Errant Nation
For many centuries the errant nation of Israel had wandered far from their God. They worshipped other gods and felt God’s rod of discipline on their back in Babylon. They abandoned their mission to proclaim to the nations the One and only true God. They had become proud in their foolish hearts and missed the visitation of their God.
Life must be much less than it need be if you are not going all the way with the Lord; and what obtains in the matter of our consecration to the Lord, our entire and complete abandonment to Him in our life and our complete cut with all that is not of the Lord, obtains in the realm of service.
Anxiety of Many
Sadly, in this increasingly dark world, many lives are in a state of unbroken anxiety. Other fret and fume, while others search relentlessly for unachievable answers. To be perfectly at rest amid the hurly-burly of daily life is a secret worth knowing. It is only achieved in a life abandoned to the Lord – a life that trusts His Word. Looking away from the raging world and fixing your eyes upon Jesus. It is achieved by the one that will come to Him – and rest.
No one will think that this is the call for passivity, for abandon of concern for the things of the Lord; but it is possible for us to have the things of the Lord on our hearts and yet not to have faith in God about them.
Yes, prophets and apostles could make mistakes, and they did; but there is this about it because they had seen, and were utterly abandoned to that which they had seen of the Lord's mind, the Lord was abundantly able to come in on their mistakes and sovereignly overrule them and teach His servants something more of Himself and His ways.
The indefinite people, those who are not meaning business, who are not abandoned, never do learn anything of the Lord.
We have to come to the point where we deliberately decide as to whether the Lord is worthy of this, and abandon ourselves to it because of our appreciation of Him, the Master.
the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God, Let us not repeat the teachings about purifying, the laying on of hands, the resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment and punishment. [These are all matters of which you should have been fully aware long, long ago.] Hebrews 6:1-2
Then if you say thatis you or that is me you will have to abandon your doctrine oftotal depravity, and you will have to come back to the placewhere you say there is good in us, after all!
When we are really in it by the urge of the Holy Spirit, the common features found in these Old Testament instruments will be found inwrought in us; and we shall be found an abandoned people unto this ONE THING the Lord's burden and heart concern for His testimony in His people.
Paul demonstrated through his life a total abandonment to the Lord.
Abandoned to Him
Paul established the only principle, upon which the prisoner of Christ can stand – complete and utter imprisonment and abandonment to the Lord Jesus and His will.. so that every word that is spoken – is as from Him.. so that every step taken is guided from above – so that every undertaking shall be out from Him and not of ourselves.
Eternal Father
Jesus is indeed the Eternal Father, and unlike human parents whose life fades and passes away like the grass of the field – eternal means forever and ever – Amen. He has promised never to leave us or abandon us as orphans.
We have to remember that God has called us for a purpose which will be realized as we abandon ourselves to Him.
Let us abandon all personal desires, and be filled with the Spirit of urgency traight away.Those who know that they are called of God, and who definitely recognize the purpose of their life, will be wholly given up to it.
He was falsely accused, perfidiously betrayed, abandoned, and denied by His own dear friends, dishonestly judged by Jew and Gentile alike, and treacherously killed.
Page after page, Paul had contended with the Galatians because they had abandoned the liberty of the Christian faith, having been seduced by the Judaisers of the day into adopting the restrictive practices of the pre-Cross legalistic Judaism.
Though we may be afflicted on all sides... pressured, perplexed, and persecuted for righteousness sake, we have not been forgotten or abandoned by our Heavenly Lord... for Jesus is with us always and forever, even to the end of the age.
While food and drink is not offered in pagan temples today, as in the days of Paul, there are many practices, religious observances, martial arts or various trends and customs that are not sinful, but could cause the one who has abandoned these traditions from their pre-salvation days, to be offended or distressed if a fellow-believer engages in them.
For Christ has promised to save us from the power of sin, the guilt of sin, the nature of sin, and the punishment of sin, but also to sanctify to the uttermost, body, soul, and spirit as day by day His Holy Spirit is conforming us into the image and likeness of Christ Jesus our Lord.His saving grace is not only for the eternal ages to come but will be carried through to its ultimate completion, for He will never abandon any that have trusted in His name as Saviour and who have come to Him for pardon and peace.
Legalism is a creeping paralysis and when the gospel of grace is abandoned for this teaching, it places a believer back under the Law instead of promoting the freedoms we have in Christ.
Scripture is our secure guidebook to return us into a right relationship with the Lord when we abandon the road of righteousness or stray from the path of peace.
When legalism is adopted as a requirement for righteousness, the glorious gospel of Christ Who is our righteousness, is abandoned. When circumcision is insisted upon as necessary for salvation, the gospel of grace is nullified, for works of the Law have been added to Christ's finished work of Grace on the Cross.
David felt that the Lord had abandoned him, but feelings should never cloud the truth of God's Word, for He has promised to be with us, even to the end of the age.
Like Paul, his readers had abandoned their respective belief systems and placed their trust in Jesus as Saviour and thereby become members of God's family.
What a wonderful promise was given to that prideful and rebellious nation: that the Lord would not abandon His people, despite their repeated grievous sins against Himself.
Whether his enemy is a group or an individual person, the intense pressure the psalmist is under, caused him to reaffirm his faith and testify that the Lord is His strength and stay, while momentarily mourning because of his oppression and asking why God had abandoned and rejected him.
Paul's life had been turned upside-down and inside-out as a result of his encounter with the Lord of glory, and his immense love and eternal thanksgiving to God for his conversion to Christ and his salvation by grace, caused this man to follow the Lord with selfless abandon.
