God’s Commands Come With Wonderful Promises

With most unmarried evangelicals in their 20s apparently having occasional or frequent sexual intercourse, some say pastors should offer contraceptives, and others say they should merely offer louder “Thou Shalt Nots.” Belden Lane’s Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (Oxford University Press, 2011) suggests an alternative.

A bit of background: I’ve learned much from John Piper and his Desiring God ministry. Basing their approach on the work of Puritan Jonathan Edwards, Desiring God notes that “God designed humans to seek their happiness in Him.?…?Joy glorifies God.” Desiring God reaches secular, post-Christian Westerners by saying, “You are not nearly hedonistic enough,” and contrasting short-lived thrills with the “never-ending satisfaction in seeing and savoring Jesus Christ.”

Author Lane is unconnected with Desiring God, and he goes off on political tangents at times, but he aptly quotes Calvin’s comment about God: “We will never spontaneously and heartily sound forth His praises until He wins us by the sweetness of His goodness.” Jonathan Edwards also preached more about God’s glory mirrored in the beauty of the world—”Nature teaches us God’s beauty”—than about God’s anger.

Puritan Richard Baxter wrote in 1650, “What a pleasure it is to dive into the secrets of nature.” Lane dives, as in this example: “Ten miles deep in the ocean’s abyss are blind creatures illuminated with some of the most lustrous colors imaginable. And for what purpose? They can’t even see each other. It is almost as if their glory were created for its own sake”—and, more importantly, for God’s. Why else would “marvelous shades of color” be found inside abalone shells?

So much pleasure: The Blue Ridge mountains are beautiful and so are cities filled with people, all images of God. The Puritans’ “language of desire” honored God who created beauty in both nature and humanity. Most men four centuries ago and now feel the joy evident in Lewis Bayly’s declaration—The Practice of Piety (1611)—when he beheld “the lovely beauty of Women” and exclaimed “how fair is that God, that made these fair!”

Maybe because my wife and I celebrated on June 27 our 36th anniversary, I’m impressed that, as historian Amanda Porterfield wrote in 1980, Puritans often “loved their wives beyond measure.” The love was both spiritual and physical: Unlike killjoys who saw marital relations as matters of duty, Puritans said husbands and wives should “delight each in the other [during] mutual dalliances for pleasure’s sake.”

Wives often loved being loved. Margaret Dunham, wife of a Glasgow University professor, wrote in 1668 of the “love-faintings?…?high delightings … love-languishings?…?and heart-ravishings” that characterized both love of Christ and love of husband. She noted “those beautiful blushings [and] humble hidings?…?on the Bride’s part, and those urgent callings and compellings?…?on the Bridegroom’s part.”

Since it’s beyond us to know the depths of God’s love but not to grasp marital love, the Bible describes the former by the latter, and so did some pastors. Francis Rous, preaching on “Mystical Marriage,” noted “a chamber within us, and a bed of love in that chamber, wherein Christ meets and rests with the soul.” John Cotton of First Church in Boston, describing how we should long for Christ, wrote, “It will inflame our hearts to kiss him again.”

A satisfying marriage points us to the satisfactions of God. As the Desiring God website states, “God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.” And what if, instead of learning satisfaction in God and the good gifts He provides, we proceed on our own path? What if we have a run of encounters commemorated by sexting photographs and asterisking phone numbers on iPads? What if we cohabit without covenant in the way we might try out a variety of gods?

“You shall not commit adultery,” like all of God’s commands, has an implicit promise: “You shall enjoy the sweetness of God’s goodness in providing marriage.” In C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew, Digory arrives at an Edenic garden and finds Jadis there. She has gorged herself on one of the apples, despite a sign forbidding that. She could have relished goodness, but instead becomes the White Witch. Whenever we advise the unmarried, we need to ask: God, or Jadis?

