They knew that not all men are men of good will; they knew there was evil in the world, and stood strong against it.  They knew there were some who would take by force what they would not work to acquire.  They knew that outside their windows waited hunger, thirst, and cold; that beyond their doors were savage men, held in restraint only by a realization of another force ready to oppose them, to preserve the world they had built from savagery into order and peace, where each man might work and build and create without the threat of destruction.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Reilly’s Luck)

    “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.”
              –Mark 7:21-22 (NKJV)
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There should be a prayer within each of us for the Lord to search us and cleanse us.  There is evil all around, and if we are not careful we might stray into the crowd of evil men.  They seek to do you harm; you hate what they do, yet you found yourself in their midst–now what?

         “Search me, O God, and know my heart today;
          Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray.
          See if there be some wicked way in me;
          Cleanse me from every sin and set me free.”
                   –J. Edwin Orr

Let’s look this Monday, the first day of the work week; a week where I’m sure you’ll either confront evil or will see it in one form or another in the media.  Upon reading Psalm 26 (HCSB) it might be a good time to go back and read Psalm 1 and compare the two.

    1 – Vindicate me, Lord, because I have lived with integrity and have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
    2 – Test me, Lord, and try me; examine my heart and mind.
    3 – For Your faithful love is before my eyes, and I live by Your truth.
    4 – I do not sit with the worthless or associate with hypocrites.
    5 – I hate a crowd of evildoers, and I do not sit with the wicked.

    When our trust in the Lord is solid, then our integrity is also solid.  That’s why someone like Job could maintain he was a person of integrity.  David was a man of integrity, so much so that he was a man after God’s own heart.  How can this be?  All have sinned.  Yet there seems that people can still be a person of integrity.  Have you ever done something you hated?  Something that you might despise in others, yet you know you love the Lord and that you trust Him.  Ah, my friend, that’s where grace and mercy step in, plus the realization that God looks on the heart.
    These verses are pretty straightforward about with whom we should be associating and where we should be going–not with the wicked or to places of wickedness.  Yet, today many Christians gather is places of the world–there is no recoil from sin.  Many laugh and joke about sin, and even will go so far to say that because of Jesus we have freedom.  Never, do we have freedom to sin; it should cause us to have that sickening feeling in the pit of our stomach.  We have to live in the world, and mingle with the people of the world, but we are not to have fellowship with the world, nor put ourselves in a position where the world has the opportunity to lure us.
    When and how do we lose our integrity?  It is when we show a lack of trust in the Lord and in His word.  It is when we try to take ethical shortcuts to achieve goals.  It is when we have fellowship with the wrong type of people.  Oh, Lord help each of us to have a heart toward Him and seek to maintain our integrity.

         “Two things will always be bound together–love of God and recoil from sin.  There cannot be attachment without detachment.”
                   -W. Graham Scroggie

It was always that way.  He could always find a purpose, a reason for pushing through one more day, one more week.”
              –Stephen Bly  (Hard Winter At Broken Arrow)

    “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
              –1 Corinthians 15:58 (NKJV)
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There is so much hatred today.  In fact, more than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.  It is one thing to dislike someone or to not agree with their ideas, but to make outrights lies, accusations and threats is beyond proper bounds.  President Bush was severely attacked for his faith, more so than any President before him.  Vice-President Pence is lambasted continually for his faith.  I wonder, I just wonder, has the nation turned that far from God that they do no longer want His blessings?  I came across the following this week while reading.  It was a call to prayer by President Lincoln, not long after the battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg (July 15, 1863).

         “I invite the people of the United States…to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit…to guide the counsels of the government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency, and to visit with tender care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land all those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles, and sieges have been brought to suffer in mind, body, or estate, and finally to lead the whole nation through the paths of repentance and submission to the Divine will back to the perfect enjoyment of union and internal peace.” (Terry Tuley, Battlefields of Blessing:  The Civil War)

    Where is the seeking of God’s guidance?  How far have the people slid away?  I read where Mariano Rivera, the great pitcher and Hall of Famer, now a pastor, was called a racist for his support of Israel.  Get that – a black preacher, being called a racist for supporting the nation of Israel.  He stood his ground.  
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I also came across a portion of an article by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889) a great minister, poet, author, and hymnodist of the 19th century from Scotland.  This is worth pondering over and over.  God’s Way of Holiness:  “Little” Things, is the title and below is an edited version.

         “With many of us the Christian life has not gone on to maturity.  ‘Ye did run well, who did hinder you?’  Ours has been a work well begun, but left unfinished; a battle boldly entered on, but only half fought out.  Is not thus Christ dishonored?  Is not His gospel misrepresented, His cross denied, His works slighted, His example set at nought?
         “…But a holy life is made up of a multitude of small things.  It is the little things of the hour, and not the great things of the age, that fill up a life like that of Paul and John, like that of Rutherford or Brainerd….  The true symbols of a holy life are the little constant sunbeam, not the lightning.  The avoidance of little evils, little sins, little inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, little indiscretions and imprudencies, little indulgences of self and of the flesh–the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of a holy life.  Add to this list other littles:  little equivocations or aberrations from high integrity, little touches of shabbiness and meanness, little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others, little outbreaks of temper, or crossness, or selfishness, or vanity.
         “In their place we should give attention to the little duties of the day and hour, in public transactions or private dealings, or family arrangements; to little words, and looks, and tones; little benevolences, or forbearances, or tendernesses; little self-denials and self-restraints; little plans of quiet kindness for others.  These are the active developments of a holy life, the rich and divine mosaics of which it is composed…
         “It is of small things that a great life is made up.” (They Walked With God)

    People talk about doing “great things” for the Lord and they cannot even keep the “little things” together.  Our job is to be squared away, trained, studied, prepared doing the everyday “little things” in case God needs to call on us for a greater duty.  History, and people, might judge you on one or two major things that happen in your life, but it is important to realize that one event does not make a life.  Is David to be judged on his slaying of Goliath or his sin with Bathsheba, or the everyday things that made him a man after God’s heart?

