Only an infinite God can promise His “eternality” … and as Christians our great God certainly qualifies!

Psalm 73:23 is a “new” verse to me. Yes, it has been in the Bible for centuries, but early this morning it came alive in my heart!

Here it is: “Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.” Now I need to point out … this is the Psalmist Asaph praying to the Lord.

A commitment to live “continually” with God!

But also … every time Asaph sought God, or every time he needed God, or every day as he communed with God … God indeed was “there.” Apparently “continually” so!

This speaks volumes about God’s faithfulness, unchangeableness, even His unfathomable love.

Asaph calls out to God (as he does through the whole 73rd Psalm) … and God is “by his side!”

Hebrews 13:15 … “For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” What a promise!

Matthew 28:20 … “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” Equally thrilling!

No doubt about the Lord’s tenacity, loyalty, power! (As in the last half of our verse … “Thou hast holden me in Thy Right Hand.”)

But look at our Text yet again, at Asaph’s faithfulness. Or at least by this point in the Psalm he is faithful. As I’ve said, He’s the one pledging … “Nevertheless I am continually with Thee.”

(So I can make a deduction. Seems that if I am determined to be “with Him, by His Side,” He immediately will “hold me in His Right Hand!

Wow!

Watch Asaph’s faith grow. He began the Psalm with doubts … but no more! Follow the progression …

“22 So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. 23 NEVERTHELESS I AM CONTINUALLY WITH THEE: thou hast holden me by my right hand. 24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. 26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. 27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. 28 But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.” Psalm 73:22-28, from doubt to certainty! From ignorance to assurance!

Our being “continually” with the Lord might be compared to Jesus’ great “Abide in Me” Statements from the Gospel of John.

One example … “If ye ABIDE IN ME, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” John 15:7

God … continually with us!

Question is … will we (like Asaph) be/live/fellowship continually with Him?

Psalm 115:8 says that those who worship idols will eventually be just like them, just like the gods they serve!

Psalm 73:23 perhaps proves that.

God is faithful.

Asaph shall be faithful too.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Are YOU continually with Him?

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I can hear him saying it now, though he has been in Heaven for a while, a godly old Preacher … “The Christian does not live his life by EXPLANATIONS, but by PROMISES!”

Yes, there will be some things come into your life that you CAN NOT EXPLAIN! But there will never come anything to which you cannot apply one of GOD’S PROMISES!

If this is so, and I think it is, the Bible is The Book we need!

Several authors through the years have complied lists of those marvelous promises. One volume, “All the Promises of the Bible,” immediately comes to mind. (Written by Herbert Lockyer.)

By even the most conservative of calculations, at least 7,000 such Promises appear on the Pages of Scripture! (Some say a lot more than that.)

I may not know WHY a loved one died, early in life. (In other words, I have no explanation.)

But I do know this, he went “absent from the body, present with the Lord.” That’s a PROMISE from 2 Corinthians 5:8!

And I do know he did not walk the valley of the shadow of death alone! I have this PROMISE … “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for THOU ART WITH ME.” Psalm 23:4, comforting!

I say there is a promise for every life situation … either specifically or generally.

How about this one? “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

This is has helped many a time. “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

This one too … “I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Psalm 81:10

Get you a few today and live by them!

And there will be plenty of them left for tomorrow as well

In fact, you can use one again and again!

So many Promises that Peter said: “Whereby are given unto us EXCEEDING GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES: that by these ye might be …!” Might be everything we need to be living for Jesus on this earth! (I just quoted part of 2 Peter 1:4.)

Paul, add something else to the conversation please …“Having therefore these PROMISES, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1

Go on your own PROMISE search today!

Get INTO God’s Word and become a prospector!

“He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a REWARDER of them that diligently seek him.” Hebrews 11:6, sounds like a Promise to me!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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I am talking about us Christians and our battles with the devil! Do I fight him or flee from him, from the temptation he is using at the moment?

Well, James 4:7 teaches me to … “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Here “resist” is the Greek verb “to stand against.”

But then again, in 2 Timothy 2:22 Scripture commands us to … “Flee also youthful lusts.” And instead “Follow (meaning ‘to chase after’) righteousness, faith, charity, peace.”

Hence the Lesson title … “Fight or flee?”

Normally I say put on the whole armour of God and “withstand” the devil, through the Power of Word and the Presence of the Holy Spirit.

BUT CLEARLY THER ARE SOME TIMES WHEN WE SHOUD RUN WITH ALL OUR MIGHT! FLEE CERTAIN ULTRA-DANGEROUS TEMPTATIONS ANYWAY!

