Month: March 2026

IS THERE NOT A CAUSE?

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Daily Reading: 1 Samuel 16–17

Text: 1 Samuel 17:29 – “And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause?”

Click here to listen to Alexander Scourby reading the King James Bible

David looked at a valley full of armed Israelites hiding behind rocks and one loud‑mouth giant cussing God, and he said what the average Baptist in 2026 needs to hear: “Is there not a cause?” (1 Samuel 17:29) They had armor, training, a king, and a covenant, but no courage. We have Bibles, churches, freedom, air‑conditioning, and podcasts – and in these last days we’re acting like there’s nothing left worth swinging at. (2 Timothy 3:1–5)

We are not fighting for the literal Kingdom of Heaven like David, with a sword and shield and a Philistine’s head in our hand. Our battle is for the spiritual Kingdom of God – the new birth, sound doctrine, holy living, and the testimony of Jesus Christ in a crooked generation. (John 3:3–7; Romans 14:17) But the spiritual kingdom looks like it’s on life‑support in a lot of places because the church does not see that there is still a cause.

Here are four Bible causes worth fighting for in these last days:

  1. Fight for the faith once delivered
    Jude said we are to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (Jude 3) That faith is fixed, not up for edits and updates. The cause here is doctrinal purity – standing for the Book, the blood, the new birth, the blessed hope, and the fundamentals without apology. In an age of “deconstruction” and spiritual mush, somebody has to draw a line and say, “No, that’s error,” even if the giant is a best‑selling Christian celebrity.
  2. Fight for personal holiness
    In the last days, men are “lovers of their own selves… lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” (2 Timothy 3:1–5) The cause here is a clean life in a dirty world. We are not saved by holiness, but we are absolutely called to holiness. The church has traded separation for relevance, and then wonders why we have no power. Someone has to decide that a pure mind, a guarded tongue, and a separated walk are worth taking shots over.
  3. Fight for the local church
    Christ “loved the church, and gave himself for it.” (Ephesians 5:25) The cause here is the old‑fashioned local assembly – preaching, praying, soulwinning, discipline, fellowship, missions – in a day when folks treat church like a background option if the schedule is clear and the game isn’t on. Hebrews says we are not to forsake assembling, “and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25) That means the closer we get to the trumpet, the more we should fight for faithful attendance, not less.
  4. Fight for souls
    Paul said, “knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” (2 Corinthians 5:11) The cause here is evangelism – personal, local, and worldwide. Hell has not cooled off in the twenty‑first century. The gospel is still “the power of God unto salvation.” (Romans 1:16) While churches argue about coffee bars and light shows, sinners are dying without Christ. Somebody needs to pick up a tract, open a Bible, talk to a co‑worker, and see souls as the real battlefield.

This is a strong charge, so let me say it plain: these are the last days, and God did not accidentally drop you here in these days before the Rapture. You are here on purpose, in a dark hour, with a living Book and a living Saviour. The Kingdom of Heaven on earth is not ours to claim right now – that literal throne belongs to Jesus at His coming – but the Kingdom of God inside men is being neglected, mocked, and starved because God’s people forgot there is a cause. (Luke 17:20–21; Romans 14:17)

David walked into that valley and refused to let God’s name be blasphemed without raising a voice and a weapon. (1 Samuel 17:26, 29) The question today is not, “Is there a cause?” The question is, “Will you fight for it, or hide with the rest of the army?”

Continue reading because tomorrow’s reading from 1 SAMUEL 18–20 we’ll watch how standing for the cause puts David on the right side with God, but on the wrong side with Saul, and we’ll learn that doing right will cost you – but it is still worth it.

Tomorrow’s Reading: 1 Samuel 18–20

Until tomorrow, Stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony

Big Moves With Little Steps…

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Daily Reading: 1 Samuel 6–9

Text: 1 Samuel 9

Click here to listen to Alexander Scourby reading the King James Bible

Today’s devotion is an important principle that is being taught, because 1 Samuel 9 is one of those chapters where God hides big providence inside little ordinary events. Saul is out looking for lost asses, but the Lord is looking for a king. What looks like a farm chore turns into a divine appointment.

