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CURRENT RADIO SERIES Living in Hope   CURRENT TV SERIES Unchained

Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.   --Isaiah 59:1-2 When Leonardo Da Vinci was painting the magnificent Lord’s Supper, he got into a bitter argument with a fellow painter. Feeling that he was mistreated, Da Vinci was determined to get back as this co-worker. So when it came time to paint the face of Judas Iscariot, Da Vinci painted the face of that painter on the face of the betrayer. Da Vinci was pretty proud of himself until it came time to paint the face of the Lord Jesus. Because when he tried to paint it, he had an artistic block. He couldn’t draw the face of Jesus! The great Da Vinci was so consumed by his hatred and revenge that it wasn’t until he erased the face of the painter in the face of Judas and asked God to forgive him that he was able to paint the face of Christ in the Last Supper. This is such a vivid picture of what bitterness will do to your relationship with Christ. It will color and contaminate it! You cannot have a growing relationship with Jesus Christ if you are in bondage spiritually to bitterness. It will be impossible to pray. It will be impossible to worship. It will be impossible to witness. And it will be impossible to serve God effectively. So if you have resentment in your heart today or are holding on to your hostilities, let them go. If you do, you will find your relationship with Christ will become deeper and sweeter than you have ever experienced before. Bitterness will color and contaminate your relationship with Christ. The Days of Noah by Dr. Paul Chappell “But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Luke 17:25–27 The Flood that destroyed all of mankind, except for those in the ark, in Noah’s day remains a powerful reminder of the holy hatred God has for sin. The fact that when it occurred the Flood was completely unexpected says so much about human nature. Jesus tells us that people continued their routines right up to the very day that Noah went into the ark and the rain began. Yet we also know that for more than one hundred years Noah had proclaimed to those around him the warning that Divine judgment was coming. They received the warning. They simply refused to heed it. We are living in a similar day. The judgment of God came on the world not primarily because they were so wicked (there is plenty of wickedness in our day) but because they refused to repent. If the notably evil city of Nineveh was spared because they responded to Jonah’s warning and the city of Sodom would have been spared if there had been at least ten righteous people there, there is little doubt that if the people had responded to Noah, God’s hand of judgment would have been stayed. There are many lessons that could be drawn from this teaching, but one of the most important for us is the reality that it is a mistake to think that because God has not yet carried out judgment He will never do so. Instead of continuing on in our careless routines, we need to believe what He says. Today’s Growth Principle:  Let us be quick to heed warning from the Spirit of God and His Word and turn to Him for forgiveness.