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BIBLE READ-THROUGH: DAY 13 REFLECTION (1 KINGS 12 – 2 KINGS 13:25)
“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”
DAY 13: AUGUST 4
1 KINGS 12 – 2 KINGS 13:25
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, August 4, 2021 – The back-sliding of Israel and Judah is vividly on display in today’s reading. I haven’t done a head count, but I’m pretty sure if I compared the number of kings who “did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord” with those who “did right in the sight of the Lord”, there would be more doing evil than doing right. What happened to the children of Israel to make them turn from God and embrace demons?
- A bit of a theme is developing of women leading men astray. We saw this in earlier readings all the way back to Adam and Eve, but it’s here again, most prominently with Jezebel leading Ahab astray. What is it with so many strong and beautiful women that they turn from God to follow demons, and what is with men that they are so easily swayed by these women? Is it just their beauty, or is there something else involved? I ask this as a woman. I sincerely ask this as a woman. I thought the children of Israel had set up a patriarchal social order? I thought women were considered inferior to men and incapable of ruling? And yet time and time again in scripture we see them ruling over their husband-kings, and not for the better.
- Always a joy to read about Elijah and Elisha! They were both so matter-of-fact about slaughtering the demon-channeling prophets and getting ‘er done all in a day’s work. We have baalim worshipers today that bend the knee to Baal, only they go by the name of BLM supporters. (BLM = BaaLiM.) Steer clear of that temptation wrapped up as an alleged social justice virtue. God will deal with it and all those who follow it, after he gives them due time to repent. Nonetheless, it’s yet another clear indication of how far we’ve fallen as “former Christian” nations and how blind people are nowadays to the devil’s work.
- Lots of miracles in this reading, especially by Elijah. Love how he made fun of the Baal prophets (the only way to deal with them) when Baal was M.I.A. no matter how much they cried out and cut themselves to get his attention. And how Elijah drowned the altar in water to make it impossible for any kind of natural fire to take hold. It was like Elijah saying to the Baal prophets: “See? I give you a head start and you still lose, and then I make it impossible for myself, but I still win.” He rubs their noses in their failure, and then he slaughters them. That’s how examples were made in those days. And it worked, because the people (other than the Baal prophets) who witnessed this miracle repented and acknowledged that God was Lord.
- The Spirit of God stayed strong in the prophets even when most of God’s people strayed from him. God says he’ll never leave or betray his children; it’s his children who leave and betray him, and he lets them go. Those who choose to remain God makes stronger and stronger with his Spirit. It’s like they get the portion of his Spirit that the others rejected.
- The scripture in this reading mentions several times that the same material is also presented in Chronicles, which we’ll start to read tomorrow. Chronicles goes into more detail about those who “did right in the sight of the Lord”, including, of course, David. (yay! :D) The repetition helps in both the teaching and learning processes, and the greater detail fleshes out what we already know about these kings. Not just today’s reading but many sections throughout the OT make reference to and reflect other sections in the OT, and the NT does the same. In fact, much of the NT doesn’t make much sense without at least a passing acquaintance (such as what we’re doing now) with the OT. How many prophecies about Jesus have you found so far in the readings? Always a little jolt of pleasure to come across those!
- Remember that, for centuries, people were not only discouraged but prevented from reading the OT by the same organization that today considers itself to be the “one true church”. The so-called dark ages was a concerted effort on the part of the papacy to keep people literally in the dark about the Bible by keeping them illiterate, so that the only things they learned about Jesus and God were from the papacy. Reading through the OT, we can see why the papacy didn’t want their people to read the OT – because many of the things that the papacy did and Roman Catholics were taught to do are in direct violation of what God told his people to do. You’ll see more of these direct violations in upcoming readings.
Hold your Bible tight and cherish every word! We are greatly privileged to live in an age and a nation where we can openly read and discuss God’s Word, but this privilege will likely be revoked in the years to come. Some people bury money and gold; some people hoard food and water (and toilet paper); and yet others stash away seeds. But we, as born-again believers, need to prepare for a day when Bibles will be outlawed. If you prep for nothing else, prep for that.
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The schedule for the BIBLE READ-THROUGH on PDF is directly below:
BIBLE READ-THROUGH: DAY 12 REFLECTION (2 SAMUEL 18 – 1 KINGS 11:43)
“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”
DAY 12: AUGUST 3
2 SAMUEL 18 – 1 KINGS 11:43
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, August 3, 2021 – Today’s reading sees the waning of David and rise of several of his sons, the most prominent being Solomon. Like Moses gave “the talk” to his people as he was nearing his end, David also gave the same talk, slightly abridged, to Solomon just before his death. It’s a talk we should all hear every day as a reminder of our priorities.