This chapter is a blessing for anybody who thinks God only works through thunder, lightning, and religious fireworks. In this present age of grace, the Lord still works His providence through ordinary events in the preserved words of the AV1611, without the sensational signs, wonders, or religious fireworks that some seek today. Saul starts out chasing animals that wandered off, and before the day is over he is standing in front of Samuel exactly where God intended him to be. The Lord had already told Samuel, “to morrow about this time I will send thee a man,” so what looked accidental on earth was scheduled in heaven. Think about that, I mean really think about that.

There is a lesson there worth nailing down.

  • God uses ordinary troubles. Lost livestock got Saul moving, and God used that irritation to direct his steps.
  • God uses faithful servants. Saul’s servant had more spiritual sense in this chapter than Saul did; he suggested going to the man of God.
  • God uses timing. When Saul entered the city, Samuel “came out against them” right on time.
  • God uses closed doors. They searched one place after another and did not find the asses, because God was steering them somewhere better.

A lot of us want God’s will written in the clouds while we ignore the plain steps in front of us. The Lord often leads a man by the next field, the next conversation, the next delay, and the next interruption. We call it inconvenience; God calls it guidance. We grumble over lost asses while He is setting up a meeting we could not have arranged with a road map, a flashlight, and a church committee.

So this chapter teaches us that God’s providence is real; He can guide a man through missing livestock, weary travel, and a servant’s suggestion.

There is a practical help in that for us.

  • Do not despise small duties. Saul met Samuel while handling family business.
  • Do not overlook godly counsel. The servant’s advice moved the whole story forward.
  • Do not assume delays are wasted time. Those failed searches were part of the route.

If you want a good phrase for the devotion, here it is: God’s providence rides in on plain things. No miracle at the Red Sea here, no fire from heaven, no walls falling down. Just lost asses, dusty roads, tired travelers, and a prophet waiting in the right place at the right time. That is just like the Lord. He can steer a whole kingdom with the disappearance of a few farm animals.

Continue reading because tomorrow’s reading from 1 SAMUEL 10–13 we’ll watch Saul move from private selection to public spotlight, and we’ll see in a hurry that a man can be chosen for a throne and still make a wreck of things when he will not stay lined up with the word of God.

Tomorrow’s Reading: 1 Samuel 10–13

Until tomorrow, Stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony

Hitherto Hath the Lord Helped Us

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Daily Reading: 1 Samuel 2–5

Text: 1 Samuel 7:12 – “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”

Click here to listen to Alexander Scourby reading the King James Bible

This devotion reaches a little beyond today’s reading into tomorrow’s, because the word Ebenezer shows up first in 1 Samuel 4:1 as a place of defeat, and later in 1 Samuel 7:12 as a memorial of deliverance. That contrast fits beautifully with the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. One Ebenezer reminds us what happens when men trust religion without repentance. The other reminds us what God can do when a people get right and can honestly say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”

Verse 1: God’s help remembered.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the Mount! I’m fixed upon it, Mount of God’s unchanging love.

The first verse fits the Ebenezer of 1 Samuel 7. It is the language of a heart tuned to grace, a soul stopping long enough to say, “God has brought me this far.” That is what Samuel’s stone was: a marker of divine help. In 1 Samuel 4, Israel stood beside Ebenezer and lost because they had a religious object without a right heart. In 1 Samuel 7, Samuel raised Ebenezer because the people had turned to the Lord, and now they had His help instead of just His furniture.

Verse 2: God’s grace in bringing wanderers back.
Here I raise my Ebenezer; Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His Precious Blood.

The second verse brings in the testimony of a sinner sought and brought back. That fits the whole drift of 1 Samuel 2–5, because the chapters are loaded with corruption, presumption, judgment, and loss. Eli’s sons are wicked, the priesthood is polluted, and Israel imagines that carrying the ark into battle will force God to bless their mess. But the Lord is not a rabbit’s foot and the ark is not a magic box. The only reason anybody ever gets to raise an Ebenezer is because God, in mercy, seeks wandering people and brings them back to Himself.

Verse 3: God’s grace needed to keep us from wandering again.
O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.

The third verse is where the hymn gets painfully honest, and that honesty matches these chapters. “Prone to wander” might as well be written over the whole nation in 1 Samuel 2–5. The priests wander, the people wander, and everybody seems to think that having sacred things nearby is the same as walking with God. It is not. The first Ebenezer is tied to defeat because men presumed on outward religion. That is why this verse matters so much: if God does not keep your heart, you can be standing next to holy things while your soul is miles away.

