Welcome, friends, to another
broadcast of Morsels for Zion's Poor. We would certainly never
tell anyone to throw caution to the wind or to disregard a
prudent consideration in matters concerning our health and well-being.
We ought to be good stewards of all these things which the
Lord has given us, being wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
Even as Paul gave advice to Timothy concerning such matters, drink
no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake,
and thine often infirmities. Yet we must not succumb to the
wisdom of the flesh that would have us to believe that we can
by chance contract a deadly virus, fall off of a cliff, or die in
a plane crash apart from the ordained purpose of him who has
numbered our days, even as he has the hairs upon our heads.
Man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble.
He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. He fleeth also
as a shadow and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes
upon such in one and bringest me into judgment with thee? Who
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. Seeing his
days are determined, the number of his months are with thee.
Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. Such knowledge
as this, when applied by the Spirit of God, must be of great
encouragement to the sons of God, as they stare into the uncertainty
which appears to the flesh and captures the imaginations of
the fretful who know not God. We will stand with David, who
said, But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. When David had sinned against the Lord in numbering
the people, the Lord sent the prophet Gad to give David three
choices of how he would deal with David's sin. David said,
I am in a great strait. Let us fall now into the hand
of the Lord, for his mercies are great. And let me not fall
into the hand of man. Thus the Lord sent this pestilence,
that is a plague or deadly disease, upon Israel, and slew seventy
thousand of David's subjects, who were themselves not even
guilty of David's transgression. David realized that even a pestilence
in the hand of the Lord is a demonstration of his mercy, because David understood
the depths of the wickedness of his sin against the Lord.
Even as Jeremiah declared, this I recall to mind, therefore have
I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They
are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness. Therefore
will I hope in Him. When a man is brought to understand
the depths of his depravity and his worthiness to be destroyed,
then he can find no reason that he should not be immediately
destroyed, that he should spare any as but a testament to his
everlasting love of that people which he gave to Christ from
before the foundation of the world and for whom Christ has
shed his precious blood to redeem. The Lord has plainly declared
over 40 times in the Old Testament that He sends pestilence to accomplish
His purpose. He sent Moses into Pharaoh's
court to declare His very purpose for raising Pharaoh up to a place
of power. For I will at this time send
all My plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon
thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like
Me in all the earth. For now I will stretch out My
hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence, and
thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And in very deed for this
cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power,
that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. Paul
declares the same thing to the Romans. So then it is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. The pestilence
which the Lord would send in the earth, whether it be in the
present day or fourteen hundred years ago, is but a demonstration
of his purpose to manifest his glory in the redemption of that
people which he gave to Christ. All of the calamities and sorrows
of this world are given to demonstrate the sinfulness of men, and the
resultant curse which that sin has brought upon the earth. Christ
came as that one who would set his people free from this curse
forever, as he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
He has made himself an offering for sin, making the sin of his
people his own, and carrying it away as far as the east is
from the west, as he obtained eternal redemption by the offering
up of his own body and the shedding of his own blood. for sin. Have
you cast yourself upon the mercy of God, or do you expect to deliver
yourself from the pestilence of sin? Christ is the Savior
of sinners. For a free CD containing 15 of
these radio broadcasts, send an email to forthepoor at windstream.net.