Ambrose Brothers

The Strength of Wisdom

Ecclesiastes 7:19

19 Wisdom strengthens the wise
      More than ten rulers of the city.

As we think about manly attributes, wisdom probably isn’t the first one that comes to mind. Instead we think of things like strength and speed, power and might. Yet when told he could choose anything, Solomon chose wisdom. He had seen his father: strong, mighty, powerful; yet Solomon saw wisdom as being greater then all of those things.

I must admit when I first read today’s verse, it gave me pause. When we think of city rulers today we think of "wise" men, or at least men who appear to be so. Ecclesiastes was written at a different time. Several thousand years ago, the city ruler was a different type of man; he was a strong man, the kind of mad who could lead the battle to protect the city. For a visual aid today, I grabbed these pictures. Please don’t write me angry letters for promoting these movies, because I’m not, however they do fit the bill for a city ruler of the day:

Okay, perhaps not 10 city leaders, but you get the idea: because these ultimate tough guys are not the important part of this verse. What we see here is not Solomon speaking to the power of these 10 city rulers, but to the power of wisdom. The wise man is stronger then any 10 of these guys. He’s more able to lead; he’s going to do better with life. And I’m not talking only about intelligence either. The intelligent man can tell us why we should come in out of the rain. The wise man comes in out of the rain.

The Bible calls us to wisdom. It’s true we saw earlier in the book, that wisdom apart from God is meaningless, yet wisdom with God is what we are all called to. When Solomon chose wisdom, we find that God was so pleased by his choice that he gave him all of the others to go with it. In the book of James we are told to ask for Wisdom when we have none. James 1:5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him."

Action Step:

For our action step today, let’s look to the word of God, and ask the Lord for wisdom. Is there a problem in your life today, ask the Lord for wisdom. Having trouble sharing the gospel with someone, ask the Lord for wisdom. Do you see people in distress around you and not know how to help, ask the Lord for wisdom. I could keep going, buy you get the point. Ask the Lord for wisdom.

EXTREME

Ecclesiastes 7:16-18

Each post we encourage you to get you Bible out and read the entire text. I know recently this has not been a problem as we have been dissecting Solomon’s thoughts one at a time.  But I want encourage you to still look up the verses, read some study notes, and try to get a full understanding of the content, and context of the passage.

Can a person be too extreme for God? Can you be too Extreme in serving the Savior?  What about 1 John 2:6 whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did. Well, Jesus had a pretty extreme life wouldn’t you say? A homeless man who had an incredible following, healed the sick, raised the dead, called the religious leaders, hypocrites, and a brood of vipers, and was crucified on the cross where He paid the punishment for all mankind. Pretty Extreme sounding to me!

You may be quick to say no you can’t be too extreme, however if you say no, you are saying that Solomon was wrong, when he said the man who fears God will avoid all extremes. (V.18b) And if Solomon was incorrect in this statement, then you would be saying that the Bible has error, and therefore 2 Timothy 3:16:17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Is a false statement. You can see we are quickly walking down a bad trail, but do you see how important it is study the Word of God. If a non believer lays this question on you what do you say?

Well here you go: all scripture is God-breathed. There is nothing false, and no contradictions. Can a person be to extreme for God? The Answer is yes! When a person who thinks they are following Christ starts going against what the Bible teaches, under the assumption they are doing good.

Let me explain with some examples. I have seen those professing to be Christians, completely ignore and neglect their families in order to study the Bible. I have seen Christians leave their spouse, in order to be more free to serve Jesus. I have heard of a fellow pastor tell a women to leave her husband if he did not become a member of their denomination (which she did). I have heard people quote “spare the rod spoil the child” as their reasoning for beating their children.

We are to serve Christ with all we are. However, these examples are specific cases of being too extreme for Savior. Lay down our life, pick up our cross and follow Him (YES). Divorce our spouse beat our children in the name of Jesus (NO).

Here is an action step for today. And it doesn’t specifically go with today’s post, but it will be valuable in your life. Start spending some time studying God’s Word. Devotions are good; they start our day on the right foot, and give us small glimpses of the things of God. However they are not a replacement for some good old Bible study. That’s right, get out the Bible dictionary, pull out a good set of commentaries, compare, and cross reference. Make it your desire to have an answer next time someone tells you the Bible is full of contradictions other than “well my pastor says it ain’t.” Find out for yourself. But don’t be too extreme!

The Just Man May Perish, As the Wicked Lives On

Ecclesiastes 7:15

15 I have seen everything in my days of vanity:
There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness,
And there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness.

