Spiritual Nuggets For

July 27, 2008

81. Often when we pray for another person to be healed, etc. we frequently think we need their personal name. In John 4, Jesus healed the unidentified son of an unidentified royal official. Again, we are clearly shown that God knows everything and our prayers don’t have to always be detailed:

Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.” Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and all his household believed. (John 4:46-53)

Remember too Heb. 4:13. Faith is also shown there to simply be taking God at his word.

82. Jesus healed a 38 year old invalid and afterwards told him:

. . . “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (John 5:14)

The eternal security teachers want us to think we must sin all the time. If that was true, then how could the Lord Jesus tell that man to stop sinning?

Paul also taught one could stop sinning:

Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame. (1 Cor 15:34)

To teach one will sin all the time (the message of eternal security) is to go against the teachings of the Lord Jesus and his Apostles.

(John 5:14 also shows that a healing from God can be lost afterwards because of sin.)

83. In Proverbs 8 wisdom is personified. Many seem to make the mistake of trying to apply the wisdom in v. 22 to the Lord Jesus before he came to earth. (The Jehovah’s Witnesses, among others, make this mistake.) There are various reasons why this is false, but the most obvious one is the wisdom of Prov. 8 is female not male:

For wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her. (Prov 8:11)

The same wisdom is also shown to be female in 9:1-3.

Remember also that Jesus was the Word before he came to earth (John 1:1) not wisdom.

84. The last half of Prov. 9 is folly personified. Folly has a message about sin that is the opposite of godly wisdom cited in the first half of Prov. 9. Folly’s message is:

Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious! (Prov 9:17)

The similarity between that and the devil’s message to Eve in Gen. 3 is: sinning is to your advantage. The truth is just the opposite.

85. The righteous are to avoid certain types of people:

Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared. (Prov 22:24,25)

Notice also how one can learn the wrong things just by association and example. Hence, choose your friends carefully. They can rub off on you, which also shows how important it is to marry in the Christian faith, that is, another godly person.

Learning by association and example also holds true for the positive:

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. (Prov 13:20)

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