Marvin Olasky

Marvin Olasky is editor-in-chief of the national news magazine World. For additional commentary by Marvin Olasky, visit http://www.worldmag.com.

http://townhall.com/columnists/marvinolasky/2012/08/07/gods_commands_come_with_wonderful_promises/page/full/

Here Come the Polygamists

In case you haven’t heard, some of the stars of the popular TV show “Sister Wives” are suing the state of Utah, arguing that its laws against bigamy are unconstitutional. And just last week, a reporter asked White House press secretary Jay Carney, “How does the president stand on polygamy?”

Polygamy? Are you kidding?

Not surprisingly, Carney ignored the question, but it is a question he won’t be able to ignore for long. In an extensive, <href=”#ixzz22rj3b0du”>feature article, Time magazine described how “once secretive plural families like the Dargers of Utah [also part of “Sister Wives”] are coming out of the shadows and beginning to advocate for their way of life.” (The article was entitled, “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do: Polygamy Raises Its Profile in America.”)

But what else could we expect? First same-sex couples have come out of the closet and now “plural families” are “coming out of the shadows.” After all, if two men can get “married,” why not one man and several women? And if there is a fundamental “right” to marry the person you love, shouldn’t that “right” also extend to the persons (plural) you love? Surely “marriage equality” means equality for all, right?

On July 25^th, AP News reported that “Kody Brown and his four wives just want to live like any other family — free from the threat of being tossed in prison.” Surely, “tolerance” and “diversity” require this too, do they not? (Yes, I’m being sarcastic, but if “tolerance” and “diversity” and “equality” can be used to support same-sex “marriage,” then they can be used to support polygamy.)

The Browns are being represented by no less a prominent attorney than Jonathan Turley, professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a frequent TV commentator. Turley is claiming that the very court rulings that paved the way for same-sex “marriage” also pave the way for polygamy. And this, it turns out, is exactly what Justice Antonin Scalia predicted in 2003 in his withering dissent of Lawrence v. Texas, where 6 Supreme Court justices found a constitutional “right” to Sodomy. Scalia warned that with the court’s ruling, “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest . . . are … called into question by today’s decision.”

Not surprisingly, Turley is now arguing that “under previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, such as one that struck down Texas’ sodomy law, private intimate relationships between consenting adults are constitutionally protected.” But of course! And despite the fact that Scalia was ridiculed for issuing his 2003 warning, his words are proving to be strikingly prescient. In fact, already in 2003, a conservative reporter wrote that “Polygamy is the next civil-rights battle,” stating that the “Multiple-wives crowd hopes to capitalize on [the Lawrence v. Texas] sodomy decision.”

In 2005, during a question and answer session at Yale University, ACLU president Nadine Strossen stated that polygamy was among the “fundamental rights” that her organization would continue to defend, and in 2011, Joseph Farah asked rhetorically, “if marriage is a discriminatory institution because it prohibits same-sex couplings, why would it not be discriminatory to prohibit more than two people from participation?” He also noted, quite rightly, that “there is much more demand for polygamy throughout the world than there is for same-sex marriage,” not to mention much more historical precedent for it.

But this is not just an issue that is being played out in the courts. It’s also being played out in the court of public opinion, and just as the media has helped promote the acceptance and even celebration of homosexuality (along with bisexuality and transgenderism), it is doing the same for polygamy. (For the media’s recent promotion of polyamory, see here.)

After all, it was just a few months ago that Vice President Joe Biden said, “I think ‘Will & Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public than almost anybody’s ever done so far. People fear that which is different. Now they’re beginning to understand.” The same can be said for shows like HBO’s “Big Love” and TLC’s “Sister Wives,” as Americans are “beginning to understand” polygamy as well. Why should they fear it?

Polygamists now have a friendly face, and if the women are happy sharing their husband and making a life together with their children, how can we object? At least that’s what the popular argument would say.

I wrote last year that same-sex “marriage” represented a further fall down the slippery slope than did polygamy, and so it’s only logical that the continued push for same-sex “marriage” will be followed inevitably by the push for polygamy (and more).

The lesson from all this is simple: If we don’t draw an absolute line in the sand and declare on a national level that marriage is the union of one man and one woman only, this sacred and most foundational human institution will soon become so malleable as to be totally unrecognizable. And so, we either do the right thing today or we face the radical consequences tomorrow. Which will it be?

Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire, and his latest book is The Real Kosher Jesus.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2012/08/07/here_come_the_polygamists/page/full/

Expel Brice Horton

Note: This column contains language that may be unsuitable for some readers, especially thin-skinned homosexual activists and hypocritical bigots.

The faux outrage over Chick-fil-a‘s stance on gay marriage has moved to my little campus of UNCW, which stands for the University of North Carolina – We Teach Students to be B*tchy Little Bigots. And no student has elevated bitchiness to a Zen art quite like Brice Horton. He recently decided to take action to get Chick-fil-a removed from the university food court because he has to have all of his meals prepared by people who approve of homosexual sodomy. And apparently, he can’t just choose to eat elsewhere.

Horton has confessed to his bigotry – admitting he’s contacted Aramark, the company that handles all of the food choices at UNCW. For the record, I am assuming that food preferences, like sexual practices, are determined by choice, not by genetics.

UNCW released a statement just a couple of days after Horton waged his jihad against freedom of religion and diversity of food choice. UNCW announced that Chick-fil-a will remain on campus. It must have been gut-wrenching for UNCW to make a correct common-sense decision. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Although correct, the reason UNCW gave for the decision, as quoted by local television station WECT, is disturbing. They were quoted as saying that the management and employees at the Chick-fil-a location at UNCW are Aramark employees who “fully adhere to the diversity and inclusion principles specified by Aramark and UNCW.”

In other words, the university appears to have taken the time to investigate the Aramark employees in order to see whether they had the right (that means left) values needed to remain on campus. What happened to our commitment to diversity of opinion? It is worth noting that there is no indication that UNCW investigated Brice Horton to see whether he “adheres to the diversity and inclusion principles” needed to remain on campus. Obviously, he does not.

The entire incident shows that UNCW is willing to investigate people to determine whether they should be excluded in order to promote inclusion. This could not get more Orwellian, could it? Yes it could. The entire statement issued by UNCW is worth reading:

UNCW is an institution that values diversity and inclusion. As part of the university experience, we recognize the right of all people to speak freely – even if that speech goes against our values. We also recognize the right of individuals to make their own choices as consumers. The management and employees at the Chick-fil-A location on campus are Aramark employees who fully adhere to the diversity and inclusion principles specified by Aramark and UNCW. This means they respect the diverse backgrounds, styles, values and beliefs of their customers and employees, and they strive to offer choice and variety to the UNCW community. UNCW does not have plans to alter this food service option that Aramark provides to our campus.

Did everyone catch that? UNCW will respect speech even if “that speech goes against our values.” What are UNCW’s collective values? More specifically, what speech did Chick-fil-a express that goes against UNCW’s collective values? Is UNCW saying that it supports same-sex marriage? If not, why do they seem to be distancing themselves from Chick-fil-a while “allowing” them to remain on campus?

If I were UNCW Chancellor Gary Miller, I would do three things immediately. First, I would clarify UNCW’s stance on same-sex marriage, which had better be one of neutrality. Second, I would fire the incompetent who wrote the Chick-fil-a press release. Finally, I would expel Brice Horton immediately.

Of course, the moral case for expelling Brice Horton has nothing to do with his beliefs about same-sex marriage. It has everything to do with his lack of emotional maturity. If we don’t get this kid off campus, he might encounter other ideas that might cause him to lose his composure. He might throw another hissy fit, which would lead others to say that gay activists are nothing more than emotionally inferior lunatics. Such speech would promote stereotypes. And that’s the kind of speech that goes against our collective values.

Wherever you stand on this issue, it is clear that we need to exclude non-conformists who do not share our collective values. How else are we going to promote diversity and inclusion?

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2012/08/07/expel_brice_horton/page/full/

 

The Crown of Life

The Crown of Life.

Lessons From Jonah

I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and He answered me. —Jonah 2:2

The story of Jonah is one of the most discussed and fascinating accounts in the Bible. But for all the debate, one thing is sure: Jonah did a lot of soul-searching in that smelly underwater hotel.