I have spent a day or two trying to figure out how to split up these verses is Ecclesiastes chapter 7, it seems we’ve been moving slowly through it for a couple weeks now, and were still only half way there. However I have come to the belief sometimes it’s not a bad thing to take it one at a time. As Solomon the worlds wisest man, inspired by the Holy Spirit pens these words, the least we can do is to pause and listen.

Here in verse 15 we see Solomon speaking to the same question people ask today. As he looks around, he notices that sometimes good men die, doing good things. And sometimes the wicked live long doing wicked things. Basically Solomon sees bad things happening to good people, and good things happening to bad people.

As we look around today, we see the same thing. Just pick up Fox’s Book of Martyrs for starters, or speak with missionaries who are on the front lines of the battle of lost souls. People, who have been kidnapped, beaten, imprisoned, tortured, sometimes these men and women even lose there lives serving the Lord. And it seems so unfair. On the home front we may not be losing our lives, but I think of the father, who is trying to raise a Godly family only to have his wife run off with another man. I think of the parents who try to raise godly kids only to have society rip them away. I think of the God fearing pastor whose church votes him out well he’s on vacation, because he doesn’t think outside of the box. And it all seems so unfair.

On the flip side of that, I see pro athletes, get in trouble with the law, spit on their public, and still sign million dollar contracts. I see reality TV "stars" lie, cheat, and manipulate there way to a million dollars. I see pot dealers and pornography publishers getting rich, well causing the masses to fall into sin. And it all seems so unfair.

So what’s the answer, you may all be waiting at the edge of your seats, to find out, why bad things happen to good people. However I don’t know. But I do know this, and although perhaps not an answer to the question at hand, it gives us hope in the outcome. Romans 8:28 tells us. "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." And as a wise man once told me, all means all and that’s all, all means.

Perhaps today bad things are happening to you. Or bad things are happening to those around you, let me encourage you by saying remember God is in control. And we may not see the good for the kingdom that comes out of it now, and we may never live to see it. But someday when we are with God in paradise, we will know.

Happy Days

Today’s Scripture: Ecclesiastes 7:11-14

Before we get started today, let me again encourage you to flip open your Bibles and read the complete passage of the day. We won’t be able to go in-depth with each verse, but each verse of God’s Word can be profitable to us.

OK, Maybe a slight stretch for the Happy Days Picture because were not really talking about "Happy Days" But being Joyful in the days of prosperity. However as I was getting ready for this post, I grabbed my NASB which uses the term happy in the days of prosperity. So let’s take a look now at Ecclesiastes 7:14:

14 In the day of prosperity be joyful,
      But in the day of adversity consider:
      Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other,
      So that man can find out nothing that will come after him

Or as we find in the New American Standard Bible (Happy Days):

14 In the day of prosperity be happy,
         But in the day of adversity consider--
         God has made the one as well as the other
         So that man will not discover anything that will be after him.

We see here a couple teachings we don’t often talk about. First that it’s ok to be happy about our prosperity. We don’t have to go around feeling bad when things are good for us. We may think that’s crazy but its true, find someone in Christian circles who had blessed financially, and they will shrug it off, with comments like "Its never enough" or "I wish I could do more". Pause and think about it, how many "Happy" wealthy people have you met. There may be a lot of them out there, but I only know a few. Yet we see here, the "preacher" (Solomon not me) teaches us to be happy in our prosperity.

The second teaching we find, is probably more useful to people like me; that when trouble comes, remember, God has allowed that for us as well. We often like to blame these things on others, get angry, wonder why God isn’t blessing us. But just as sometimes God gives us prosperity, sometimes he will allows adversity to come into our lives. He does this so we will rely on Him, we will understand we need Him; we will not take Him for granted.

This second teaching is sometimes foreign to us, especially if you like to watch a certain smiley preacher on TV. But when you take to word of God as a whole, you realize that things won’t always be all "happy" and we won’t always have prosperity, sometimes we will face adversity, and it is important that we remain joyful even in those times for God in His perfect nature has allowed us to have both types of days. This thought reminds me of James 1:2 "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials". Do we remain joyful in trials, do we trust in God’s will in the midst of adversity? Or do we sit around and pout and wait for the blessings to start flowing again.

As we close out these thoughts for today let me leave you with these thoughts from A.W. Tozer *"Now I submit that the whole hectic scramble after happiness is an evil as certainly as is the scramble after money or fame or success. How far wrong all this is will be discovered easily by the simple act of reading the New Testament through once with meditation. There the emphasis is not upon happiness - but upon holiness.   God is more concerned with the state of people's hearts than with the state of their feelings.  Undoubtedly the will of God brings final happiness to those who obey, but the most important matter is not how happy we are - but how holy."

