Saint Louis, Missouri, United States - Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "I Told You Not to Do That" Saturday, 8 November 2014 "Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?"(Ezekiel 33:11)
I imagine when the Titanic was sinking there was somebody who turned to the captain and said, "I told you there were icebergs. I told you what would happen if you went 'full speed ahead.'" When Custer was surrounded at the Little Big Horn, I think it quite likely one of his men shouted over the gunfire: "I told you there were a lot of Indians, didn't I? I told you what would happen if you kept yelling 'Charge!'"
When the Japanese began their bombing runs at Pearl Harbor, there had to be someone saying, "I knew we should have been more careful. Didn't I tell you what would happen if we ignored all those blips on the radar screen?"
Those examples and many others from our own experience say we humans are a pretty predictable lot.
Most of us get some serious satisfaction in coming up to someone and reminding them we were right and they were wrong. We want them to see that we had assessed the situation correctly, while their judgment had been incorrect. It's our way of saying, "Because you didn't listen to me, you're getting the punishment you deserve."
It should be noted that saying, "You're getting the punishment you deserve" is not a quality God shares with us.
Most certainly, there are times when the Lord is forced to say those words. The Old Testament records many times when the Lord warned His people about this sin or that transgression, and they ignored Him. It usually doesn't take too long before a punishment was forthcoming and the people, with repentant hearts, remembered, "God told us this would happen."
That being said, Scripture is pretty clear. On Judgment Day God isn't going to be smiling or feeling good when a bunch of unsaved sinners are sent to hell. He isn't going to smirk and say, "I told you what would happen if you broke My Commandments and wouldn't be brought to My Son for forgiveness. I told you that if you wanted to live your life without Me, you were making a decision to spend eternity in a place where that wish would be granted."
The truth is God wants to see every one of us be brought to faith so that the doors of heaven might be opened and everyone would be brought into an eternity of unending peace, joy and happiness. So God wouldn't have to punish us, He sent His Son into the world. Jesus Christ was born so that all who believe on Him would not perish but, instead, be given eternal life.
So we might be saved, Jesus lived His entire life surrounded by -- but untouched by -- sin. So God might give all of us the opportunity to be rescued and redeemed, Jesus was denied justice and condemned to a cross. So that everyone, including you and I, might be given incontrovertible evidence that our Heavenly Father wants us in heaven and not hell, the Savior rose from the dead.
And although the Lord will be sending unbelievers to hell on Judgment Day, there is little doubt He would rather hear Jesus say, "Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34).
THE PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, I am most grateful You get no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I rejoice that You have provided salvation in the Person Jesus, my Savior. In His Name. Amen.
In Christ I remain His servant and yours, 
Pastor Ken Klaus
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour®
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Through the Bible in a Year
Today Read:
Lamentations 1: Worthless, Cheap, Abject!
1 Oh, oh, oh . . .
How empty the city, once teeming with people.
A widow, this city, once in the front rank of nations,
once queen of the ball, she’s now a drudge in the kitchen.
2 She cries herself to sleep each night, tears soaking her pillow.
No one’s left among her lovers to sit and hold her hand.
Her friends have all dumped her.
3 After years of pain and hard labor, Judah has gone into exile.
She camps out among the nations, never feels at home.
Hunted by all, she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.
4 Zion’s roads weep, empty of pilgrims headed to the feasts.
All her city gates are deserted, her priests in despair.
Her virgins are sad. How bitter her fate.
5 Her enemies have become her masters. Her foes are living it up
because God laid her low, punishing her repeated rebellions.
Her children, prisoners of the enemy, trudge into exile.
6 All beauty has drained from Daughter Zion’s face.
Her princes are like deer famished for food,
chased to exhaustion by hunters.
7 Jerusalem remembers the day she lost everything,
when her people fell into enemy hands, and not a soul there to help.
Enemies looked on and laughed, laughed at her helpless silence.
8 Jerusalem, who outsinned the whole world, is an outcast.
All who admired her despise her now that they see beneath the surface.
Miserable, she groans and turns away in shame.
9 She played fast and loose with life, she never considered tomorrow,
and now she’s crashed royally, with no one to hold her hand:
“Look at my pain, O God! And how the enemy cruelly struts.”
10 The enemy reached out to take all her favorite things. She watched
as pagans barged into her Sanctuary, those very people for whom
you posted orders: keep out: this assembly off-limits.
11 All the people groaned, so desperate for food, so desperate to stay alive
that they bartered their favorite things for a bit of breakfast:
“O God, look at me! Worthless, cheap, abject!
12 “And you passersby, look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this?
Ever seen pain like my pain, seen what he did to me,
what God did to me in his rage?