All of us can identify. Sometimes life just goes badly. When it does, like Jonah we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.

Is there sin in my life? In light of Jonah’s blatant disobedience, God had to do something drastic to catch his attention and lead him to repentance.

What can I learn from this situation? The wicked people of Nineveh were enemies of God’s people. Jonah thought they should be judged and not given a second chance. He obviously needed a lesson in sharing God’s compassion for the lost. “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster” (Jonah 3:10).

Can I display God’s glory in this? Often our suffering is not about us but about people seeing the power of God working through our weakness. Jonah found himself in a helpless situation, yet God used him to lead a pagan nation to repentance.

Next time you find yourself in a “belly-of-a-whale” problem, don’t forget to ask the hard questions. It could mean the difference between despair and deliverance.

For Further Study For an in-depth study of the fascinating account of Jonah, read The Failure Of Success: The Story Of Jonah

We learn lessons in the school of suffering that we can learn in no other way.

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/lessons-from-jonah/

Prayer in the Father’s House

. . . they found Him in the temple . . . . And He said to them, ’. . . Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?’ —Luke 2:46, 49

Our Lord’s childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood— His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father’s house? Is the Son of God living in His Father’s house within me?

The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong— when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. “. . . I must be about My Father’s business”— and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father’s house.

Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord’s life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father’s house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.

The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you.

http://utmost.org/prayer-in-the-father’s-house/

The Gift of Nothing

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.” — Hosea 2:14

Of all the places I might take my wife on a second honeymoon, the desert is the last place that I would pick! But when God speaks about reconnecting with His estranged nation, that’s exactly where He plans to take His bride. The desert, according to the LORD, is the perfect place to rekindle the flame of love.  Why?

A cute book came out a number of years ago called The Gift of Nothing. It is about a cat named Mooch who wants to get a present for his canine friend named Earl. But Mooch can’t think of anything to give Earl, who already has everything. After thinking it over, Mooch comes up with an ingenious idea. He finds a big box, wraps it up, and gives Earl “nothing.” Earl is confused, and looking into the empty box, he says, “There’s nothing here!”

“Yes!” says Mooch. “Nothing… except me and you.” The story ends by saying, “Mooch and Earl enjoyed nothing.  And everything.”

This clever little story reminds us that sometimes, less is more. Things can be distracting and disorienting. Nothingness helps us focus on what really matters. The desert is the perfect place for God to connect with His people. It is full of nothing. The Hebrew word for desert is midbar. It is almost exactly the same as the word midaber, which means “one who speaks.” The Sages tell us that this is because in the desert, we are able to hear the One who speaks. In the silence, we are able to hear His word.

This explains why God began His relationship with Israel in the desert, just after He took them out of Egypt. It was in the desert that God gave the Torah to the Israelites. And it is in the desert, God tells us in Hosea, that He will reconnect with His nation once again. The desert is a huge expanse of nothingness. With nothing else filling her space, Israel would have plenty of room for God.

We are very blessed to live in a time when many people have many things. But sometimes they can distract us from our connection with God. At least once a week, create a desert in your life. Silence the phone, unplug the TV, and turn off the computer. Gather your children and your loved ones together and enjoy the nothing. And everything.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/the-gift-of-nothing

Hollywood pushes pedophilia through Matthew McConaughey

Almost exactly one year ago, in August of 2011, we reported that a mental health group made up of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals were advocating for a change in society’s negative view of pedophilia.   As reported by OneNewsNow.com, Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber attended the mental health conference, and stated:  “The entire focus of the event was on the victimhood of the pedophile.  There was “very little concern for the children who are the victims of these individuals when they are raped, who these individuals lust after,” he adds.

And he says the experts’ discussions were focused on “destigmatizing pedophilia … removing the stigma, and [getting] the public to stop demonizing pedophiles.” …

 

In our report less than one year ago, we commented that it may seem ludicrous to think that pedophilia would ever be condoned, but it was certainly a step in that direction.

