Bible Lesson 184

SOLEMN ASSEMBLY

“Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.” Joel 1:14

“God is looking for a people who will sorrow and grieve over the reproach that is being fostered on the Church of Jesus Christ in these last days. I am talking about the Church that was born at Pentecost. I am talking about the Church that was born in the teaching of the Apostle Paul and the Apostles. The Church born in the Godhead of Jesus Christ. That born-again Church is under attack. That Church is suffering reproach.” Denny Kenaston.

I would add that it has gone to such an extent that overall, the Church is guilty of attacking the kind of church that Christ established, the church has begun to feed upon itself. brobob

In this Bible Lesson we want to learn something about how our forefathers honored the Lord and how we should honor Him also. Now, we do not live under the law as they did but we are still responsible to the same God, who has not changed, but has allowed us a period of Grace where God’s deserved judgment does not fall immediately when we get off the path that God has laid out for us. The people of the Old Testament answered directly to the Word and Will of God and if they transgressed knowingly against God’s commandments they could be and were as a rule stoned to death. Under Grace, we are saved the same way that they were saved, by Faith in What God has said, and we know from God’s Word that it comes down to obedience.

Don’t tell me that you are saved because you have made a profession (said that you believed, hence you are saved): rather tell me that you are obedient to God because you love Him.(John 14:15, 21-24; Hebrews 5:8-9). People who are religious today, have willingly allowed the wool to be pulled over their eyes, we have been duped, led astray and been pointed to that wide gate and broad way that leads to hell. There are false professors, false preachers, false prophets, and false leaders who have been busy doing the will of their father, the devil, and have reached a fever pitch in our time. Just think about how many men are filling pulpits today, who were not called by God to preach His Word.

These are men who were ‘mama called and daddy sent’ to some professed seminary! They were lost when they got there and damned when they left; and they have taken churches where unsaved people are now led to believe all kind of heresy. We have the television and some of it’s contributors who do all that they can to discredit the Bible and it’s truths. They attempt to make God’s miracles simple environmental or things that can be explained by them as having nothing to do with God. They teach evolution to our children as they entertain them with beautiful nature shots. We have preachers in every denomination now, saying that just because God has said that homosexuality is sin, does not mean that they should have to believe it.

This is nothing new, the same kind of anti-god games have been played since before Christ came to die to save those who would, believe without reservation, and obey what He has commanded. It seems that our government has gone in that same direction, There are people who are at the top of the Obama administration, who have set in motion programs to deny and eradicate Christianity. If you are not aware of this you need to open your eyes and ears. Our precious children who are now grown up, and have taken it upon themselves to defend our nation, are being forced to listen to and obey these worms that not only deny God, but refuse to allow anyone to serve Him openly. I noticed this morning that the Air Force has taken ‘under God’ out of the oath of service that members take. If we can be satisfied with that kind of corruption, I just wonder what is in store for us as a nation. We don’t have to wonder about it, if we read our Bibles.

We know that our God has a line drawn in the sand and none of us knows when or where He will Judge us. However, we do know for certain that God will allow us to go only so far, before His Judgment will fall on us. Should we worry about that’ You bet we should! And don’t think that God will punish only those who are the offenders, because we are all offenders in that, we have not stood on God’s Word and His commandments, and it is our fault that we are where we are.
So now we come to the Solemn Assembly part of this lesson. Normally, people with at least one eye and half a brain, will take notice when the nearest volcano is about to erupt and they seek safety from it’s boiling lava. People who know that a tsunami is on it’s way toward them run for the high ground. People who wake up at night and find their house in flames, at the very least run outside. None of that even comes close to what God’s judgments bring with them. When God’s judgment falls on a family, a city, a nation or the world, it brings with it sometimes sudden health problems, hunger, thirst and bodily harm. Go back and read the Old Testament and you will see that happening. Sometimes earthquakes, floods, and severe weather take it’s toll, and at other times nations that have been great because they were good, are cast down for their sin and overrun by pagans who exercised extreme punishment to everyone. At times the people are wise enough to understand that their sin is about to bring judgment on them and so they call everyone together and confess and turn away from their sin in hope that God will turn His judgment. Our God is always ready to forgive sin that is turned away from and repented of, but whenever the creature says no to the Creator, they are in for trouble.

