out the perpetual requirements of obedience to God, and blood pays for sin. God desires sacrifice and obedience, not a religious game. It must be emphasized that our obedience is not for the purpose of saving us—salvation is by grace—but to assist us in perfecting holiness (II Corinthians 7:1) and to provide a witness of God working in our lives (Matthew 5:16). Israel's purely ceremonial religion could never safeguard the truth because the people were not living it. By being used in the worship of manmade deities, not the Creator God, the rituals of their shrines were completely divorced from the truth found in the law. God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7). The evidence of true religion is that through His correction in mercy and love, it will touch and purify every area of life. If we are really in contact with the true God, change will take place gradually as we grow. To determine if our profession and practice of religion is pleasing to God, we must consider two questions: 1) Are we covered by the blood of Jesus Christ? and 2) Are we obeying God to the best of our understanding? We never obey to the extent of our knowledge because knowledge, knowing what God expects, always outpaces ability. We gather knowledge before we have the ability to live it, and that makes us feel guilty because we realize we are not applying what we know. This guilty feeling is not really wrong, for without guilt we would not change. It is good if it makes us change, but when guilt becomes neurotic, it becomes destructive and wrong. Today, psychologists are trying to remove guilt from our every thought, word, and deed—a sure sign of widespread spiritual poverty and complacency. But God says we can worship Him with a pure conscience because we know we have been cleansed of our past sins through Christ's sacrifice, and because we know God is faithful to us as we live by faith in Him (Hebrews 10:19-23). John W. Ritenbaugh Prepare to Meet Your God! (The Book of Amos) (Part Two)

 

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