The Devil's Promises and God's Promises

Matthew 4:9



And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.







The Devil reenacted the move that sent him to Hell, originally.   He promised the Lord all, if he was worshipped.
The desire for worship to be given to us does not belong only to the devil.  We are all succeptible to this temptation.  Imagine, the desire for the God of the Universe to fall and worship you.   That is our depravity and it is in imitation of our original sinful father.  In our recreation, we are learning to turn our worship from ourselves to the God of All Worship.
We take time parsing thoughts to turn them manward.  This is for me and this is for God, we divvy out our praise.  {some say, I don't feel comfortable with a worship that only worships God and doesn't talk about me.}   That sounds some like Matthew 4:9 the bargaining of the devil with the Lord and Savior of our souls.  Unwittingly, we may say,  I will give you all of me, if you give some of the "service" to the worship and exaltation of me.   Don't I deserve some praise for coming to worship service?  What is the center of our worship?  Is it my presence or is it His presence?

On the other hand there are many, who know not Jesus yet, who are looking for the promises of the devil to come to pass.  They have worshipped the devil for years and are waiting for their all from him.  Shame and sad will be the ultimate demise of such souls.  They may have had all of the earth at their feet at life and it will seem like ashes in their hands, if they miss the goodness of God and don't get to worship Him in their lives.  All the promises of God are yea and amen, to those who believe and all of the promises of the devil, though they look to come to pass, they are a mirage in the light of the knowledge of God in a person's life.  There is no scale to calculate the loss, if a man gain the whole world {worship included} and have not Christ as friend and Lord and King and Savior.  If I am present in worship and seeking worship from God {it sounds rediculous, but it is sometimes our lot in our depravity} God can cleanse such a state as this.  But, if I am bowing at the altar of the devil and waiting for the "present" from him, all that I will receive is death, at the last.  Then, where will I be?
Cleanse me,  Lord from my self worship.  Help me worship in spirit and in truth.  I know that the Father seeks such to worship Him. Amen.

Exodus 28

And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before the LORD: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the LORD continually.


Where are we in the Old Testament?  I truly believe that we were in God's mind, throughout the Old Testament.  I can imagine that when we get to heaven, we will see each of the years of the Priests garments and each believer in the NT era will be represented in the physical elements of the worship of the OT.  We are the spiritual representation of the physical elements of worship.  They, are the spiritual remembrance of the worship that we engage in to God.  They couldn't understand that the gentiles would be grafted in and we cannot understand that the gentiles are grafted in.

I rejoice when I get to Psalm 108 and I hear God's heart toward the gentiles in the OT.  He speaks of them as "mine".  He owned our history, in depravity he was committed to our cleansing and grafting. 

I see my hand coming out of the miry clay of antiquity begging for redemption,{though I cared not,  He loved me first}.    When will You redeem my people, Lord?   Where is Your heart for us?   Always, He responds, am I mighty to save to the utmost all who come to God through Christ.


Psalm 108:10  Who is going to bring me into the strong city?  Christ, asks in His mercy. 

Only Jesus is worthy to bear the burdens and translate God's heart into gentile and Jew, alike.

Each generation that followed the specifics of God's Word was anticipating, true and eternal redemption for the Jew, in spirit and for the gentile, in the elements.

Like a mommy with her baby's photo album,  God carries us through His intentions to save, in His Word.   Look, where I was thinking of you, here and here and there and there.

I am grateful that providence, today, led me to Exodus 28 and Psalms 108, where I can see myself in the stones and Urim and Thummim of God's instruction.   We are God's workmanship and we were in His mind, from eternity past.  Not an afterthought.  His merciful intention.

On the Longest Day of the Year, Remembering the help of God on the longest day of my life!

These hymns were like a rope around my waist holding me.  I was unable to hold the rope myself, in my soul.  God's hymns and God's spiritual songs performed so perfectly were doing more for me than I could even sense.  When I hear them now, I can feel the pain and the restoration in that exact part of my soul that was carved out in grief.  Thanks much to those who prayed for me.

God and God Alone

"...Nor His seed begging bread."

All this has happened before and it will all happen again...but this time it happened to a couple of crazy young people ready to place their flag into the landscape and put up a shingle marked "FAMILY". We were those young crazy people. We were those shingle toten dreamers. We had seen the previews and we had seen the advertisements and dreamed the dreams and now it was our turn. We jumped the broom, as they say 29 years ago today, to the tune of Endless Love and in the shadow of tears and cheers, as would be our consistent habit, from then on. "I now pronounce you, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Walker. Whew, we made it. We said the words and we believed that God would see us through this vow we were making. The first time we watched Spencer's Mountain, we were the kids. Never ever imagining that we would grow up into Momma and Daddy. But today, we are Momma and Daddy. We've invested 29 years into this thing. We've gone from court'n and lov'n and whipp'n and preach'n to admirin and growin and seasoning the pot of stew that we're in{to change the metaphor}. There are no words to describe the sense of blessedness, to see God take you past your own personal limitations of imagination. I know I didn't think we would live to make it to 29 years. Forever seemed like 5 years in the beginning, but here we are. All the 5 year plans added together got us to 29 years. Hooray for God, who designed the beautiful institution of marriage and remains our daily strength to perservere- and our parents, who advertised the institution so well that we decided to enter it. Hooray, for the mentors that gave us peptalks along the way. Hooray, for a free country, where we can take up the task of parenting and find help and hope to continue on the path. Hooray for Pastors and teachers and instructors who gave us tools to work with. Hooray, for assistance and support from schools and government and public servants who keep our world safe, so that we can live out our faith here. The Long Line of Love continues

29 Years Wed. Thank You God!