Think back to the time that the Hebrew Nation came out of Egypt and had migrated to the Place where God gave Moses the Decalogue (Ten Commandments), which is called Mount Sinai. Before the people even knew the commands of God, they had degenerated into a godless bunch of pagans who worshipped a golden calf Idol. This could be one of the first, not the first; but one of the first Solemn Assemblies; because while Moses was receiving the commandments from God on the Mount, the people went crazy for something new in their lives and they used their gold earrings and other gold that they brought with them to form a golden calf which they worshipped. When Moses saw what they had done He called a Solemn assembly by saying; “Whoever is on the Lord’s side come to me!” And the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. The firs thing that they did was to kill all those who had taken part in worship of the idol. Then they consecrated themselves to the Lord, and Moses interceded for them and even asked God, to forgive the people and if God refused, Moses asked that God blot him out of the book that God had written.

(Exodus 32:16-35). That in a nutshell is what we speak of when we say Solemn Assemblies. Moses took the action that He knew the Lord would take, and he had the Levites go throughout the congregation and kill all who would not come to the assembly with their minds made up to bow to the Sovereign God. Those who are not ready to leave their carnal ways and begin to serve God with all their might have no right and no place in any Solemn Assembly. That is a place where the people gather to shift their hearts and mind and feet and hands to the service of the Lord without regard for what it will cost. Is there any evidence that Solemn Assemblies work, does God ever relent and not pour out His wrath on those nations and groups of people’ If we look at Jonah and the people of Nineveh: How God instructed Jonah to go and preach to them and all that Jonah did to keep from going there, catching a boat to a distant land and being thrown overboard in a storm, and being swallowed by a whale (great fish), and spit out on the shore of on dry land. Then when He finally preached to the people this message, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Then the people believed God and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

When the King heard it he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes and in effect, the King called a Solemn Assembly. It would do you good if you would stop right now and read Jonah chapters 1-4, it is a short account but will teach us of God’s care and love for people in every tribe, tongue, and nation. Some people like to make fun of the book and the account of Jonah, and they ask me do you really believe that a man was swallowed by a big fish and live in his belly for three day, and three night before being deposited back on land. My answer is a resounding Yes, because God can do anything He wants to do; and if God had wanted to, He could have had Jonah swallow the whale. Nineveh was saved from destruction by the Word of God and the coming together of the people in repentance and renewal to God. What do you think would happen if we in the world today began, to really stop and examine ourselves, and see our great sin before our Holy God’ I am not sure that America and Americans are capable of examining themselves, because we have been taught that we should not have to examine ourselves. We have begun to think that instead of being individuals, we are a great glob of people who are too big to fail. We like to think that as long as we see ourselves as integral to a large group that God would have trouble in disciplining or judging us. Let me assure you that you are an individual in the sight of God and He will discipline you and me and everyone else individually who He intends to correct. It may well be that we have gone so far that God will Judge and pour out His hot wrath on us, since we are so steeped in ourselves and how we resist His Will. We have become so politically estranged that we now find ourselves at odds with people that we do not know. We use our politics for selfish purposes, and we have allowed those who are self serving to take over our government. We have become a blight on our families, our communities and our nation, and God always sees our condition long before we become aware of it.

Too many of those who attend the visible church of our day, have no real affinity for the church or for God, and they may attend but they never become a part of that church. It doesn’t matter to them if the Pastor is a false prophet, just as long as he doesn’t get to close to preaching the truth. Our Nation is in a terrible mess, what with our national debt, the loss of jobs, the threats from outside our borders, our drug problems and all the rest, will in all probability not be solved by God sending angels to clean us up. No, God expects us (those who are truly saved, born again and obedient) to stand on the truths of His Word, and make sure that we do all that we know God would have us to do, to protect the purity of the church. God did not give us a place to gather where we would be taught heresy, and garbage like that which goes on in too many church of our day. I challenge any of you who read this lesson and want to disagree with me about my assessment, to bring your Bible and meet with me to see what God has to say about what is going on in so many churches today. I am aware that there are many whose only claim to salvation is that they are members of some body that calls itself a church; and they are willing to argue and fight for that particular church because they have made it their god; however, and I say this with humility, you can belong to every church within a thousand miles of where you live and unless you have been saved by God’s Grace and washed in the blood of Christ, and you are a new creature who is obedient, you will die and go to hell.