- As I mentioned yesterday, despite his many blessings, David had a hard run of it in life. The tests and temptations never let up. When he was a kid, his brothers treated him badly; as he grew older and matured, he was hounded by Saul; after God had dealt with Saul and David became king, various heathen nations rose up and had to be destroyed; finally, after David had conquered most of those, his sons started in on him. The plague of his sons must have been the bitterest of all for David. Even so, he loved them and protected each of them to the end.
- Absalom was one of David’s sons. He is described in scripture as being the most beautiful man in Israel – not one of the most beautiful, but THE most beautiful. Eager to take his father’s place on the throne, Absalom rallied some troops and priests around him (beautiful people, whether male or female, can pretty much command others to do their will: beauty casts an immediate, deep, and lasting spell on those who are susceptible to it). David refused to have Absalom killed, even after Absalom himself killed another of David’s sons and stole the kingship out from under his father. David instead chose to flee and live in exile rather than to have Absalom executed.
- As God would have it, Absalom eventually hung himself on a tree in a freak riding accident. David mourned his beautiful but treacherous son so excessively that he had to be snapped out of it by one of his loyal ministers (Joab). After that, David again reigned as king of all Israel until Solomon took over at his death.
- Solomon is an interesting character. If you recall from an earlier reading, he was conceived on the same day that David and Bathsheba’s first child died. Solomon grew up surrounded by great wealth and privilege, but none of it seemed to matter much to him as a young man. What he wanted instead more than anything was to rule and judge wisely as king, so God granted him his wish.
- Along with wisdom (and precisely because he has asked for wisdom rather than long life and riches), God also gave Solomon excessive wealth and the directive to build his temple. God promised Solomon that he and his offspring would remain blessed as long as he kept his Commandments.
- Unfortunately, like his father and countless men before him all the way back to Adam, Solomon was beguiled by his heathen wives and strayed from God’s path. Wanting to please his wives, and likely for a few other reasons that don’t appear in the Bible, he started to build altars to their demon gods. Not a good thing to do if you want to stay on God’s good side. God gave Solomon time to repent of his sins, but when he didn’t do that, God informed him that his son would lose the kingship over Israel, retaining only one tribe for the sake of the promise God had made to David.
- You have to wonder how Solomon, whose wisdom is fabled to have exceeded anyone else’s at the time, could have lost the plot to such an extent that he began worshiping demons. Again, beauty casts a strong spell over most people, and his 700 wives and 300 concubines must have been a force to be reckoned with. Whatever happened, Solomon ended up going down the wrong path in old age, and he paid the price for it. Like I said earlier, it might have been a good idea for Solomon to review daily the talk his dying father gave him. We should all review that talk daily:
Keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself:
1 KINGS 2:3
- Just a note on the temple to end this reflection. I pretty much skipped over most of the building specs, as they don’t interest me. The problem with temples (churches, cathedrals, etc.) is that people get so caught up in the beauty and majesty of the place, they tend to worship and defer to the building and all the stuff in it rather than the one it was built for (God). Jesus talks about this later in the Gospels. That’s the main reason why I don’t much care about the temple description. It just seems so over-the-top and suspiciously grandiose (like Solomon getting 666 talents of gold as his annual allotment as king; that’s an intriguing detail I hadn’t noticed before!).
- Whatever purpose this temple played in God’s economy, it didn’t prevent Solomon from straying down the wrong path, and it didn’t appear to have inspired his foreign wives to convert to their husband’s faith, either. In the end, it was just a big fancy building that ultimately got destroyed for the wickedness of Israel (as we’ll see in the coming readings).
- As for the chief architect (Hiram), he later became almost a godlike figure in the masonic orders and is still revered today by masons the world over. If you know anything about masons, you know that the entity they worship is not God, and that’s all you need to know about them to know that you should have nothing to do with them. So the lasting legacy of the first temple is that the builder became symbolic of a demon worshiping cult, and the person who footed the bill for its construction also fell prey to demon worship.
No wonder God later ditched buildings and switched to people to house his Spirit.
