THE GOSPEL MESSAGE
 
            Volume 51   Number 1                                                         						January 2009
Editor and Publisher - Thomas W. Woody
"The Just Shall Live By His Faith"
Thomas W. Woody

When God gave His people Israel a land flowing with milk and honey, He promised that they would remain there as long as they kept His commandments. Blessings would abound in every aspect of their lives, along with the assurance that no enemy could disturb the peace of that nation whose God was Jehovah! How sad it is then to read of their rebellion against, not obedience to, the holy commandments of God with persecution meted out against any godly messenger who attempted to correct their backsliding. “But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick, You are obese! Then he forsook God who made him, and scornfully (lightly) esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not to God; To gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear. Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you.” (Deuteronomy 32:15-18).

God is, and must be, righteous, so He fulfilled His Word (Acts 7:43) by carrying His people into Babylonian captivity as punishment for their sins. But this was a difficult punishment for Judah to bear as even godly men tried to discern why such a wicked nation as Babylon could be allowed to inflict such suffering on the chosen people of God. Habakkuk was preoccupied with these serious questions in his short prophecy, and in so doing, we are provided with some of the most comforting words to which spiritual beggars can cling: “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4).

These precious words are quoted by the apostle Paul in his letters to the Romans and Galatians, and we also find the axiom stated in Hebrews. God looks for faith in your heart! In fact, the whole purpose of being tested here below is to prove that we trust God with all of our heart and are fully persuaded of not only His existence, but of his ability to do whatever He has promised!

Like the Jews of old, we may not always understand the evil that comes our way or into the lives of others. Will we faint under the chastisement of the Lord? Give up? Or by faith will we patiently endure, as sons, the discipline that all of God’s children receive, including the blessed Son of God? “You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?” (Hebrews 12:4-9)



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