Many people today think that every thing including God changed at the Cross and really the only thing that changed was, that the penalty for sin was paid by the Sinless Son of God, as He died in the place of all those who would obey him (Hebrews 5:8-9). God did not change, He is the Same, Yesterday, Today and Forever. Heaven or hell did not change, sin nor it’s debt did not change. The only thing that changed was the sacrificial system: We no longer sacrifice animals to have our sin “covered’; we come to Christ who has suffered once for all as our Sacrifice, to have our sin forgiven and forgotten. We are no longer under the penalty of the Law, that required death for those who intentionally sinned. We no longer think about Solemn Assemblies, instead we schedule revivals and we hold revivals all of which are strictly controlled by man, and usually no longer than three days. That is simply a call to the Solemn Assembly, and probably does not even meet the standard for the Solemn Assembly’s call. The first thing that was called for in the Solemn Assembly was a fast. Man was separated from his normal requirement for food to sustain him, which indicated that man was really seeking God. They left their daily work, and sought the presence of the Lord. The Solemn Assembly was called to do business with God and everything else was deserted. Everybody was to attend because the people all faced God’s Judgment which was in most cases already begun. Even the bride and groom were to be in attendance and everyone must come ready to participate in national submission and commitment to their God. Can any of us remember having attended a Solemn Assembly, I know I can’t, so it sounds like a good idea for a nation that has almost reached the bottom of that slippery slope that slides right into Judgment and God’s Wrath.

Most church members today live in a fog that they created to hid their ignorance. They think that just because the wolf is not at the door, that the wolf is still outside our homes. The truth is that we have seen the enemy and the enemy is us, we are the wolf, because we have tried to take Christ, rather than to receive Christ. We have chosen to reach out and take that manufactured Christ that false prophets have preached for us and to us. Listen brother and sisters, any man who preaches any less than the full counsel of God, the unadulterated truths of the Bible, is a false prophet! It doesn’t matter whether it is knowingly or unknowingly, whether you like it or not, it will lead you to eternity in hell. We have become like sheep or cattle that can be herded or driven to accept whatever comes down the pike. That is a shame because the Truth had been inspired and spoken and written down for us we call it the Bible. The Truth of God is easy to find, all we have to do is to open our Bible and ask God to speak to our hearts as we read it.

We will not receive any points for reading it like so many today do. We will listen to some soul snatcher preach their lies and then when we read our Bible, we make it say what they said. Where has that brought us to in our society’ Well, according to the News reports from the paper , television, radio and other news channels, they have taught us to allow our schools and places where we spend our money to forbid us from using the words ‘Merry Christmas’, many places where we shop and spend our hard-earned money are Christ haters or at least act like they are. We have been preached such ‘cheap grace’ sermons that we are inclined to go along with many of these anti-god establishment, and we never utter a word or make any complaint. Compare that to real Christianity, where the early Christians were slaughtered on the spot or cast to the lions because they would not deny their Savior. We have become so lite and so tolerant of anything and everything, that we have seen God not cast out, but run out of our military. It is an offense in many places in the military today, to say anything about being a Christian or Christ. The present administration has gone so far as to lift up Islam rather than Christ who is the Savior of mankind.

We tolerate teachers having sex with our children who sit under their teaching. We elect and reelect Presidents, Mayors and Governors, and Legislators who have been guilty of offenses that used to deny any position of trust to them. We prefer to murder our unborn, to make a point about how tolerant we are and how politically correct we have become. Murder seems to be the order of the day, and disrespect of those who have fought and died on foreign fields to keep America the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. America and Americans have rejected the morality of the Creator, in favor of the immorality of those who desire nothing more than to lift up immorality and sin.

Time and space limits my going on and on about the problems that we have invited into our homes, our communities, our schools, and our churches, but if you are not aware of our depravity today, it has to be that you are willfully ignorant. Listen to me now, it is time that the Church of God, understood that a Christian is not a sinner with his brains kicked out. A Christian is one who have been ‘touched and brought from death to life’ as they walk here on the earth, that means that the Christian is a new Creature in Christ, and one who has been radically changed and who now has marching orders to resist any and all attacks on the Truths of God. Go to Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1-10; 2nd Corinthians 5:17; Romans 6:1-14; Romans 8:1-30, to prove what I am saying.