Here’s an illustration …

Once godly Joseph was approached (lured, seduced) by his master’s wife (Potiphar’s wife) to commit adultery. Joseph said NO.

That’s resisting!

Then one day …

“And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within. And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.” Genesis 39:12

Joseph wisely did not try to argue with her. Or outsmart her. He just “got out of there!”

Again, Moses wrote: “And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.”

He fled.

He did not sin with her!

He obeyed Proverbs 6:5, before it was written … “Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.”

Dear friend, is there some especially deceptive sin hounding you?

Deceptively displaying the “pleasures” of the flesh or the world?

If so … run!

Run right now!

Change your location, as Joseph did.

Oh, what dire warnings the Bible delivers, even in its stories and narratives!

Somehow today … I feel enough has been said.

Somehow too, I sense somebody especially needs this Lesson. Do not cast it aside.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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Today’s Bible Text is found in the little Book of Obadiah. His whole prophecy (the entire Book) consists of only 21 verses!

It is a jeremiad (a scathing denunciation) of the people of Edom. Verse 1 … “The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning Edom …”

The Edomites were descendants of Ishmael, son of Abraham. Just as the Israelites were descendants of Abraham through Isaac.

So … they are related. Blood brothers, well … half brothers. (Hagar birthed Ishmael and Sarah gave us Isaac. Abraham fathered both.)

BUT … the Edomites did not love (or even treat kindly) their brethren the Jews. As the Lord God would have expected, demanded them to do. In fact, they hated the sons of Promise, Isaac’s kin.

And on a day of infamy … the day Israel (Judah) fell to the Babylonians … the Edomites did not help their brethren. They cheered the vicious, heathen Babylonians as they destroyed Jerusalem and dismantled the Temple!

Obadiah verse 10, God’s indictment against the people of Edom … “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. “

There are no Edomites today! God has cut them off!

More specifically, the sin of Edom … “In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers (the Babylonian army) carried away captive his (Judah’s) forces, and foreigners (gentiles, heathen, Babylonians) entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, EVEN THOU WAST AS ONE OF THEM.” Verse 11, God must have been carefully watching!

They should have loved, defended Judah, Jerusalem.

Instead the Edomites stood by and watch and “rejoiced” over Judah’s demise, verse 12 tells more … “But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have REJOICED over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity.”

The “point” of today’s Lesson?

“Even thou wast as one of them.” (Excerpted from Verse 11, King James Version.)

Edom wast as if “one of them,” one of Israel’s enemies!

Brethren robbing brethren!

Brethren encouraging the enemy!

“Even thou wast as one of them.”

In other words, you chose the wrong side!

Now … in America today it’s time to start asking, “On whose side are you?”

Are you with your brethren or against them?

Are you with the enemy or against them?

Joshua 24:15 … “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.”

“For” or “against?”

Exodus 32:26 … “Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD’S side? let him come unto me.”

Jesus … Matthew 6:24 … “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

Wow!

The battle lines are being drawn more clearly than ever!

I never want it said of me … “Thou wast as one of them.”

Yes, really I guess that today’s Meditation is poignantly about “brotherly kindness.”

Think about it …

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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I’m not sure how long Thanksgiving will even remain a Holiday in the United States. It has too much of a Biblical, Christian, even patriotic flavor to it.

But whatever day one might be reading this little Meditation, the Bible is clear for us who believe in Jesus as God’s Son, as our personal Lord and Saviour …

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Notice Paul did not command (the verb is an imperative) us to give thanks “for” everything. But “in” everything!

How can we thank God for the terrible shape America in which has placed herself?

(Other than simple fact that now I can understand why this Country is not mentioned in Bible Prophecy. Or why Israel will have few, if any, allies at Armageddon. Or why 2 Timothy 3:12 will more than likely become a stark reality in this place where most of us live!)

How can I give thanks that unrighteousness is “on the throne” and that “truth has fallen in the streets?” (Isaiah 59:14)

Maybe I can’t.

Maybe that’s not what Paul had in mind anyway!

This is what I’m saying …

IF we put the emphasis on the little preposition “IN” (again 1 Thessalonians 5:18) … “IN every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” … we could (for example) THANK GOD FOR SAVING US … “in” the middle of any condition life presents us!

Thank God for Grace “in” the middle of a crooked and perverse generation where we live, Philippians 2:15.

Thank God for Heaven, when “in” the intensive care unit at the hospital.

Thank God for Jesus … “in” any situation!

Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Just a thought this Thanksgiving Day, 2020, perhaps the saddest America has ever faced in my lifetime.

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