The lesson of the two Ebenezers will preach. In 1 Samuel 4, Israel had religion without repentance, form without power, and a sacred object without the favor of God. In 1 Samuel 7, after repentance and prayer, Samuel could raise a stone and say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” So the old hymn is not just pretty poetry. It is the cry of a heart that knows the difference between dead religion and divine help.

The first Ebenezer is a WARNING, and the second Ebenezer is a WITNESS. One says you can stand near holy things and still be defeated if your heart is wrong. The other says that when the Lord helps you, you ought to mark it down and never forget it. That is why this hymn means so much to God’s people. It gives us words to praise, words to remember, and words to confess our wandering hearts while thanking God for helping us this far.

Continue reading because tomorrow’s reading from 1 SAMUEL 6–8 will show the ark returning, Samuel calling Israel to repentance, the Lord thundering against the Philistines, and that great memorial stone called Ebenezer being raised as a testimony that God’s help is better than religious machinery and stronger than Israel’s enemies.

Tomorrow’s Reading: 1 Samuel 6–8

Until tomorrow, Stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony

Fixing Sin with Sin

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Daily Reading — Judges 20,21 – Ruth 1

Click here to listen to Alexander Scourby Reading the King James Bible.

The sin of chapter 19 shows the wickedness that lies in the heart of men who do whatever “feels good”. Israel is right about the sin at Gibeah—but wrong in how they handle it.

They never ask, “Should we go?”
Only, “Who shall go up first?” (Judges 20:18)

They come to God with their decision already made.

Book of Ezekiel 14:4 — “I the LORD will answer him… according to the multitude of his idols”

Their idol is their own judgment.

So God answers within that framework: Judah goes first.

Then God begins to deal with them:

  • 22,000 fall (Judges 20:21)
  • 18,000 more (20:25)

They were right about the sin—but wrong in spirit, wrong in approach, and now the consequences are unfolding.

As a former leader of a Reformers Unanimous chapter, I taught these principles often:

Principle #5: “Small compromises lead to great disasters (otherwise known as little sins lead to big sins).”

That is exactly what unfolds here:

  • One sin at Gibeah
  • A decision made in the flesh
  • 40,000 dead
  • A tribe nearly wiped out
  • Another city destroyed
  • Moral compromise sanctioned

What looked small did not stay small.

And alongside that:

Principle #7: “We lose our freedom to choose when we give in to temptation. The consequences of sin are inevitable, incalculable, and up to God.”

They started it—but they could not stop it.

Only after loss do they finally submit:

“Shall I yet again go out… or shall I cease?” (20:28)

Now victory comes—but the damage is already done.

Benjamin is nearly destroyed (20:48).

And instead of repenting, they begin managing consequences:

  • Destroy Jabesh-gilead for wives (21:8–12)
  • Justify it under their vow
  • Then permit wives to be taken from Shiloh (21:20–23)

Sin… fixing sin… with more sin.

They never return to God about:

  • their excess
  • their vow
  • their solutions

They just keep deciding—and acting.

The diagnosis:

“Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)

They asked God to guide their plan—instead of asking God for His.

And once that begins, sin will not be corrected.

It will be compounded.

Even well-intentioned people can move in the flesh. Paul said:

Book of Romans 7:18 — “for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”

The desire to do right is not the same as the ability to do right. Israel had the right desire—to judge sin—but lacked the submission to do it God’s way. That is where the danger begins.

Scripture shows us how to stop sin before it multiplies:

Book of Proverbs 3:5–6 — “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

The failure in Judges 20 was not ignorance—it was leaning on their own understanding first, then asking God to assist. The correction is simple, but absolute: acknowledge Him first, not after the plan is formed.

And when failure has already begun, the answer is not to manage it—but to stop and deal with it honestly before God:

Book of Proverbs 28:13 — “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”

Israel covered, adjusted, and engineered—but never truly confessed and forsook. That is why the problem grew.

Practically:

  • Stop before acting—seek God, not confirmation
  • When wrong—confess it, don’t manage it
  • Forsake it early—before it spreads

That is how small sin is cut off before it becomes great disaster.

Keep reading, Ruth begins where Judges leaves off—with a different spirit altogether.