I know that you have heard and are hearing from those who hold themselves out as Preachers, but who are instead false prophets that it is simply a thinking about and speaking words that sound good to the simple minded; but our God is not a simple god, like all the idols that we have gathered for ourselves. Our God is the Creator, Sustainer, Savior, and Friend of those who come to know Him through faith in His One and Only Son Jesus Christ. We can know Him if we desire Him more than we desire anyone or anything else on the earth or any other place you can think of. Being saved and becoming a Child of God cannot be compared to going to a café and having a cup of coffee, or going to the grocery store and buying food. It is far more complex than that; and I firmly believe that well-meaning but uncalled preachers have taught us that being saved, is as simple as walking the aisle and shaking the preacher’s hand and being put on the roles of a church. Therein lies the problem, that will probably will keep the majority of people to resist the opportunity to examine themselves and what they believe.

Church congregation have begun to take the truth as a direct threat to their eternal lives, when actually the truth of the Word of God is the only hope for any of us. Most of today’s professors, know just enough to doom themselves. Their knowledge of the Bible is second hand knowledge. They know what they have heard, or at least enough that they are willing to believe. They have believed that if they simply do the best that they can, as they live their lives, keeping their religion to themselves and living like the world, that they are saved for eternity. That is exactly what God’s chosen Nation Israel did back then and what they did was to forget God, and move on with life as usual, until God brought them to the lick-log and lowered the hammer on them. Their only salvation was that they were not to proud, too pompous, too steeped in what they were willing to believe, that they would occasionally call for a Solemn Assembly, a meeting where they all individually, and corporately, confess their sin and turn back to God in Spirit and Truth.

Most today are so socially connected and careful about their sin being manifested, that they would find a reason not to make the meeting because it would embarrass them. They would instead deny that they had become a reproach to God, and let the chips fall where they may. We have all the signs and warnings that we need to cause us to need to look closely at ourselves, and see our need for that Solemn Assembly, but that is just asking too much for some. The Solemn assembly was called for by God, and it was for the individual and for the congregation as a whole. Moses took His tent, and pitched it outside the camp (This was before the Tabernacle had been constructed); because the camp was a place of sin. He called all who sought the Lord to come out of the camp, away from their chosen place of worship, to go outside to a new place that had been rededicated to doing the business of obeying God and living like He had said they were to live (Exodus 33:7-11). King Hezekiah, in his first year of his reign, opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them.

He called the Levites together and commanded them to sanctify themselves and the house of the God of their fathers, and in effect He told them to take the garbage out of that house. (2nd Chronicles 29:1-6). That sounds like something that we might want to look into in our own day. I won’t list all of the Solemn Assemblies that we find in the Bible but you can find some in (1st Samuel 7:5,6; 2nd Samuel 6:14 and 1st Chronicles 13:8;2nd Chronicles 3:31-33; Ezra6:16-22; Joel 1:13,2:12-17). Just as I said before, there will be no place for those who want to hid their sin, and refuse to confess before God and man, everyone will come forth into the light of the Lord and we will not worry about our best suit and tie and our new dresses (that are probably too short). Just like the King of Nineveh, we will shed our best and in effect put on sackcloth; and we will fast until we have forged a real relationship with our God. God turns away from sin, even in those who are truly saved, and he does not answer our prayers until we come back to Him in repentance.

When some pastor, or men of God acquires the intestinal fortitude, to wake up and realize how far we have come from God, they will or should, call for a solemn assembly. Their voices will be the Trumpet of God and it’s sound will be loud and clear. They won’t call for an all day singing and dinner on the ground, or a cake sale, or a car wash, or a new challenge that they have discovered, it will be for confession and repentance of our sin. Probably what most of us need today is to tune up our trumpets, because most of them today are making an ‘uncertain sound’. (1st Corinthians 14:7-8). I believe the Bible give us exact methods for the calling of the Solemn Assembly. There is One blown, and one only, for the calling together the leaders, and when that has been taken care of, Both trumpets are sound for all to come. Numbers 10:1-4. Folks, I have done the best to warn all of us, me included, to begin to wake up, stand up and look up to God, in honest dependency on Him.

Until next time,

may God bless and keep you

This is Bro. Bob