Action Step:

1. Has God blessed you financially or in other ways, thank him and rejoice in that.

2. Has adversity come your way, praise the Lord, and find joy in that.

* A. W. Tozer's Of God And Men, "Holiness Before Happiness", Christian Publications, 1960, pp 43-46

The Good Old Days

Ecclesiastes 7:10 Do not say "why were the old days better than these?"  For it is not wise to ask such a question.

Ahh, The good old days. Do you remember them? The days of type writers, record players, black and white T.V’s and I still remember our first VCR, and Microwave. Come on you know the days, back when you could work on your own car without having to hook it up to a computer to find out what was broke. Back when it was safe for kids to leave in the morning and spend all day playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, as long as they were home for dinner. When there was still winners and losers in little league, and not everyone made the team. We didn’t have to wear seat belts, and we got our butts whipped when we were bad, and our mouths washed out with soap when we cussed! How did we ever survive?

There was a time in our country as Christians you were not the odd ball. On any given Sunday morning you would find the majority of the town in church. Tent revival services swept the country, with each nigh overflowing to standing room only, People lined up for a good dose of conviction. Hell and repentance was preached from the pulpit, and sin was still called sin.

Well I grew up in the 80’s and it is easy to look back only twenty plus years ago, and say “Man times were just better then” Actually last night I found myself looking back only about eight years ago, when my life just seemed simpler. It was then as I was drifting through my confused memories of my days in the Marine Corps, that my wife reminded me that things weren’t all that great.

Well Solomon had the same insight and today’s passage is pretty straight forward. Don’t dwell on the past. Sure it is fun to walk down memory trail every now and then, but when we stay on that trail for too long, we lose sight of the present. We become discontent with where god has brought us to, and we start acting defeated because “things will never be like that again.”

Warren Wiersbe in the Bible Exposition Commentary put it well when he said “the good old days are a combination of bad memory and a good imagination.” There is a lot of truth in that statement. That is what my wife reminded me of last night. Things were not all that great back when I thought they were.. I wasn’t walking with God the way I am now, we had our struggles, our testing, and our failures. But my bad memory fixed with good imagination was starting to become a great distraction in my life of today.

When we say things will never be like that again, we are right. The days of tent revivals and door to door cold call evangelism are simply not effective in the world we live in today. And you know what, that’s o.k. However if we constantly dwell on the past and how we have changed we will never move forward from where we are.

So Tent revivals are gone, let’s come up with a new way of presenting the timeless truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So door to door evangelism get’s a door slammed in your face, how else can we reach our community?

I don’t have all the answers; however I do know that God’s Word is perfect. Recognition of sin is still the plow that converts the soil to receive the seed. The message has never changed, but we must find new methods without changing the meaning.

Last night I saw a commercial where all these kids had their own laptop in school, and I thought wow, my son will never know what it was like when I was in school, and you know what hit me, that it is alright. I also realized that old fashion pipe organs are a dying thing, and that is alright too. We must not grip so tightly to the good old days, or the future will slip away!

Action Step: Stop and take a look around at today, don’t compare it to yesterday, instead ask God to show you how it should look tomorrow!

Crackling Thorns and the Fool?

Ecclesiastes 7:6

For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.

Solomon seems to have gone into full Proverbs mode here as he dishes out wisdom on foolishness and wisdom. And much like Proverbs, some of them cause us to pause and scratch our heads. I don’t know about you, but this was one of those verses to me, as I looked and wondered what a crackling thorn has to do with foolish laughter. Well I did my research; I looked the verse up in two different study Bible’s, four Bible translations, and one commentary, and I have an answer

A "crackling thorn" deals with a burning thorn, like one in a fire, the thorns, or weeds burn quickly and produce a lot of noise as they go. They flare up and produce smoke, but soon turn to ash and blow away. In the end, the burning thorns produce little, they produce little heat, little light, and they are basically pointless. The pot deals with a cooking pot, it gains no heat from the "crackling of thorns."

The laughter of a fool is like this as well, its loud, it’s quick, but it’s meaningless. The fool will not laugh for long; as none of us are long for this earth. The laughter of a fool is vanity.

How sad it is that we have often seen the laughter of fools, and had a twinge of jealousy in our hearts. We see their care free hearts go through life, enjoying the things of this world with no thought to their eternity. Yet this sort of lifestyle is foolishness and we know it. Sure there here today, some of them are loud, or shining, some of them may blow a lot of hot air that can be seen for miles around. Yet there time is only like a flash, and then they are gone. When we have Christ we are here to stay.