Until tomorrow, stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony

Tomorrow’s Reading: Ruth 2 – 1 Samuel 1

The Hellish Roots of Man-Made Religion

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Daily Reading: Judges 18-19

Text: “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25, KJV)

Brethren, as we open the infallible Authorized King James Bible this morning, the Holy Ghost pulls back the curtain on the very birthplace of false religion. No king in Israel—every man doing that which was right in his own eyes—and immediately we see the devil’s blueprint: stolen money, carved idols, a hired preacher, and the proud boast, “Now know I that the LORD will do me good” (Judges 17:13).

This is not just ancient Israel. This is the foundation of the Roman Catholic system.

The Original “Clergy Career Move” – Mocked by the Holy Ghost

Micah hires a wandering Levite: “Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals” (Judges 17:10). The Levite is content.

Then the men of Dan come along with a sweeter deal: “Is it better for thee to be a priest unto the house of one man, or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel?” (Judges 18:19).

“And the priest’s heart was glad.” (Judges 18:20)

Here is the very first clergy career move—leaving a small family shrine for a bigger tribe, better pay, and wider influence. Same compromise, just a larger crowd. Same devils behind the altar, just more pews to fill the offering plate.

Sound familiar, brethren?

How many popish priests have left some dusty little parish for a grand cathedral with bigger collections, finer vestments, and more prestige? Their “heart was glad” at the promotion—just like this Levite.

But let us not leave the Baptists out of this mess either! In our own circles it may be called a “green lead”—that sweet-sounding opportunity when a bigger church with a fatter salary, a nicer parsonage, and a larger platform comes calling. Suddenly the preacher hears from the Lord: “It’s time to move on, brother!” The heart is glad, the résumé is updated, and off he goes—leaving behind the small work for the “bigger blessing.”

The Holy Ghost is grieved watching all of this. Whether it is a Roman priest chasing cathedrals or a Baptist preacher chasing a “green lead,” it is the same spirit: hireling religion. The Lord Jesus warned us plainly:

“But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the hireling fleeth, because he careth not for the sheep.” (John 10:12-13)

The Levite cared not for Micah’s little shrine once a bigger offer appeared.

The Idols That Cannot See, Speak, or Save

While the priest is busy advancing his career, the people are busy with their idols. Micah’s graven image and molten image get stolen and carried off to Dan. Micah runs after them crying, “Ye have taken away my gods which I made… and what have I more?” (Judges 18:24).

What a laughable tragedy! A god you carved with your own hands, a god you can steal with your own arms, a god that needs bodyguards—is no God at all!

The Bible mocks such foolishness with holy fire:

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.” (Psalm 115:4-8)

Rome’s statues, crucifixes, and relics are no better. They cannot see, cannot hear, cannot save. And the poor souls who trust them become just as blind and dead.

It’s the same spirit that shows up in Baptist circles when men trust buildings, programs, famous preachers, or big offerings instead of the living God. Anything that takes the place of simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to the word of God becomes an idol.

Dan’s Idols Become a Continual Curse

The Danites set up Micah’s stolen gods in their new city and make Jonathan (grandson of Moses!) their priest. “And they set them up Micah’s graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh” (Judges 18:31).

That idolatry became a curse that followed Israel for generations. Dan turned into a center of calf worship under Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:28-30). The tribe is even missing from the sealed 144,000 in Revelation 7—its name blotted out because of persistent idolatry.

Brethren, false religion started in Judges 17–18 has never stopped spreading its curse. Rome is the full-grown daughter of this harlotry.

The Hellish (not holy) Roman Church, that great whore of Revelation 17:1-6, is the direct spiritual descendant of the idolatrous system born in Judges 17-18, where stolen silver funded graven and molten images, a hired Levite priest followed bigger pay check, a larger tribe, and where every man could openly do that which was right in his own eyes.

She is Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth, decked in purple and scarlet, holding a golden cup full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication, drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus. This is the same system that sets up carved images that cannot see, speak, hear, or save (Psalm 115:4-8; Isaiah 44:9-20), sells spiritual favors through indulgences and masses for the dead, exalts a man in Rome as “Vicar of Christ” who sits in the temple of God showing himself that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4), practices the witchcraft of transubstantiation, confesses sins to a priest instead of to Christ the only Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), and has shed the blood of millions of Bible believers across the centuries.

She is ground zero for the Antichrist of the Great Tribulation, the final Pope who will head the one-world false church, enforce the mark of the beast, and fulfill every prophecy of the man of sin while the world wonders after the beast (Revelation 13; 17:8-18). This is not the bride of Christ but the great harlot riding the beast, destined for destruction when the Lord Jesus returns in glory.