While that may have been one small step down the path of “destigmatizing pedophilia,” Hollywood had now made a giant leap in that direction.

Just released by Hollywood is a film entitled “Killer Joe” which stars A-list, heart-throb actor Matthew McConaughey – a movie which earned a NC-17 rating (what used to be called an X rating).  If a film receives an NC-17 rating, you know it must contain graphic sexual content.  Such a rating has always doomed it at the box office.  And movie companies would make any cuts necessary to avoid such a rating.  So what caused the NC-17 rating of this movie?  Pedophilia and nudity.  The movie features a sickening sexual relationship between McConaughey’s character and a 12 year old girl.

This is what Fox News reported regarding the film:

“… the southern gothic crime thriller centers on a broken, drug-dealing young man who convinces his dad and stepmom to join him in hiring corrupt small-town Texas sheriff Joe (played by McConaughey) to murder his mom in an effort to obtain her life insurance policy.

 

But as a financial “retainer,” they willingly give the sheriff their sweetly innocent 12-year-old sister/daughter Dottie as his sexual muse – and there’s no full frontal nudity or explicit innuendos spared.

 

But while the strict “no children under 17” rating might affect the film’s performance at the box office, some experts predict that it may give the film a cult following.

 

“While it may affect the ability to market a film, it brings a whole new cache of subversive marketing, and mainstream actors who give it legitimacy, credibility and raise it to a whole new level,” box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian told the Associated Press.

“Let’s wear it as a badge and keep it shined!” McConaughey said of the NC-17 rating for “Killer Joe.”

Still, despite his embrace of the rating, it took quite some convincing before the actor signed on to play a pedophile police man in what has been conceived as a humor-driven movie.

 

“I thought (the script) was gross. I put it down and threw it in the trash and wanted nothing to do with it. Then I took a long, hot shower,” he told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. “But some other people close to me read it and their opinion was 180 degrees different from mine. They were laughing so I went back and read it. The first time I read it I got so sucked into this ugly world, I never could get above that to see any levity or humanity. I just thought it was icky, sticky, gross and I didn’t want to be in that company. Once I got the humor, it allowed me to see the story and the humanity.”

 

Only that’s not where the stomach-churning story ends.  …

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/07/30/nudity-pedophilia-in-matthew-mcconaughey-and-gina-gershon-killer-joe-lands-film/#ixzz22mjJW4Nq

So why would Hollywood produce a film featuring pedophilia knowing the rating it would receive and thus greatly reducing ticket sales?  What could be more important than profit?  I can think of no other reason than to take a step toward legitimizing sex with children and lowering the age of consent.   As stated above, a mainstream actor such as McConaughey brings “legitimacy and credibility.”

What is Hollywood trying to legitimize with this movie?  Sex with children!

The power of the entertainment industry to influence thoughts, values, and behavior is widely recognized.  A recent study from Dartmouth College concluded what is observable all around us – that “adolescents who are exposed to more sexual content in movies start having sex at younger ages, have more sexual partners, and are less likely to use condoms with casual sexual partners.”

Along with Hollywood, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has a practice of withholding “moral judgment” from perversion – and thus denying that there are thoughts and behaviors that are morally wrong.

Where once there was a great social stigma regarding pornography, psychologists will now “prescribe” that married couples view pornography together as a supposed marital aid!

Not that long ago our society viewed homosexuality for what it is – sexual deviancy.  However, in the 1970s the APA ‘declassified” homosexuality as a mental disorder – putting such deviancy on the same level as heterosexuality.   Now just a few decades later we are in a fight to preserve traditional, biblical marriage that has stood for all time and we Christians are the ones labeled as “abnormal, intolerant homophobes” – if we state that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.  Just ask Kirk Cameron.

Is this the path we are on regarding pedophilia?

