Todays readings.. Numbers 10, Proverbs 6, Luke 20
“STAY AWAKE AT ALL TIMES”
We say that suicide is how people destroy themselves, but our reading in Proverbs today shows there is another way. We read “He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself. Wounds and dishonour will he get and his disgrace will not be wiped away.” [Ch. 6 v32,33]
Adultery is not a word you hear much of today, like the word ‘sin’, the western world in particular does not think in this kind of language anymore, not like when we were young. Attitudes have changed so much in our lifetime, indeed in earlier centuries adultery could carry the death penalty as the laws of England were based on the laws of Moses.
The world is being destroyed by its permissive attitudes. AIDS is a curse man cannot cure, he can only hold it at bay for a time, and there are plenty of other sexually transmitted diseases that create serious health problems. Man destroys the quality of his life because he thinks he can flout Godly principles.
Tomorrow we will read of Christ’s warning to “watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life and that day will come upon you like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth” [Ch.21 v.34,35] Jesus also says, “There will be great earthquakes and, in various places famines and pestilences … ” [v.11]
So God will make life more and more miserable for Godless human beings, just like he did for the nation of Israel when they just went through the motions of serving their God and their hearts were far from Him.
Remember, that day, Jesus said, “will come upon you like a trap.” In a sense, human beings are destroying themselves – the so called Christian world in particular; they are committing spiritual adultery.
Finally we particularly note how Jesus concluded his message by saying, “stay awake at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man” [v.36] Are you awake? Wide awake?