A few chose to be strong and courageous by trusting the Lord and obeying His Word, and they lived a victorious life for His praise and glory, as recorded in the Bible - but most abandoned the God of their fathers, disobeyed His Word, lived a defeated life, and did only those things which were right in their own eyes.
But though abandoned by the Lover of His soul, it was to God that He called out and to God that He turned to as He cried out questioningly, why have You abandoned Me?And yet He knew the answer.
How sad that the prideful religious leaders who were so enraged by Christ's popularity lacked the spiritual insight of these little children who cried out with joyful abandon: Hosanna to the Son of David.
May we live in a way that honour the Lord and sing out in joyful abandon like those little children in Jerusalem, for we have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, our God and our Redeemer.
He was further saddened to see the rich young ruler, whom He loved so deeply, abandon the eternal riches he could find in Christ, for love of his earthly wealth.
Instead of living in the beautiful, married harmony which God intended for the human race, the Lord told Eve that the consequences of her sin would be that men and women would live in ongoing conflict and un-abandoned competition with one another.
Israel had been sent into exile as a punishment for sinning against the Lord, but He had brought them out of exile once again, and the returnees great desire was to reinstate the Law of Moses, which had been abandoned for so long, and so: They celebrated the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the fixed number of burnt offerings daily, according to the ordinance, as each day required.
And yet these same friends would abandon Him, deny Him, or betray Him in a few brief hours so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the prophets: Even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me, for it is written: I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.
Just as Hosea did not abandon his disgustingly sinful wife, even so the Lord has never abandoned His outrageously errant nation.
And despite the fact that Israel and Judah had far exceeded the boundaries of the conditional covenant they made with God through Moses where they solemnly promised: All that God has said we will do, they quickly abandoned their pious promises, causing God to have to expose their guilt and pronounce judgement on His disobedient servants.
Although he is grieved about Israel's ongoing apostasy and bemoans that they have wandered far from the safety of His protection, Micah nevertheless pleads with the Lord that He will never abandon them nor cast them adrift, taking God at His word to keep His promises to a thousand generations.
The people were obviously impacted by Joshua's impassioned plea, because they replied as one man: We will certainly not abandon the Lord to worship other gods.
The far-reaching significance of this choice cannot be measured, for it requires the abandonment of myself, my personal rights, my cherished interests, and my own self-will, for His plans, His rights, His interests, and His will.
God swore to David that his coming Seed would be greater than he was. The One that was to come would not be abandoned in Hades nor would His body decay in the ground.
Finally, Darius ascended the throne of Persia, but the Temple of God remained abandoned and lay in ruins, while the people of God lived in their own, comfortable, panelled houses, which they constructed for their own use.
However, this final epistle of Paul contains information about former Christian workers and mutual acquaintances, including Phygelus and Hermogenes, who had abandoned the apostle in his final hours.
Timothy had not abandoned Paul, like so many other Christian colleagues, so the apostle used this opportunity to encourage the younger man to remain faithful to his calling, to fan into flame his spiritual gift, and never to be ashamed of the gospel he preached, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
He will never abandon those that trust His Word and honour His name, for: He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Let us, with joyful abandon, sing of God’s power and make music in our hearts to Him, as we lift up holy hands to our faithful God and join our voices together in grateful hymns of praise, for His mercies are new every morning and His grace is sufficient, no matter what we are going through.
God is faithful and has not abandoned His people, even though Israel strayed into apostasy and idolatry, and the Lord will not abandon His Church either.
But just as God is faithful to His people Israel, we too have an assurance that we, who have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, will never be abandoned nor condemned, for there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus.
Paul appealed for them to abandon their worldly ways, cease from any internal disputes, reject the aberrant doctrines of false teachers, and live in a bond of peace and brotherly love.
And so in humility of heart and with a deep love for his Lord, Paul abandoned His philosophical training and spoke to the Corinthians simply, in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
Paul seemed to labour the seriousness of all forms of sexual sins and the unholy abandonment of the godly relationship between a man and his wife, which is a sacred union instituted by God Himself, at the beginning of creation.
In verse 6 we read: The angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, have been kept, by God, in eternal bonds under darkness, waiting for the judgment of the great day.
The angels in this verse who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, are those who rebelled with Satan and also sinned in Genesis 6: When the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them.
Although all angels who chose to rebel with Satan lost their position in the holy, heavenly angelic realm, this group also abandoned their angelic form by taking on a human form in order to have sex with human women, which resulted in a hybrid offspring, described in Genesis as giants or Nephilim.
It is poignant to realise that only a matter of hours before Christ's betrayal, arrest, trial, and crucifixion... when He too was surrounded by His enemies, rejected by the religious leaders, despised by the multitudes, falsely accused by the chief priests, mocked by the Roman soldiers, abandoned by His disciples, and nailed to a cruel Cross, that Jesus sang this very hymn with His disciples in the upper room after they had partaken of the last supper, for Psalm 118 is one of the songs of ascent that was sung at the Passover.
Paul considered that someone who had abandoned them in an earlier ministry could not be trusted to join their company again and would not consent, while Barnabas refused to continue his ministry with Paul if John Mark was not permitted to accompany them.
The miracles Christ performed, His sacrificial death, His glorious Resurrection, and His Ascension into heaven to sit on the right hand of God the Father, are a few of the prophecies within Peter's sermon when he quoted David's words about Christ: that God would not abandon His soul to Hades, nor would He allow Christ Jesus, the Holy One of God, to decay in the grave.