Christ covers this thought in his teachings of the B-Attitudes in the book of Luke

Luke 6: 21, 25

21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
For you shall be filled.
      Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh

25 Woe to you who are full,
For you shall hunger.
      Woe to you who laugh now,
For you shall mourn and weep.

Thou Shall Judge

Ecclesiastes 7:5 It is better to heed a wise mans rebuke than to listen to the song of fools.

Wow, This is one we just don't like to hear!  REBUKE!  Sure don't hear that one preached on very often.  This one simple phrase from Solomon completely contradicts the majority of teaching today, secular and Christian. 

When I read this passage today I simply smiled as I been in two different conversations within the last 24 hours that relate perfectly with the passage.  Let me share with you, the two conversations, they will let us see some everyday life situations that relate to the Verse. 

The first happened at a board meeting I attended last night at my church.  During a time of discussion at the end of the meeting the topic of judging others came up.  We have all heard that we are not to judge, after all Jesus said, "do not judge, or you too will be judged" (Paraphrase)  However if we continue to study the New Testament we read in 1 Corinthians 5:9-12 Paul tells us in verse 12,13 "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?  Are you not to judge those inside?  God will judge those outside.  Expel the wicked man from among you."

You you confused yet?  Stick with me, let us be clear.  In a seeker friendly sensitive world we love to not judge anyone.   We let God decide all that judging business.  And after all why not, it is really uncomfortable for us to confront someone who is living a way opposite of God's Word.  The key to this discussion on judgment is to who are we judging. 

For me to judge an unbeliever, I am in the wrong.  It is my duty, responsibility, and calling to inform them that they are a sinner and without repentance and Trust in Jesus Christ they will suffer an eternity in Hell.  However to judge them, is wrong, because they are not part of the body of Christ.  They are simply living and surviving in a world of darkness, and there eyes have yet to be opened to the light of Jesus Christ.  Paul said "if not for the law (10 commandments) I would not have known what sin was"  (paraphrase)  So to judge those who are not in the light, as if they are in the light is wrong.

Here is the catch, who does Paul say we are to judge?  Those that are part of the body Christ!  If we as believers know of someone who claims to be a believer and is committing adultery, it is our responsibility to confront them, and if necessary "expel" them from among us.   This is not a popular teaching however it is the perfect Word of God!

Now on to my second story, Two people, both professing believers.  One acting in a way, outside of Scripture was confronted by a fellow believer.  Who in love, pointed out the things that where being done that were sinful according to Gods Word.  And instead of 'heeding the rebuke of the wise", the person decided to become hard and angry, stating it was no ones business etc.... So you could say they "listened to the song of fools."

Action steps for today:

1) If you are aware of sinful and corrupt actions of a fellow believer, pray for strength, courage and wisdom, and confront them.  Point them to the Truths found in Scripture, and in love show them the darkness they are living in.

2)  If you are the one getting rebuked.  Thank the person for their love for you that they would come to you as a brother or sister in Christ.  And listen to their observations. 

Remember we are not to judge the ungodly.  However the Bible is very clear that for those claiming the name of Jesus Christ, we are to hold each other accountable.  After all Paul rebuked Peter for flip flopping in his actions.  Peter had more seniority, had walked with Jesus, and was told the church would be built on him.  However Paul loved him enough to confront him in his sin, and you know what?  Peter heeded the rebuking of the wise!

A Thought from James

Another busy day has come and gone, in many ways I’m spent physically, and emotionally drained. I’ll give you fair warning that I have a number of thoughts moving around in my brain that one day will come pouring out on these pages. Although right now, I’m getting ready to teach my Sunday school class tomorrow. Were going through an in-depth study of the general epistles and currently are covering the book of James. I thought I’d just take a minute tonight to share the passage I’ll be teaching on tomorrow, and maybe share a few thoughts about it.

James 2:1-13

1 My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. 2 For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” 4 have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; 9 but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.”Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Now I hope your reading this with an expression of shock, and not of condemnation. Because on first impression I hope you don’t read this and see yourself as someone who shows partiality, but as someone who can’t believe it happens. But now let me break the bad news to you, chances are you or your church have at some times shown partiality. Of course we don’t ask anyone to sit on the floor at our feet. But how excited do we get about the poor elderly bachelor who comes through our door, compared with the young family. Have we ever passed by the scary homeless person to share the gospel with the less threatening person, the person who just seemed more like us?