13 “He struck me with lightning, skewered me from head to foot,
then he set traps all around so I could hardly move.
He left me with nothing—left me sick, and sick of living.
14 “He wove my sins into a rope
and harnessed me to captivity’s yoke.
I’m goaded by cruel taskmasters.
15 “The Master piled up my best soldiers in a heap,
then called in thugs to break their fine young necks.
The Master crushed the life out of fair virgin Judah.
16 “For all this I weep, weep buckets of tears,
and not a soul within miles around cares for my soul.
My children are wasted, my enemy got his way.”
17 Zion reached out for help, but no one helped.
God ordered Jacob’s enemies to surround him,
and now no one wants anything to do with Jerusalem.
18 “God has right on his side. I’m the one who did wrong.
Listen everybody! Look at what I’m going through!
My fair young women, my fine young men, all herded into exile!
19 “I called to my friends; they betrayed me.
My priests and my leaders only looked after themselves,
trying but failing to save their own skins.
20 “O God, look at the trouble I’m in! My stomach in knots,
my heart wrecked by a life of rebellion.
Massacres in the streets, starvation in the houses.
21 “Oh, listen to my groans. No one listens, no one cares.
When my enemies heard of the trouble you gave me, they cheered.
Bring on Judgment Day! Let them get what I got!
22 “Take a good look at their evil ways and give it to them!
Give them what you gave me for my sins.
Groaning in pain, body and soul, I’ve had all I can take.”
God Walked Away from His Holy Temple
2:1 Oh, oh, oh . . .
How the Master has cut down Daughter Zion
from the skies, dashed Israel’s glorious city to earth,
in his anger treated his favorite as throwaway junk.
2 The Master, without a second thought, took Israel in one gulp.
Raging, he smashed Judah’s defenses,
made hash of her king and princes.
3 His anger blazing, he knocked Israel flat,
broke Israel’s arm and turned his back just as the enemy approached,
came on Jacob like a wildfire from every direction.
4 Like an enemy, he aimed his bow, bared his sword,
and killed our young men, our pride and joy.
His anger, like fire, burned down the homes in Zion.
5 The Master became the enemy. He had Israel for supper.
He chewed up and spit out all the defenses.
He left Daughter Judah moaning and groaning.
6 He plowed up his old trysting place, trashed his favorite rendezvous.
God wiped out Zion’s memories of feast days and Sabbaths,
angrily sacked king and priest alike.
7 God abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple
and turned the fortifications over to the enemy.
As they cheered in God’s Temple, you’d have thought it was a feast day!
8 God drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion.
He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it.
Total demolition! The stones wept!
9 Her city gates, iron bars and all, disappeared in the rubble:
her kings and princes off to exile—no one left to instruct or lead;
her prophets useless—they neither saw nor heard anything from God.
10 The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground.
They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap—
the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.
11 My eyes are blind with tears, my stomach in a knot.
My insides have turned to jelly over my people’s fate.
Babies and children are fainting all over the place,
12 Calling to their mothers, “I’m hungry! I’m thirsty!”
then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets,
breathing their last in their mothers’ laps.
13 How can I understand your plight, dear Jerusalem?
What can I say to give you comfort, dear Zion?
Who can put you together again? This bust-up is past understanding.
14 Your prophets courted you with sweet talk.
They didn’t face you with your sin so that you could repent.
Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.
15 Astonished, passersby can’t believe what they see.
They rub their eyes, they shake their heads over Jerusalem.
Is this the city voted “Most Beautiful” and “Best Place to Live”?
16 But now your enemies gape, slack-jawed.
Then they rub their hands in glee: “We’ve got them!
We’ve been waiting for this! Here it is!”
17 God did carry out, item by item, exactly what he said he’d do.
He always said he’d do this. Now he’s done it—torn the place down.
He’s let your enemies walk all over you, declared them world champions!
18 Give out heart-cries to the Master, dear repentant Zion.
Let the tears roll like a river, day and night,
and keep at it—no time-outs. Keep those tears flowing!
19 As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer.
Pour your heart out face-to-face with the Master.
Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children
who are starving to death out on the streets.
20 “Look at us, God. Think it over. Have you ever treated anyone like this?
Should women eat their own babies, the very children they raised?
Should priests and prophets be murdered in the Master’s own Sanctuary?
21 “Boys and old men lie in the gutters of the streets,
my young men and women killed in their prime.
Angry, you killed them in cold blood, cut them down without mercy.
22 “You invited, like friends to a party, men to swoop down in attack
so that on the big day of God’s wrath no one would get away.
The children I loved and reared—gone, gone, gone.”
Hebrews 12: Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
4-11 In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?
