There’s the old adage, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
A motto of this blog is “The Gospel a day keeps the Devil away.”
The most famous story in the Bible about death clothes is when Jesus commanded Lazarus to rise out the grave. Before he did that miracle, the reason was two-fold, one, this would have been the tipping point for the religious Jews in their urgency to get rid of Jesus by submitting him and their case against him to the Romans. Another reason, was it was a sign of Jesus’ own resurrection where He rises from in his own Resurrection to eternal glory.
One of the many famous passages of scripture can be found in John 11:
So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, *came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus *said, “Remove the stone.”Martha, the sister of the deceased, *said to Him, “Lord, by this time he smells, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus *said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. – John 11:38-41 (LSB)
The King James Version is more entertaining for the kids:
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. (KJV).
This has some relevance when compared to each of us as we come to Christ justified by faith: Our heart is transformed by the Holy Spirit and we become a new creation, willing to turn away from sin and to do with gratitude the Father’s will.
However, we begin a process of sanctification which serves to help us grow out of the rotting stink. There is no perfection from our standpoint until we are glorified after death in God’s heavenly kingdom. In the meantime, we must contend with the death clothes that was our old self, with its temptations, weaknesses, and a number of ways that God through the Holy Spirit will removed the old, dirty, and filthy ways of our old self and replace them with the new.
This is an essential feature of living a Gospel centered life. It’s how your pint of view comes more like Gods as you feed on his living word
In order to begin scraping off and purging that which has developed into a fine stench, we need to detoxify our old way of thinking, and like changing your diet to something healthier, time and discipline reap the good benefits. Don’t be fooled, an occasional dip into the scripture will not fight the war over your mind. You’ve been feed something tainted for your whole life and it is necessary to take the cues from Jesus Christ as Lord and King.
We cannot live a Christian life without the dedication of a disciple who sits at the feet of the master to draw upon His wisdom. This means reading Scripture at least once per day for many of us. This means stopping activities that are against Gods will and doing things that are blessed by God.
Before you became a believer, the Bible may have been difficult to understand and even a challenge to view it as an authority over all other sources of information. When you are a believer, the words of God begin to have weight, they blossom and often strike with impact and explode with Truth.
Idolatry is making up your own God as though God is just an imaginary being conjured up in your limited understanding of life. The history of how God interacted with people and the Israelites is critical in our understanding of who God actually is and standards of holiness and righteousness and also mercy and compassion. Because God is perfect morally, even jealousy is just with God, whereas we humans often get it wrong because at best we are because we are sinful and fall short in our exercising of such traits.
Learning to be obedient to God means your plans should align with God’s. You need to practice and seek spiritually cleanliness and adopt it in all areas of your life. This means as a husband, wife, father, mother, child, friend, shipmates or co-workwers, you must begin to see each on of this people or yourself in any of these positions as someone who is implementing God’s purposes and plans for your neck of the world.
Jesus, the Lord and King commanded:
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
You and the filthy rags tagging along may be called to go to the further reaches where no man has gone before, but chances are, you personally do not need to go to the ends of the earth to proclaim the gospel. You are already in the area of earth that in Jesus’ day was the far ends of the earth.
Lazarus waking from being dead is covered with stinking rags of death clothes,
So are we when we are regenerated from death to life into one with Christ
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).
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5-17-2024