Let us take warning from the Authorized Version. The Lord Jesus Christ alone is Head of the church. He alone calls and equips true shepherds—not bigger salaries or greener pastures.

“Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.” (Isaiah 26:4)

May the Holy Ghost keep us from every form of idolatry—whether Roman statues or Baptist programs. Let every man do that which is right in God’s eyes, not his own.

“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” (Isaiah 8:20)

Tomorrow’s Reading: Judges 20 – Ruth 1

Continue reading because tomorrow’s reading from JUDGES 20–RUTH 1 will show the bloody fallout of the moral filth in Judges 19, as Israel tears itself apart in civil war, and then—like a shaft of light through a storm cloud—the book of Ruth opens to remind us that when the nation is collapsing, God is still quietly working through faith, loyalty, and grace to bring in His purpose. After the madness of Benjamin, the butchery of civil war, and the wreckage caused by every man doing that which was right in his own eyes, Ruth 1 will be a blessed reminder that God can still bring hope out of ruin and a future out of famine.

Until tomorrow, Stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony​



SAMSON: HISTORY’S STRONGEST WEAKLING

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Daily Reading: Judges 14–17

Text: Judges 16:20 – “And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.”

Click here to listen to Alexander Scourby reading the King James Bible

Samson is one of the clearest pictures in the Book of Judges of a man with great privilege and very little self-government. Before he ever chased a woman, snapped a cord, or made a fool of himself in Delilah’s lap, he was a child announced by the angel of the LORD, marked out from the womb, blessed by God, and moved by the Spirit of God. Judges 13 says, “the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb,” that “he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines,” that “the Lord blessed him,” and that “the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times.”

So Samson did not start out as a nobody. He started out with divine calling, divine separation, divine power, and divine purpose. That is what makes the rest of the story so tragic. A lost pagan acts like a lost pagan because he is a lost pagan; Samson acts like a fool with a calling on his life and power on his head.

The problem with Samson is not that God failed him. The problem is that Samson would not mortify the flesh. In Judges 14, when he saw a Philistine woman, he said, “Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.” Later he went in unto an harlot at Gaza, and after that “he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.” That is a man led by his eyes, his appetite, and his passions.

And then comes Delilah, one of the funniest and dumbest scenes in the Bible if it were not so deadly. She practically walks in wearing a sandwich board that says, “I am here to ruin you for money,” because the lords of the Philistines tell her to “entice him,” find out his strength, bind him, and “afflict him,” and they put silver on the table to do it. Then she asks him straight out, “Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.” Brother, that is not exactly subtle romance. That is not candlelight and violin music; that is a bounty hunter in a dress with cash jingling in her purse.

But Samson keeps playing with it because the flesh is stupid. She asks how to bind him, he tells her something, she tries it, hollers, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson,” and he breaks free. Then she does it again. And again. At that point a man with a teaspoon of sense would have figured out that the woman asking how to tie him up might just possibly be planning to tie him up. But lust makes a man dumber than a box of hammers, and Samson keeps coming back for another round of Delilah’s interrogation service.

Finally, “she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death,” and he “told her all his heart.” That is what the flesh does. It wears a man down, talks him out of his consecration, and talks him into surrendering the very thing God gave him to mark him out. He traded separation for satisfaction and holiness for a haircut.

Then the awful line falls: “he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.” Samson still thought he could get up, shake himself, and do business as usual. That is the danger of carnality. A man can play with sin so long that he loses the presence and power of God and still thinks he is ready for one more sermon, one more song, one more round, one more victory.

The Philistines put out his eyes, bind him with fetters of brass, and make him grind in the prison house. That is where the flesh always takes a man: blind, bound, and grinding. First sin entertains, then it enslaves. First it pats you on the back, then it puts chains on your feet.

But down there in the dark, Samson finally gets to a place where the flesh is being mortified whether he likes it or not. The eyes that got him in trouble are gone. The freedom the flesh demanded is gone. The swagger is gone. The games are over. In the end he calls on the Lord and asks for strength one more time, and God lets him kill more at his death than he slew in his life. Judges says, “the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life,” and yet it also closes by saying, “he judged Israel twenty years.”

That is a sobering epitaph. He had a twenty-year ministry, but so much of it was governed by impulse, revenge, appetite, and lust. God used him, yes. God sent him, yes. God empowered him, yes. But Samson never seems to get mastery over Samson until the flesh is finally crushed under judgment and suffering.