My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,
but don’t be crushed by it either.
It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.
God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.
12-13 So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!
14-17 Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you’ll never get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure no one gets left out of God’s generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time. Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God’s lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God’s blessing—but by then it was too late, tears or no tears.
An Unshakable Kingdom
18-21 Unlike your ancestors, you didn’t come to Mount Sinai—all that volcanic blaze and earthshaking rumble—to hear God speak. The earsplitting words and soul-shaking message terrified them and they begged him to stop. When they heard the words—“If an animal touches the Mountain, it’s as good as dead”—they were afraid to move. Even Moses was terrified.
22-24 No, that’s not your experience at all. You’ve come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens. It is the city where God is Judge, with judgments that make us just. You’ve come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel’s—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace.
25-27 So don’t turn a deaf ear to these gracious words. If those who ignored earthly warnings didn’t get away with it, what will happen to us if we turn our backs on heavenly warnings? His voice that time shook the earth to its foundations; this time—he’s told us this quite plainly—he’ll also rock the heavens: “One last shaking, from top to bottom, stem to stern.” The phrase “one last shaking” means a thorough housecleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered.
28-29 Do you see what we’ve got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He’s actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed. God himself is Fire!
____________________________
Today Read:
Lamentations 1: Worthless, Cheap, Abject!
1 Oh, oh, oh . . .
How empty the city, once teeming with people.
A widow, this city, once in the front rank of nations,
once queen of the ball, she’s now a drudge in the kitchen.
2 She cries herself to sleep each night, tears soaking her pillow.
No one’s left among her lovers to sit and hold her hand.
Her friends have all dumped her.
3 After years of pain and hard labor, Judah has gone into exile.
She camps out among the nations, never feels at home.
Hunted by all, she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.
4 Zion’s roads weep, empty of pilgrims headed to the feasts.
All her city gates are deserted, her priests in despair.
Her virgins are sad. How bitter her fate.
5 Her enemies have become her masters. Her foes are living it up
because God laid her low, punishing her repeated rebellions.
Her children, prisoners of the enemy, trudge into exile.
6 All beauty has drained from Daughter Zion’s face.
Her princes are like deer famished for food,
chased to exhaustion by hunters.
7 Jerusalem remembers the day she lost everything,
when her people fell into enemy hands, and not a soul there to help.
Enemies looked on and laughed, laughed at her helpless silence.
8 Jerusalem, who outsinned the whole world, is an outcast.
All who admired her despise her now that they see beneath the surface.
Miserable, she groans and turns away in shame.
9 She played fast and loose with life, she never considered tomorrow,
and now she’s crashed royally, with no one to hold her hand:
“Look at my pain, O God! And how the enemy cruelly struts.”
10 The enemy reached out to take all her favorite things. She watched
as pagans barged into her Sanctuary, those very people for whom
you posted orders: keep out: this assembly off-limits.
11 All the people groaned, so desperate for food, so desperate to stay alive
that they bartered their favorite things for a bit of breakfast:
“O God, look at me! Worthless, cheap, abject!
12 “And you passersby, look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this?
Ever seen pain like my pain, seen what he did to me,
what God did to me in his rage?
13 “He struck me with lightning, skewered me from head to foot,
then he set traps all around so I could hardly move.
He left me with nothing—left me sick, and sick of living.
14 “He wove my sins into a rope
and harnessed me to captivity’s yoke.
I’m goaded by cruel taskmasters.
15 “The Master piled up my best soldiers in a heap,
then called in thugs to break their fine young necks.
The Master crushed the life out of fair virgin Judah.
16 “For all this I weep, weep buckets of tears,
and not a soul within miles around cares for my soul.
My children are wasted, my enemy got his way.”
17 Zion reached out for help, but no one helped.
God ordered Jacob’s enemies to surround him,
and now no one wants anything to do with Jerusalem.
18 “God has right on his side. I’m the one who did wrong.
Listen everybody! Look at what I’m going through!
My fair young women, my fine young men, all herded into exile!
19 “I called to my friends; they betrayed me.
My priests and my leaders only looked after themselves,
trying but failing to save their own skins.
20 “O God, look at the trouble I’m in! My stomach in knots,
my heart wrecked by a life of rebellion.
Massacres in the streets, starvation in the houses.
21 “Oh, listen to my groans. No one listens, no one cares.
When my enemies heard of the trouble you gave me, they cheered.
Bring on Judgment Day! Let them get what I got!
22 “Take a good look at their evil ways and give it to them!
Give them what you gave me for my sins.
Groaning in pain, body and soul, I’ve had all I can take.”
God Walked Away from His Holy Temple
2:1 Oh, oh, oh . . .
