2324AFC061623 – Get Right and Get Left
Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.
Exodus 19:4-6 – 4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings (↔ Music Link) and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom (↔ Music Link) and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”
Psalm 100:3 – 3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Romans 5:10 – 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
Matthew 9:37-38 – 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Matthew 10:7 – 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.
E pili mau na pomaika‘i ia ‘oe a me ke akua ho’omaika‘i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! (May blessing always be with you and may God bless you, Beloved!) Aloha Friday! TGIF! (Thank God I’m Forgiven!) Does today’s title remind you of a series of books and movies? I hope not, because I don’t think it is exactly what Jesus had in mind in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Here are those passages just as a reminder:
Matthew 24:40-42 – 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
Luke 17:34-37 – 34 I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.” 37 Then they asked him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
Fairly often in these messages we refer to our gifts in the roles of Priest, Prophet, and King (like here for example). If we look through the Key Verses for today, it seems there is a 
common theme of obedience and possession. “Obey my voice and keep my covenant,” and “we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” God made us to know him, to work with and for him, to do what is right, and to Love him. Of course, those are the things we’d like to do for and with him always, but – as we have also said often – we forget. God has taken care of that through the Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of his Son, Jesus. As The Apostle Paul put it “much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” In the Gospel passage from Matthew 9, Jesus has been preaching in many of the villages and towns and telling them that the Kingdom of God was near. Some listened and began walking the road to salvation. Others listened and walked away. Did Jesus go after them? No. Did he send the Disciples after them? No. You may recall he even told them to “shake the dust off your feet” when a household or town refused to be hospitable and to listen to the Good News. Neither did Jesus drive them away. We tell our kids, friends, and neighbors “Everybody makes choices.” All of us have learned by experience that choices have consequences. Good choices generally have good consequences, and bad choices do not. We have been told (↔ Music Link) why God made us and why we are created with an innate desire to know him and to love him; but, we forget – and the consequences of that are the consequences that accompany bad decisions. Another of those consequences is to tell ourselves, “It’s OK. I’ve got time to repent and get it all sorted out – soon, real soon.” Let’s take a look at a couple of passages from the Psalms and see what God has said about the consequences he’s put in place:
Psalm 1:4-6 –
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 37:10 –
10 Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there.
Now I am going to ask you to turn your thinking inside-out for a short time. Please reread the passages that have been used as the basis for the “Left Behind” series. That storyline portrayed a day and time of judgment wherein the wicked and lost were left on earth while the righteous and the holy were taken into the skies to meet Jesus. What if it was just the opposite? What if God gathered up all the sinners, the real goats in the world, and pastured them away from the righteous, and then Jesus came to the righteous, the sheep of his flock – who are the ones “left behind” – to bring everlasting Peace to them? He said, “the way of the wicked will perish,” and “Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more.”
On the other hand, God has spelled out good consequences for good decisions:
Psalm 50:5-6 –
5 “Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
6 The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge. Selah
Psalm 50:14-15, 22-23
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and pay your vows to the Most High.
15 Call on me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
22 “Mark this, then, you who forget God, [my emphasis]
or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.
23 Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me;
to those who go the right way
I will show the salvation of God.”
The kingdom of Heaven is here among and within us. When we forget that, it’s sort of like renouncing our Kingdom-citizenship; but, God is faithful and just and willing to renew our station in his kingdom if we remember to know that he is God and there is none other.
Could it be, ʻŌmea, that when we get right with God, we get left within his even-closer presence? If we, who are sinners, are reconciled to God in Christ Jesus, do we not banish the evils of this World from our lives? Yes, indeed, the wicked continue to flourish even though they not only forget God, but also ignore and deny him. The “wicked will not stand in the judgment” because they will be laid low by their guilt and removed from “the congregation of the righteous.” In 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, The Apostle Paul warns the church authorities in Corinth that they must segregate themselves from persons who claim to be Christians but fail to live a Christian life. At the end of the passage he quotes a stern command from God given seven times in the book of Deuteronomy: “Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.” The method of purging was execution. Might it be that God will “purge the evil from our midst” when the general judgment takes place? Remember only Noah and his family were saved and God shut the door of the Ark so that only Noah and his family were left alive. All the wicked, along with everything they had polluted with their wickedness, were washed away. We should prefer to be left out of the Judgment at the return of the Lord, so since we don’t know when it’s coming, we know that constant readiness is a requirement – one we often forget.
We know that our particular – individual and personal – reward will occur immediately at the moment of our last wisp of life, and that particular judgment will be the permanent state of our soul until the day of Final Judgment when the dead shall be raised. At that time our resurrected bodies will continue the reward we have chosen and earned in our earthly life. Again, we turn The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 – 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. We never will be able forget again. NOW is a very good time to start – and continue – to remember! Get right and get left. Belovéd, Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. (Psalm 33:8) Celebrate his Love. Send him a “knee mail.” Make your entire day a sacrifice (↔ Click Link) of adoration, thanksgiving, and praise. It’s a great way to NOT-forget. (I know; split infinitive, but consider it a construct.)
Again I say, “Aloha Friday! TGIF! (Thank God I’m Forgiven!)” because I can be spared from being purged from the midst of the wicked if I just remember – As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” It is he that made us, and we are his. Having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” That means that wherever unrepented sin abounds, those who have forgotten about the suddenness and utter destruction of God’s righteous judgment are exposed to the vulturous demons gathering away the damned. God’s judgments are always just and always applied when and where they are needed. Remember that because your Life depends on it!
This has been a little take-away-the-box experiment. The Gospels say “one was taken and one was left behind.” Here, we have tried to imagine what it might be like if “the one taken” was the evil one. I don’t know the answer. In our house we say “God knows, but he’s not telling. Yet.” Either way, we’d best live our lives so as to end up walking amid the saints toward Jesus. The weather there is much nicer than that other place.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
