Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

---

July 5, 2013

Greetings, dear people…on this day after the 4th.

We have a house full of grandkids at present. Becki, Andy, and Delaine are at appointments. Thano just got off work…so he’s now at the house with them while I try to get this sent off. I better get back there as soon as I reasonably can to make sure everyone is alive and reasonably well. I hear Bimbo yelling because he wants off his chain to play with the kids.

Have a good rest of your day. Blessings.

Love, Dad/Ray.

---

5 July
Passage: Psalm 98-101
Focus: "He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.” Psalm 98:9.

God’s judgment should not come with any big surprise. After all, if everything came from Him, if He truly owns everything, if He truly made humans with the special imprint of His image and likeness, and delegated to them some general free-will responsibilities that should guide them into specific relationship with Him, why would He not orchestrate a point where He would call for human accounting? Judgment is well within His rights as Designer, Creator, Sustainer, and Owner.

We have brushed up against this idea before, but for the sake of review, let’s do it again. Most people would not lay claim to being a philosopher or theologian—but they definitely are—in the sense that everyone determines some form of values and purposes in life and formulates some kind of view of God. My own philo-theo (new word) reasoning leads me to recognize that the FOCUS VERSE, properly processed by broader Biblical insight, addresses all three fundamental questions of life—

1. WHERE DID I COME FROM?
2. WHY AM I HERE?
3. WHERE AM I GOING?

Do you see what I mean? Who could raise a compelling argument to convince us by the shear weight of the evidence that all things came from nothing—and all things that exist just happened by amazing mindless accidents? So, understanding where we come from makes it easy to answer, “WHERE AM I GOING?”—we are heading for judgment. And those two answers provide us with all the information we need to figure out in general terms “WHY AM I HERE?” This simple line of reasoning makes a huge amount of sense to me. And it helps to reinforce the reasonableness of Romans 11:36-12:2. Let’s review that package of thought: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Please agree with David, even though, like him, we may be flawed in our execution of the ideal. “I will be careful to lead a blameless life” (101:3). The alternative to careful is careless. It only stands to reason that if I face the responsibility of an exacting task and do not perform it carefully, then I am performing carelessly. Basic rules for driving on our roadways require care at staying in your lane at a prescribed range of speed going the same direction as everyone else who drives in that lane. So what happens when a driver, for whatever reason, is not careful to follow the same set of basic rules? More people than himself are put at risk. Why would anyone in their right mind debate this line of reasoning?