For New Testament truth in this dispensation, the lesson is plain: the believer is commanded to mortify the flesh before the flesh wrecks him. We are told, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” and “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” and “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” Samson is an Old Testament judge, but he is a standing warning to every New Testament Christian that gifts are not character, power is not purity, and calling is not the same thing as consecration.

A man may be gifted and still be governed by the flesh. He may be used and still be unbroken. He may have strength enough to move gates and still not have enough sense to get away from Delilah. If you do not mortify the flesh, the flesh will eventually mortify your testimony.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Judges 18–19

Continue reading because tomorrow’s reading from JUDGES 18–19 will show a nation sinking even lower, with religious corruption in Judges 18 and moral filth in Judges 19, proving again that when every man does that which is right in his own eyes, things do not get better—they get devilish.

Until tomorrow, Stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony

WHEN GOD SENDS A LYING OR EVIL SPIRIT

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Daily Reading: Judges 9–10

Click here to listen to Alexander Scourby reading the King James Bible

Text: Judges 9:23 – “Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech.”

This devotion is more Bible study than warm-and-fuzzy devotional, because Judges 9:23 forces you to deal with a hard truth: God sometimes sends an evil spirit, a lying spirit, or a delusion as an act of judgment on people who already chose rebellion. He is never the author of sin, but He is absolutely the Judge who turns sinners over to the very darkness they insisted on loving.

In Judges 9, Abimelech murders his seventy brethren and the men of Shechem help him do it, so God sends “an evil spirit” between them. Why? “That the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come,” meaning God uses their own treachery to boomerang judgment back on their own heads. That is not God making innocent people wicked; that is God letting wicked people choke on the wickedness they ordered for supper.

Scripture compares with scripture here. In 1 Kings 22:19–23, the Lord permits a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets so that a king who rejected truth can march straight into the judgment he earned. In 1 Samuel 16:14, after the Spirit of the LORD departs from Saul, an evil spirit from the LORD troubles him, showing again that when light is refused, darkness is not far behind. In Ezekiel 14:4, God says He will answer the man who comes with idols in his heart “according to the multitude of his idols,” and in Ezekiel 14:9, “I the LORD have deceived that prophet,” meaning judicially, as punishment on hearts already bent the wrong way.

That lines up perfectly with Jeremiah 17:9–10: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” and the Lord searches that heart and gives every man according to his ways. Man does not need help becoming crooked; he came out of Adam with factory-installed deceit. God’s judgment often works by simply giving a rebel more leash, and sinners usually use that extra rope to hang themselves.

Paul states the same principle doctrinally in 2 Thessalonians 2:10–12: because they “received not the love of the truth,” “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” Romans 1:24, 26, 28 says it three times: “God gave them up,” “God gave them up,” and “God gave them over.” When men do not want truth, God eventually stops interrupting their funeral march and lets them follow lies all the way to the grave.

Now for the dispensational line, because if you miss that, you will stir the pot and still serve raw doctrine. Judges is Old Testament history under Israel’s covenant setting, not the church as the Body of Christ. So we do not take every judicial act in Judges and slap it carelessly onto church-age believers as though no dispensational distinctions exist; but the moral principle remains the same in every age: reject revealed truth long enough, and God may judge you by giving you over to the lie you wanted in the first place.

So what should the reader take from this study?

  • Do not toy with known sin. Abimelech and Shechem played politics with blood on their hands, and God turned partners into predators.
  • Do not come to God wanting approval for idols already parked in your heart. Ezekiel 14 says God answers that man according to his idols.
  • Do not flatter yourself about your heart. Jeremiah 17 says it is deceitful and desperately wicked; your heart is not a compass, it is a crooked used-car salesman.
  • Do not refuse truth. The end of that road is delusion, not liberty.

This passage is sobering, but it is clean Bible doctrine: God is holy, man is wicked, and divine judgment often comes by removal of restraint rather than by lightning from the clouds. Sometimes the scariest judgment is not that God stops you, but that He lets you go.

Continue reading because tomorrow’ reading from JUDGES 11–13 we’ll see more of Israel’s instability, a rash vow with deadly consequences, and the birth of Samson, a man set apart from the womb who will show how much trouble a powerful man can cause when consecration and character do not stay together.

Tomorrow’s Reading: JUDGES 11–13

Until tomorrow, Stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony

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