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What do you think about today’s reading? What jumped out at you? What do you think happened to Solomon that he ended up straying from God, despite all his wisdom? Was it just the beauty and persuasion of his wives that beguiled him, or do you think something else was at play? Can one man have so much wealth and power and still stay loyal to God?
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For a schedule of the remaining readings, click on the links below:
GOD’S JUDGEMENT IS NOT A MOVIE
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, August 2, 2021 – One of the more disturbing trends that’s emerging in mainstream Christianity is the eagerness of some Christians to witness firsthand the destruction of God’s enemies. They try to smooth it over by saying they’re looking forward to “Jesus coming back soon!”, but they can barely contain their glee when they talk about how all those condemned souls will finally ‘see the light’, though too late to do anything about it. It’s as if these Christians want to feel vindicated and have their I-told-you-so moment, or they’re channeling demonically-inspired schadenfreude. But this is obviously not what God wants.
When God makes his final move to deliver his judgement collectively during the tribulation, he doesn’t want us to watch. God’s judgement is not a movie. He doesn’t want us munching popcorn and peeking out from between the blinds while doing a play-by-play commentary and keeping a body count. He wants us to go into hiding, pray, stay away from windows, pray, and not come out until he gives us the all-clear.
There are many reasons for this, but the three main ones are that he doesn’t want us to rejoice over the execution of his justice, he doesn’t want us to try to intervene, and he doesn’t want us to get swept up in the ensuing chaos.
The slaughter of millions over a relatively short period of time will not be pretty. We are not supposed to be joyful about the dispatching of so many condemned souls to hell. Even if we believe they had it coming (and we should believe they had it coming), we still need to grasp the solemnity of the event. This is not a time for celebrating. This is a time for mourning, fasting, praying, and laying low.
God’s justice is perfect. As born-agains, we know that. Even so, we’re compassionate by nature, and if we see people suffering when we know we can do something to alleviate their suffering, we may be tempted to intervene and try to help them at the same time as God is delivering their punishment. This would obviously lead to all kinds of problems, mainly for us. There is a time for mercy and a time for judgement. God is able to make the switch, but we might not be as able to, which means we would be better off staying far far away from wherever the judgement is taking place.
Lot was hurried out of Sodom by the angels and told not to look back; Noah was kept holed up in the ark for half a year; and the Hebrews at the first Passover were warned not to go out of their houses when all the first-borns in Egypt were being killed. When it’s time for God to deliver his justice in the form of collective judgement, we shouldn’t be anywhere near where it’s happening, or if we are near, we need to hide and pray. The farther away we are from the destruction the better, as the less likely we’ll be to get involved.
Vengeance is God’s job. He’s not asking us to hold his beer while he takes care of business and to cheer him on from the sidelines; he’s warning us to make ourselves scarce. We are to hide our eyes from the execution of God’s judgement so that we don’t gloat over our enemies, don’t try to save them, and don’t get caught up in the confusion. God warns us outright in scripture: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” In telling us that vengeance belongs to him, God is essentially telling us to stay out of it. We shouldn’t even have an opinion on the matter, other than, like the angels in Revelation, to affirm that God’s judgement is true and just.
So the next time you come across a discussion about how Jesus is coming back soon and his enemies are going to be destroyed, remind the people that if Jesus does come back when we’re still here, we won’t be watching the destruction from front-row seats. If we’ve endured to the end (as Jesus says we must as a condition of salvation), we’ll be in the process of being gathered together by the holy angels and whisked off to Heaven before the destruction starts. And If we’re still around when some form of collective judgement is rendered before Jesus gets back, we need to hide and stay hidden for the duration. No watching, no attempting a rescue of the condemned, and definitely no gloating.
When it’s time for God to collectively take care of business, it’s time for us to collectively mind ours.
“Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.”
Isaiah 26:20
BIBLE READ-THROUGH: DAY 11 REFLECTION (1 SAMUEL 20 – 2 SAMUEL 17:29)
“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”
DAY 11: AUGUST 2
1 SAMUEL 20 – 2 SAMUEL 17:29
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, August 2, 2021 – I’ve spoken before in these reflections about the richness of some of the readings, but for fans of David, today’s reading is a three-tiered wedding cake smothered in whip cream, maraschino cherries, and chocolate sauce. We see David progress from a naive young man into a shrewd and fearless warrior, and finally into king over Judah and the rest of Israel. We also learn that his family – the house of David – will be an Eternal House that will reign forever.