How the Master has cut down Daughter Zion
from the skies, dashed Israel’s glorious city to earth,
in his anger treated his favorite as throwaway junk.
2 The Master, without a second thought, took Israel in one gulp.
Raging, he smashed Judah’s defenses,
made hash of her king and princes.
3 His anger blazing, he knocked Israel flat,
broke Israel’s arm and turned his back just as the enemy approached,
came on Jacob like a wildfire from every direction.
4 Like an enemy, he aimed his bow, bared his sword,
and killed our young men, our pride and joy.
His anger, like fire, burned down the homes in Zion.
5 The Master became the enemy. He had Israel for supper.
He chewed up and spit out all the defenses.
He left Daughter Judah moaning and groaning.
6 He plowed up his old trysting place, trashed his favorite rendezvous.
God wiped out Zion’s memories of feast days and Sabbaths,
angrily sacked king and priest alike.
7 God abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple
and turned the fortifications over to the enemy.
As they cheered in God’s Temple, you’d have thought it was a feast day!
8 God drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion.
He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it.
Total demolition! The stones wept!
9 Her city gates, iron bars and all, disappeared in the rubble:
her kings and princes off to exile—no one left to instruct or lead;
her prophets useless—they neither saw nor heard anything from God.
10 The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground.
They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap—
the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.
11 My eyes are blind with tears, my stomach in a knot.
My insides have turned to jelly over my people’s fate.
Babies and children are fainting all over the place,
12 Calling to their mothers, “I’m hungry! I’m thirsty!”
then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets,
breathing their last in their mothers’ laps.
13 How can I understand your plight, dear Jerusalem?
What can I say to give you comfort, dear Zion?
Who can put you together again? This bust-up is past understanding.
14 Your prophets courted you with sweet talk.
They didn’t face you with your sin so that you could repent.
Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.
15 Astonished, passersby can’t believe what they see.
They rub their eyes, they shake their heads over Jerusalem.
Is this the city voted “Most Beautiful” and “Best Place to Live”?
16 But now your enemies gape, slack-jawed.
Then they rub their hands in glee: “We’ve got them!
We’ve been waiting for this! Here it is!”
17 God did carry out, item by item, exactly what he said he’d do.
He always said he’d do this. Now he’s done it—torn the place down.
He’s let your enemies walk all over you, declared them world champions!
18 Give out heart-cries to the Master, dear repentant Zion.
Let the tears roll like a river, day and night,
and keep at it—no time-outs. Keep those tears flowing!
19 As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer.
Pour your heart out face-to-face with the Master.
Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children
who are starving to death out on the streets.
20 “Look at us, God. Think it over. Have you ever treated anyone like this?
Should women eat their own babies, the very children they raised?
Should priests and prophets be murdered in the Master’s own Sanctuary?
21 “Boys and old men lie in the gutters of the streets,
my young men and women killed in their prime.
Angry, you killed them in cold blood, cut them down without mercy.
22 “You invited, like friends to a party, men to swoop down in attack
so that on the big day of God’s wrath no one would get away.
The children I loved and reared—gone, gone, gone.”
Hebrews 12: Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
4-11 In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?
My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,
but don’t be crushed by it either.
It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.
God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.
12-13 So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!
14-17 Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you’ll never get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure no one gets left out of God’s generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time. Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God’s lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God’s blessing—but by then it was too late, tears or no tears.
An Unshakable Kingdom
18-21 Unlike your ancestors, you didn’t come to Mount Sinai—all that volcanic blaze and earthshaking rumble—to hear God speak. The earsplitting words and soul-shaking message terrified them and they begged him to stop. When they heard the words—“If an animal touches the Mountain, it’s as good as dead”—they were afraid to move. Even Moses was terrified.
22-24 No, that’s not your experience at all. You’ve come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens. It is the city where God is Judge, with judgments that make us just. You’ve come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel’s—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace.
25-27 So don’t turn a deaf ear to these gracious words. If those who ignored earthly warnings didn’t get away with it, what will happen to us if we turn our backs on heavenly warnings? His voice that time shook the earth to its foundations; this time—he’s told us this quite plainly—he’ll also rock the heavens: “One last shaking, from top to bottom, stem to stern.” The phrase “one last shaking” means a thorough housecleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered.
28-29 Do you see what we’ve got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He’s actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed. God himself is Fire!
____________________________
Lutheran Hour Ministries
660 Mason Ridge Center Dr.
St. Louis, Missouri 63141 United States
1(800)876-9880
____________________________
660 Mason Ridge Center Dr.
St. Louis, Missouri 63141 United States
1(800)876-9880
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