Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God … when you have eaten and are full and have built and occupied good houses.

— Deuteronomy 8:11-12

King David fell victim to what might be called “the middle-aged syndrome” of success and sex. How many people I have known who have followed in his train—individuals who once walked well. Like David, they had endured all of the temptations that arise out of adversity with reasonable success, but now a whole new set of temptations come—the temptations that arise from prosperity.

Flush with success, the devil breathes his deceitful whispers in our ears and we begin to tell ourselves, “I’ve done well. I have succeeded in my business. I have worked hard and I have arrived. And I deserve something better out of life now than what I have been getting.”

The tempter whispers, “Why not trade in your wife, too, as you did the house and car for a new model? After all, she’s been giving you a lot of trouble at home anyway. Just think how other people treat you. You are well-respected, but not at home.” And you go on to tell yourself, “Yeah, criticism, nagging, that’s all I get. She doesn’t know how great I am; how successful I’ve been; how hard I’ve worked. Others appreciate it—especially that young secretary down the hall.”

The middle-aged syndrome: success, sex, and sin. May God grant us grace to resist the temptations that arise from success.

Question to ponder:
Do you find your temptations tend to keep up with your circumstances?

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.

— Mark 12:17

The authority of the state comes from God, and the state is answerable to God. Whenever that truth is lost sight of, totalitarianism will eventually be the result. The state, therefore, is an agency of God’s common grace (not His special grace which deals with our salvation). It is a means by which He restrains wickedness and does not allow it to run its greatest course. In the realm of God’s common grace, He has given us the state. Its purpose is to enact and to execute the laws God has given in His Word, the moral laws He has written upon the hearts of men.

It is, therefore, our responsibility to honor the state, for Scripture says the powers that be are from God. We are to yield obedience to it, we are to pay tribute, and we are to pray for those in authority over us.

What is the purpose of the state, then? It has been instituted by God to restrain the wicked and to grant justice, so that God may be glorified as citizens are free to go about their tasks and live for Him.

Question to ponder:
What does godly government look like to you?

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.

— Isaiah 48:17

How does your day begin? Do you seek the guidance of our blessed God, who loves us infinitely and who is infinitely wise and all-powerful? If not, you are missing out.

When I was in graduate school at New York University, I had a speaking engagement in San Francisco. When I got there, my wife called me and said that my father was very ill and in the hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. I had a dilemma. Should I fly there from San Francisco, or just give him a call? I didn’t know which to do, but there was that still small voice whispering to me, “Go and see your father.” “Go to your father.”

I traded my airline ticket to New York for one to Tampa. When I arrived there, I had the opportunity of spending that afternoon and evening with him. I left for New York the next morning and got a call from my mother that day that my father had lapsed into a coma and died. If I had not listened to that still small voice, I would be regretting it to this day.

How many blessings have you missed because you have not learned to listen to that still small voice? When we learn to listen to it, it is amazing how frequently we can hear the sound of the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Question to ponder:
How do you seek and find God’s guidance?

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

— 2 Peter 3:18

It is sad that most Christians, by the time they have been a Christian five or ten years, already feel they know enough to get by. They are not embarrassed in Sunday School trying to find a book in the Bible they are studying. They read a little bit, pray a little bit, do a little bit, give a little bit, and that should suffice. But not the Apostle Paul; he was divinely discontented.

Let us be content with what we have and discontent with what we are. That is the opposite of the world. The people of this world are often discontented with what they have, yet quite happy about who they are.

Let us pray for a new growth in our hearts, a growth in grace, and in knowledge. As we set our affections on “things above,” the Holy Spirit will delight in our spiritual ambition, and God will answer a prayer for more holiness because it is His will for us.

Question to ponder:
How can we grow in grace and knowledge?

You shall not covet …

— Exodus 20:17

Covetousness is a great evil in the eyes of God. Paul tells us, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5 NIV).

Jesus said, “Beware of covetousness” (Luke 12:15). We live in a society that glorifies covetousness, a society that talks about grasping all that you can get, a society which is predicated on getting and hoarding. Therefore, we have all of these forces coming to bear on our lives, militating against the teaching of Christ.

Greed is like an octopus in the soul, wrapping its tentacles around every part of our spiritual life until it squeezes all the life out of us. That is why the Bible says that the “covetous man is an idolater,” and has no place in the kingdom of God.

Greed and covetousness are the same thing. It is the desire for more, and it cannot co-exist with the worship of the true God. Greed makes possessions our security and hope. It is a root sin, and the underlying reason for many other sins.

Question to ponder:
What do you think is the most common motive for murder? How does greed take hold of a person?

