New Things

New Things

By Pastor Jim May

Don’t you just love to have something that’s new? Which of us does not like the smell of a new car? And who among us would not like to have a new home with all the modern conveniences? What about new clothes that fit better and haven’t been through the washer and dryer, or sat in the “round dresser” (clothes dryer) for a long time? What about a new job, where you can get a fresh start? There’s just something about new things that gets the adrenaline flowing and excites us for a while. We love to wear it, drive it, live in it and enjoy the new thing until it finally joins the ranks of the used like everything else. Then we start looking for something new again.

God loves things that are new also. He is a God of new things and loves to give us the best that Heaven has to give.

There came a time when God looked at man that he had created and said, “It’s time for something new.”

The first 12 chapters of the Book of Genesis are some of the most depressing chapters in the Bible. They tell the story of man’s fall from a place of perfection in God into the very pits of sin. By the time Abraham had come along, God had already destroyed all but eight people on the face of the earth. Noah had come out of the ark and the family of mankind began to rebuild, with a new lease on life, a fresh start, but it didn’t take long for sin to bring mankind right back into the pit again. The same sin nature that had been the downfall of man in the Garden was at work once again when mankind began to build a tower that would reach to Heaven. Man was determined, and still is, to may his own way to the throne of God so that he can declare himself to be equal to God. Just as the Tower of Babel failed to fulfill man’s desire to be god, so will every other feeble attempt that we can come up with.

Even though man rebelled against God, and God had to judge him for that sin, you can sense the loss the God felt when the scriptures say in Genesis 6:6, "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

Man, whom God had so lovingly formed of the dust of the earth, and made into his own perfect image, and designed to live forever, had rebelled against God and now the whole of humanity was bound for eternal punishment. That wasn’t what God wanted!

Too many people blame God for the troubles in their lives. Anytime something goes against them, the first thing they will do in point a finger at God and say “Why ME!”

The truth is that all of our troubles, whether they are ordained by God to try or faith, or temptations that are brought against us by the devil – all of our troubles are the result of sin in one way or another.

From the very first temptation that Satan brought against Adam in the garden, to the temptations that you face everyday, every one of them has only been a temptation because we desired those things in the first place.

Adam wasn’t satisfied to be a servant and friend of God – He wanted to be God! We are not satisfied to just enjoy the things that God has already given to us – we want it all! No matter what God blesses us with, we are ever reaching for more.

All temptations, and all trials, are born of sin, for without sin in the hearts of men, God would have no reason to test our faith, and there would be no reason to need a Savior and we wouldn’t have to worry about the devil coming against us because we would not desire anything that he could offer to make us fall.

The desire for new things is not all bad though. It’s good to always want more of God. It’s good to want to have a better relationship with Jesus. It’s good to desire to know the Word of God better.

What isn’t good is when we begin to ignore what blessings we have because all we can see is what we don’t have. The devil always loves to remind you that there is still something better, something newer, something prettier, something else to reach for that we don’t have. Satan’s favorite tool to use against us is our own innate desire for something new.

So God, from the beginning had formulated His battle plans against our sin nature and decided to do a new thing. He knew that we couldn’t do anything about our sin without his intervention. He knew that every man, woman and child on the face of the earth would go to eternal punishment if something wasn’t done to stop it, and only God had the power to do anything about it.