If we have done these things there’s a good chance we’ve not considered these acts sin, simply human nature. Yet that thought in itself should let us know were sinning, as sin defines our very nature outside of Christ. I like how James breaks down this sin. First he speaks of Christ’s two great commandments the second being love your neighbor as yourself. Now in verse 9 we see that if you show partiality you do not love your neighbor as yourself and you sin. Finally to top it off James brings us one of the hardest hitting verses of the Bible. In verse 10 James tells us that if we break a commandment, we break all commandments. I could probably spend a week on this verse alone, but for know I wont. I guess in the end, we are aware of a sin in these verses. And once we are aware we are called to turn from that sin.

I’d like to give an action point today; I just heard it on Way of the Master Radio, Stop Sinning! You, me, everyone, lets all continue to strive towards not sinning.

Praise the Lord!

As you probably noticed, there was no new blog to read yesterday, and for that let me say I’m sorry. Although it’s no excuse my brother and I have both been having a busy week. As Travis said Wednesday, he’s been in the midst of running one of the summer’s greatest VBS’s. As for me, I’ve been dealing with some issues running through my extended family. Not that any details are needed, but I have been a little down this week. Yet as I sat down to write this morning and opened my Bible up to Ecclesiastes, I just happened to glance behind me and notice a verse I have hanging on my wall.  It always brightens my day, and wanted to share it with you.

Psalms 57:9-11 –

[9] I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.
[10] For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
[11] Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.

As we read the words of this Psalm, I’m sure we can envision someone with a lot to be thankful for; someone who has been delivered from a great battle, someone who has come out of a great struggle. However before we go on take a minute to turn your bibles to Psalms Chapter 57 and read the whole Psalm.

Now we see the complete picture, David is in distress here He says his soul is among lions, his enemies have prepared a net for his steps, they have prepared a pit to trap him, not exactly the call to praise that we may have envisioned earlier. We see here a man who is in a valley, not on a mountain top, someone whose lives cant get much worse rather then someone who has it all.

How often do we give Praise to God in our lives? Often we forget to praise him even when things are going well. Our Prayer times can turn into nothing more then a wish list as we tell God all the things we want. Or maybe when things get grim our prayers stop being heard at all as we grow upset that God would give us these circumstances.

I would just challenge you to take time to Praise God today and everyday. Praise him when your up, and praise him when your down. Praise him thru prayers, and praise him thru song. Praise him because the gift he has already given us, or is willing to give us is so much greater then any trial or tribulation we will face here on earth.

Praise the Lord!

Volunteer or Disappear

Well this week at my Church we are just over half way through our Vacation Bible School.  Do you remember VBS when you were a kid?  The songs the games, the snacks, and crafts, and of course some great Bible lessons.  There are probably a good number of you that trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior at VBS.  VBS is a foundation of many churches as year after year they dedicate one week, for about 3 hours per day, and hold Vacation Bible School.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well this year I had the privilege of being the Director of our VBS.  I was tasked with the responsibility of recruiting a volunteer army to lead a group of children ranging from 2-12 into a deeper understanding of who Jesus Christ is.  Along this journey I have ran into a few snags when establishing the awesome team that we ended up with. 

Baseball games, and other activities have prevented many from participating at all, and many others to only a day or two.  Now before I make my main point for today, let me tell you how thank full I am for any, and every volunteer we have.  However I came across a realization  that it is getting harder and harder to recruit volunteers, as peoples lives are getting more and more busy with things outside the church.

I believe what we are seeing as the "church" as a whole is becoming less and less interested with volunteering to serve God.  The bottom line is, we as a society are simply to busy, and involved with "our own things" to spend our precious time giving to such a worthy cause as VBS. 

Well we really have a choice.  To either volunteer to spread the message to a world crying to hear the Truth. Or, we simply disappear.  We become extinct.  We fail to pass on Truths that were entrusted to share with the next generation.  Where would we be if no one volunteered to share Christ with us?

Let's take a look at some very important volunteers in history.  How about names like.  Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, Andrew, even the Apostle Paul.  These men and countless others chose to lay aside their lives, to spread the message of Jesus Christ. 

I hear comments all the time like, "well I would like to teach Sunday School, but I am really busy"  "Well I would like to work at VBS but my kids have baseball games" " Well I would like to help on the youth outing, but I have to....."  You get my point.  Now sure we all have other activities going on in life, but what activities are truly important?  1 out of how many thousands become a pro baseball player?  But 85% of those who are Christians became a Christian before they were 18 years old. 

Action step for today, let's follow the greatest volunteer of all time.  Jesus Christ gave His life, so we could have salvation from our sins, and the penalty that we deserved.  Let's take a look at our busy schedules and reevaluate some priorities. What are we doing that will make an eternal impact, and what are we doing for immediate satisfaction.  Thanks to hard working VBS team of volunteers, last night 2 new names were written on Heavens role call.  What did you do last night?