When a man believes in a thing strongly enough, there is a price too high to pay.  There is a point where compromise costs him too much.”
              –Elmer Kelton  (The Time It Never Rained)

    “Then you shall again discern Between the righteous and the wicked, Between one who serves God And one who does not serve Him.”
              –Malachi 3:18 (NKJV)
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Complacency, compromise, and outright rejection is becoming prevalent in our society and in our relationship to God.  God cries, “what do I have to do to find a people who will fully trust me?” (see Numbers 14:10-11).  After all the miracles and God with them day-by-day, the people still murmured and complained and doubted.
    The writer of Hebrews said this, “Watch out, brothers, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God.”  (Hebrews 3:12, HCSB)  The church, and that is speaking in generalities, is more interested in being entertained than developing a heart of faith.  One reason is that there is the thought out there that faith is instantaneous, however, in reality faith may take a lifetime.  The term for faith in the Old Testament is actually faithfulness.  Being faithful should be a lifestyle of trusting in God, not a fulfillment of a random wish or fancy.
    Part of the duty in this last days, these days of terror and turmoil, is to build each other up.  That is not done by a few half-hearted bless you brothers.  Daily we are to be an encourager so that others will not develop a hard heart.  Look again at Hebrews 3:13-15(HCSB):

         “But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.  For we have become companions of the Messiah if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.  As it is said:  Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

    Therefore, in these days in which we now live let the reality of seeing Him make you prudent.  This current season of testing may end, but our battle against the flesh and the devil never end.  Do not become complacent!  Do not compromise with the world!  You need to prepare for new battles.  You need to do away with compromises and distractions that render your faith ineffective.
    The year is half-way over.  Maybe it is time to make or recall resolutions that were made at the beginning of the year.  Maybe it is time to get rid of compromise and the cloak of complacency.  Here are three suggestions for resolutions by Carlos Murphy for the person who sees themselves drifting into Hebrews 3.

         1)  Do not seek your comfort, but His glory.  There is a shaking that is beginning to happen.  The complacent and compromising man will be swept away.  Remember that God is ever dealing with the earth.
         2)  Place your eyes squarely on God.  Attention focused on the world will only cause grief and faintheartedness.
         3)  Resolve new allegiance to God.  Do not let other “things” become your master.  Do not seek to please men.  Be as the Apostle Paul, “For me, to live is Christ…” (Philippians 1:21, NIV).

    This is a time of choosing for the church.  This is a time to stand and after having done all, to continue to stand–no matter what.  “We are not promised the world will get better; only that He will never leave us.  Do not drop your sword or take off your armor in these days of sorrows!” (Carlos Murphy)
 
(Thanks to thoughts of David Wilkerson and Carlos Murphy)

But sometimes those brains get us to thinking down the wrong trails  When a brain starts a person to thinking they can do what they want because it’s what they want no matter who it hurts…well it just gets me steamed.”
              –Lou Bradshaw  (Cain…Just Cain)

    “Also the hand of God was on Judah to give them singleness of heart to obey the command of the king and the leaders, at the word of the Lord.”
              –2 Chronicles 30:12 (NKJV)
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I read an argument the other day, and it sort of irked me for two reasons.  The first one was that it had no business being discussed/argued on the site where it was posted.  The second was that the people who were arguing really didn’t have a very good grasp of the Scriptures.
    We are not to be dabbling in the things of the world.  We are not to depart from the commandments of the Lord, and to do that we must be in His Word, studying and meditating upon it so that we know His commandments.  Why do some choose to walk in darkness, when we have the light?  That’s one reason I cannot understand why the sophisticated, enlightened, modern church chooses to turn down the light during the song service to bring in darkness.  There is no darkness in Christ.
    Perhaps my favorite book in the New Testament is 1 John.  There is so much in that book that instructs us how to live in this current age.  We live in an evil, dark world.  It is tainted by sin, but in the midst of that we are children of the Light, therefore, we should be walking in it.

          “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
                   –1 John 1:5-7 (NKJV)

We cannot have fellowship with the Lord if we walk in darkness.  To walk in darkness is to have fellowship with the world.  We are to abhor anything and everything that is displeasing to God.  We are to hold every form of hypocrisy in detestation.  A few years back a person in our church and I had a disagreement about Jesus.  He was saying that Jesus was born with a sin-nature.  (There we go, not knowing proper doctrine again).  I said, no, he was born as Adam, without the sin nature for His father was God.  He said can we then agree to disagree; to which I again replied, no, not when it comes to doctrine.
    We are to walk through this world in the light of the Holy Spirit.  Our minds should be fixed on Him, and our hearts dedicated to Him.  Our every step should be guided by the blessed Holy Spirit.  Legalism?  Most assuredly not.  I like what H. Maurice Lednicky said, “What is too often defined as legalism is nothing more than carnality refusing to be crucified.”  There are those who are legalistic, that is noted in the Word, but too much of the time those that scream that you are being legalistic are those who are feeding their carnality.  They have compromised and have become friends with the world.