I realize this makes two new Lessons in a row, on consecutive days. And my plan now is a Bible Study every other day here on the Website. But somehow I got out of sync! I need to share a written Lesson here on the days I do not post a video Lesson (an Evening Meditation). Hence, today’s Thought. Trying to get things back in proper order …

(Last night the Evening Meditation discussed Jude Verse 11. Well worth watching if you’re concerned about the pandemic of people departing from the Faith! To watch or listen, just visit our YouTube channel, Dr. Mike Bagwell.)

Psalm 2 has God saying, in response to the rebellion of the world: “Yet have I set my king upon MY HOLY HILL of Zion.” God the Father plans to send Jesus (God the Son) back to earth to straighten out the chaotic, sinful failure man has created.

“King Jesus,” God declares!

But look (the thrust of today’s Lesson) WHERE God is going to plant Jesus as King of Kings!

“Upon MY HOLY HILL called ZION!”

Students, that’s in Israel!

More precisely, that’s in Jerusalem!

And God just called it HIS!

God owns all the earth, true. “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Psalm 24:1

But specifically, God claims Israel as HIS!

Speaking to the Jews of the “Holy Land,” God firmly asserts … “The land shall not be sold for ever: FOR THE LAND IS MINE; for ye (the Jews) are strangers and sojourners with me.” Leviticus 25:23

Rebellious man may say he is going TO TAKE that Land from the people of God … but I imagine he is in for a rude awakening!

“MY HOLY HILL!”

God is King of that Mountain!

Woe be to the man or woman or religion or army or armies that tries to wrest it out of His Hand!

Not politics folks, just BIBLE!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

“Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people (Israel): for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto HIS LAND, and to his people.” Deuteronomy 32:43, God’s Land!

And this great God, according to the Bible, has given HIS LAND to the JEWS, to the ISRAELITES! “The WHOLE LAND OF CANAAN, where you now reside as a foreigner, I WILL GIVE (hence, God is the Owner) as an EVERLASTING POSSESSION to you (Israel) and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.” Genesis 17:8, God promising Abraham!

The facts are clear!

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Psalm 1 ends with a stark reminder: “The LORD knoweth the WAY of the righteous: but the WAY of the ungodly shall perish.” Psalm 1:6

Do you see there two “ways?”

Man’s “way” and God’s “Way!”

The “way” of the ungodly and the “Way” of the righteous!

I should remove the conjunction “and” in these foregoing Lines and insert the conjunction “or!” It’s a choice. One OR the other!

The saved man or woman walks in the “way of the righteous.” The lost man or woman walks in the “way of the ungodly.”

You might be asking, “What does it matter?”

The way of the righteous leads to HEAVEN!

The way of the ungodly leads to HELL!

Jesus is preaching here: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the WAY, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the WAY, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matthew 7:13-14

On which WAY are you, this 26th day of May, 2021?

Actually, the Bible “WAY” is not just a location, a manner of life … IT IS A PERSON!

And His Name is JESUS. “I am the Way,” He boldly proclaimed when He walked the earth two thousand years ago! See John 14:6.

Do you know HIM?

If not, let me quote His gracious Words one more time, John 5:24.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

Obey His Instructions here … and you will walk the “way of the righteous!” You will go to Heaven when you die.

He has promised!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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My point this morning …

As Christians, there are some things we that we do not know! And will never know until certain events come to pass!

For example, in 1 John 3:2 we read … Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ….”

I do not know a lot about the future body I will inhabit. That “glorified body” we are promised after death! Again, I am writing to Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Or about my future home in Glory. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be!”

Wow!

Another example, I do not know when my Lord is coming again! Matthew 24:36 teaches me: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” With this Fact, with these Words of Jesus, I must rest content.

I do not know much about death either. I have never experienced it. But will, unless the Rapture occurs first. I am aware however “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Hebrews 9:27

And that … “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” Psalm 23:4

Other than that, death is an “unknown.” I do know that the “sting” of death is gone as well. Because of Jesus’ Death and Burial and Resurrection! (1 Corinthians 15:55)

All right, you may be saying by now.

Actually, I can’t type all the things which “I do not know” (at least not fully) as a Christian, as a Bible Believer.

And that limited ignorance (limited knowledge) is a fact, surely, for a reason, for some important reason.

That reason being … when I do not know, I can TRUST my Lord! My Lord WHO DOES KNOW!

Again let me say it: I CAN TRUST!

One more verb … I CAN TRUST AND OBEY!

Deuteronomy 29:29 suns the Lesson well … “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

Amen!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

My favorite hymn in all the Songbook is “I know Whom I have believed!” Its verses list many things we do not know … then repeats the glorious fact that WE DO KNOW Jesus Christ the Son of God and our dear Lord!

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I am referring to Jude’s 9th Verse …

“Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.”

This short Passage of Scripture has captivated my mind since early last night. In, fact it is our TEXT for tomorrow’s “Evening Meditation.” That’s our on-line Bible Class …

Michael’s name means “one who is like God!”

The noun “devil” means “accuser.”

So here Michael DID NOT accuse the devil!

He DID NOT fall into Satan’s trap! He did not emulate the devil! He did not join the ranks of the “accuser!”

He (Michael) will not judge his “brother!” (Remember, Lucifer and Michael have known each other for millennia! Each being one of God’s “top ranking” angels … until the devil rebelled the Almighty. Both created by God, “brothers” at least in that sense!)

One trait of the “false teachers,” the “abdicators” from the faith … is that they “speak evil of dignities.” (Jude Verse 8)

Michael refuses to do that!

Do you doubt that the devil was once a “dignity?” Then read Ezekiel 28:13 … “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.” Spoken of Lucifer!

Then, does the devil here (whatever he wanted to do with the “body of Moses”) get by “scot free?”

No!

Michael turns him over to the Lord!

Michael said, “The Lord rebuke thee.”

There just may be here a great Lesson in NOT being too judgmental!

Because, after all, GOD IS THE JUDGE!

Paul wrote … “Why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” Romans 14:10

Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Watch a fuller discussion of this Text tomorrow evening on our YouTube Channel! Well, let me go and study some more!

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It was just building a wall, and repairing some gates … but Nehemiah the Old Testament patriot believed in the job he was doing.

He even went so far as to call it a “great work!”

His answer to some enemies who wanted him to “come down from the wall and talk,” a ruse at best … “I am doing a GREAT WORK, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?” Nehemiah 6:3

And indeed, God had called and equipped Nehemiah to do that work, hence it was great.

But today I have a question.

Is the work you are doing “great” or “mediocre” or maybe just plain “boring?”

If you are truly living “unto the Lord,” I say anything you do in His Will is a “great work!”

Raising a child?

Preparing a Sunday School lesson?

Washing the dishes?

Working you job?

Whatever?

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31!

Cleaning house?

Winning a lost soul?

YOU WILL BE FAR LESS APT TO QUIT, OR EVEN SLACK OFF … IF YOU VIEW YOUR PRESENT ACTIVITY AS BEING “UNTO THE LORD!”

And I’m saying anything done “unto Him,” anything seeking His Approval … is “great work!

Don’t quit!

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9

Well, I must close for now.

I have a Sermon to prepare … a “great work” I suspect!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Glory to God!

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