You shall not make for yourself any graven idol, … You shall not bow down to them or serve them;

— Exodus 20:4-5

I imagine that most people would consider the prohibition to worship any graven images the most out-of-date commandment of the Decalogue (the Ten Words)—just a commandment that may have been important a few thousand years ago in the midst of all of the pagan image worshipers. But before the words written in the tables of stone by the finger of the Almighty had even cooled, the people had made a graven image of a golden calf and had risen up to worship it right beneath the face of Jehovah.

Because we in the Western world have lived so long with the Christian culture we would not think of worshiping a statue of any sort. However, as Christianity wanes in the Western lands, in come the foreign gods: from Allah to Hindu gods, from crystals and horoscopes to tarot cards. We are not immune to the love of foreign gods. Perhaps this should give us pause the next time we see a statue of Buddha in a Chinese restaurant.

Question to ponder:
Have you come in contact with people who worship another god?

He who rules over man justly, who rules in the fear of God,

— 2 Samuel 23:3

At a time when some nations are realizing the folly of unbelief and the fatal results in the lives of people, America continues apace down the foolish pathway—toward godlessness and secularism.

Today, having banished the Bible and having attempted to banish God from all spheres of public life, we have found that our Congress cannot even produce a budget, and that it is becoming increasingly impossible to govern this nation.

Robert C. Winthrop, a descendant of Puritan John Winthrop who served as U.S. House Speaker in the early 1800s, said: “It may do for other countries, and other governments to talk about the state supporting religion. Here, under our own free institutions, it is religion which must support the State.”

The founders of this country believed we should inculcate in the minds of youth the fear and love of Deity. But because of our stupidity and unbelief, we have now banned God from the classrooms. We have taken away prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments from our schools and have replaced them with police dogs in the halls, policemen at the doors, and metal detectors. Crime is absolutely epidemic, and teachers are retiring early from battle fatigue. This is the folly of modern America.

Question to ponder:
How can godly people support the state?

I have spoken these things to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

— John 15:11

The Christian message is a message of joy. God gives us joy and gladness. The singing may sometimes switch to a minor key, but we still sing. Even though there are many sorrows in this world, the Gospel message still provides the most uplifting and joyful words found anywhere. Countless people have attested to this over the centuries, including those who were killed for the sake of its message.

William Tyndale, one of the very first translators of the Bible into English in the 1500s was persecuted and martyred. Nonetheless, he wrote in his Prologue to the New Testament these words: “Christianity is Good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that makes a man’s heart glad, and makes him sing, dance and leap for joy.”

A man who accepted Christ after a woman from our church shared the Gospel with him, told me of his great joy. “You certainly cannot know,” he said, “you cannot imagine the indescribable joy I have known for the last year since I came to know Christ. I never would have believed it.”

Joy is what Christ brings to the human heart. Christ is no cosmic killjoy, a wet blanket on the party of the world, as some people think He is. Rather, He is the source and fountain of all real joy.

Question to ponder:
How is your joy linked to your faith?

For the LORD is a God of justice; how blessed are all who long for Him.

— Isaiah 30:18

One time an atheistic farmer in New England tried to rob God of His glory. He wrote this letter to the newspaper in the Fall: “I bought my seed on the Sabbath, I sowed it on the Sabbath, I watered it on the Sabbath, I fertilized it on the Sabbath, and I harvested it on the Sabbath. Now it’s October and I have the largest crop in the valley.”

The editor printed his letter and simply added one sentence: “God does not settle all of His accounts in October.”

It might seem as if the ungodly and the wicked prosper and grow, and that all goes well for them—even if they thumb their noses at God and directly defy His commandments.

Asaph wrote the 73^rd Psalm, which is a classic example in the Bible of dealing with this issue. He is grieved and deeply troubled by the haughty boastfulness of the ungodly, until he remembers their end: “Surely you have set them in slippery places; You have brought them down to ruin” (v.18).

We can trust God to make all wrongs right. We can wait upon Him to bring justice to His children. All accounts will be settled, whether it is in this life or the next. Indeed, He does not settle accounts in October.

Question to ponder:
Is there a situation in your life where you are waiting for God’s justice?

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

— Isaiah 40:28

Your God Is Too Small proclaimed the title of a book some years ago by J. B. Phillips. I am sure that many would say, “Now just a minute. That may be true of some, but I worship the great triune Jehovah who is infinite in His wisdom, being, and power.” That is all very good in theory. It makes great theology, but how about in practice?

Is it not true that many Christians go about their daily lives as if they worshiped an emaciated midget? Their chief concern seems to be not to overtax His strength and bring about a complete physical breakdown. They pray something like this: “O God, if it is not too much trouble, if you can handle this, if this is not too much to ask, would you please grant this little request?”

Maybe their God is not small in size but instead small in heart. He is some sort of a withered, shriveled miser. They anxiously pray: “O God, I know I have bugged you often before, but just one more little favor if you don’t mind too much?”

We are told to come boldly before His throne. We are His dear children, and He delights in helping and in giving.

Question to ponder:
What big and difficult request do you have for God?