As Hollywood and an A-List actor proudly produce such filth, there can be no other conclusion – we are not merely “slouching toward Gomorrah” – we’ve arrived.

http://www.americandecency.org/archives/hollywood-pushes-pedophilia-through-matthew-mcconaughey/#more-6914

Jesus In The Hands Of His Enemies

The men who seized Jesus mocked him and flogged him. They also blindfolded him and said, “Prophet, tell us who is it that struck you?” And they said many other things, insulting him.

At daybreak they brought him before the council at which were gathered the elders, both the chief priests and the scribes. And they tried to get evidence against him to have him put to death, but could not find any, for though many made false statements, they did not agree. Some men stood up and falsely said, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made by the hands of men and within three days I will build another made without hands.’” But the statements even of these men did not agree.

Then the high priest arose and asked Jesus, “Do you not answer? What about these statements that these men make against you?” But he was silent and made no answer. And the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ? If you are, tell us.” He said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you questions, you will not answer me. But after this the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God Almighty.” Then they all said to him, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied, “It is as you say; I am.” So they said, “What further need have we of evidence? We have heard it from his own lips.”

Then all the high priests and scribes rose and brought Jesus before Pilate, and began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man leading our people astray, forbidding them to pay taxes to the Roman emperor, and saying that he himself is Christ, the King.” Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered, “I am.” Pilate said to the high priests and the crowd, “I do not find that this man has done anything wrong.” But they insisted, saying, “He stirs up the people by teaching through all Judea. He began in Galilee, and now he has come even here.” When Pilate heard this he asked whether Jesus was a Galilean, and when he learned that he was and that he came under Herod’s rule, he sent him to Herod Antipas, who was also in Jerusalem at this time.

Herod was glad to see Jesus. He had long wished to see him because of what he had heard about him, and because he also hoped to see him do some wonderful deed. Although Herod asked him many questions, Jesus made no answer, and the high priests and the scribes loudly shouted their charges against him. Then Herod, and his soldiers, after mocking him, and dressing him in a bright colored robe, sent him back to Pilate.

Pilate then called together the high priests and other officials and the people, and said, “You brought me this man on the charge that he stirred up the people to rebel. Now I have examined him before you and found no guilt in him of those things of which you accuse him; no, nor has Herod, for he has sent him back to us. You see that he has done nothing that calls for death. I will therefore have him flogged and then release him” (for it was the custom at this feast to release for them one man). But they all cried out, “Away with him and release for us Barabbas” (a man who had been put into prison because of a riot which had occurred in the city, and on the charge of murder). Pilate spoke to them again, because he wished to release Jesus; but still they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” He said to them for the third time, “Why, what crime has this man committed? I have found no reason to put him to death. I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.” But they shouted and demanded that he should be crucified. And so Pilate, wishing to please the people, released Barabbas, but Jesus he turned over to them to be crucified.

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/Jesus-In-The-Hands-Of-His-Enemies.shtml

And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon. Judges 11:12

Jephthah‘s procedure was admirable in his quiet expostulation, before resorting to force in the defence of home and country against the aggression of Amalek. It was quite clear that Ammon had no right to the lands of which Israel, at God‘s command, had dispossessed the Amorites. “Thou doest me wrong to war against me.” But before repelling the invasion, Jephthah did his best to show the unreasonableness of Ammon’s pretext.

Thus our Lord expostulated with the servant that smote Him. “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou Me?”

It is in this way that we are to act still. “If thy brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault between thee and him alone: if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.”

In the Master‘s judgment, the wrongdoer injured himself much more than any one else; and therefore earnest words of expostulation were desirable to stay him from his own destruction.

How admirable it would be if we would act in such a spirit of meek conciliation! Then our cause might fairly be submitted to the Judge of all (Judges 11:27); and we should be strong in after-times to stand for the sacred rights of others.

There is no need to bribe God’s help, as Jephthah did, by his rash promise. He will give gladly and freely out of His own heart of love the help and deliverance we need, if only our cause is rightly ordered before Him. “Who delivered, and doth deliver; He will yet deliver” (2Co 1:10). When we are right with our fellow men, we can confidently count on God’s almighty helpfulness.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/f-b-meyer-devotional.shtml