And then we find out that, despite everything he is and everything he’s accomplished and everything he’s promised by God, David is still a man with a man’s desires and weaknesses, and we see how giving into these desires changes the trajectory of the rest of his life.
- As you probably know, I’m a big fan of David. Huge fan. It’s not just the simplicity and unwaveringness of his faith that I find admirable and inspiring; it’s the way he moved through the world. He was handsome, athletic, artistic, and a fierce warrior, but none of this went to his head. There was no pride in him. Instead, he gave God the praise for everything he was and everything he accomplished, and he honored whatever was honorable to God, seeing life through God’s eyes rather than through the world’s eyes. This often meant going against popular opinion or what seemed right to the people around him. There’s a lot of David in Jesus and Jesus in David, which shouldn’t be surprising, given that God’s Spirit was with both of them, and that Jesus is a direct descendant of David on his father’s side.
- Even as a child, David had such profound faith that he thought nothing of attacking ferocious beasts, knowing he would defeat them because God was fighting for him. He knew God would fight all the battles appointed him. And so David from a young age got into the habit of (nearly) always asking God how he should proceed. He didn’t brainstorm a plan and then ask God to bless it; he went to God first for direction and then did whatever God told him to do. This childlike certainty of knowing God was always with him, guiding him and fighting his battles, followed David throughout his life. For him, faith wasn’t something that was external, to be used only on certain occasions; faith was as much a part of him as breathing.
- That’s not to say that David didn’t have his problems. In fact, his life was one long test – battle after battle, betrayal after betrayal, victory after victory, and at the end, heartache after heartache. Through it all, David remained true to himself and to God. The sole exception – his affair with Bathsheba and the murder-by-proxy of her husband Uriah – David later repented of while accepting his due punishment. Ultimately, God turned the sin around and David and Bathsheba’s second son, conceived on the day of the death of their first, grew to take his father’s place on the throne and build the first temple, as we’ll read tomorrow.
A few things in particular jumped out at me during the reading:
- Lots of lies and deception going on, both with and without God’s blessings. David pretending to be insane was one of most striking. Feigned insanity can get you out of many a tight spot. No-one wants to deal with crazy. I speak from personal experience. ;D
- David taking and using Goliath’s spear that had been kept by the priests as a holy relic is poetic justice in action. I love how God puts all the pieces together! He set aside Goliath’s spear for just such a time and place as David needing it. In the same way, he provided the altar bread for David and his men when they had no other means of getting food. When you get into the God groove, all the pieces fall into place.
- David’s first army was made up of malcontents from his father’s house – that is, men who had debts or grievances against Saul and so had nothing to lose in joining David. Note that he didn’t take the biggest, strongest and most well-trained warriors; he took those whose sole qualification was that they supported David. Based on this, God gave them the victory time after time.
- David’s loyalty to Saul after everything Saul did to him puzzled even David’s closest companions. Saul himself was flabbergasted by how David continued to honor him. However, for David, it was self-evident that God’s anointed king should be treated with respect and reverence. David continued to honor Saul and Jonathan after their deaths by looking after Jonathan’s lame son and his family.
- David mourning his son (Bathsheba’s) while the son was still alive, and then stopping the mourning as soon as he heard of his son’s death, was a real head-scratcher for those in David’s household. But David knew in advance that his son would die because God had told him through Nathan. Even so, David thought there might still be a sliver of a chance that God would change his mind and let the young child live, so he threw himself at God’s mercy in what looked like mourning to the household. However, in this case, God didn’t change his mind (the child’s death was part of David’s allotted punishment for what he had done to Bathsheba and Uriah), so David didn’t see any point in mourning after he learned that the child was gone. In fact, Solomon was conceived on the very day that the other son died. No moss growing on those stones! ;D
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So what jumped out at you in this reading? Are you as fond of David as I am? (Not possible!)
Feel free to share your thoughts on this reading or any of the other ones.
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A PDF schedule of the BIBLE READ-THROUGH is directly below:
BIBLE READ-THROUGH: DAY 10 REFLECTION (RUTH 1 – 1 SAMUEL 19:24)
“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”
DAY 10: AUGUST 1
RUTH 1 – 1 SAMUEL 19:24
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, August 1, 2021 – For those of you who want to keep track of our physical progress during the read-through, we are now approximately one-third of the way through the Old Testament and about one-quarter of the way through the entire Bible. Not sure if that qualifies us for any prizes, but at least we’re on schedule!
- Very interesting that the lineage leading to David (and then on to Jesus) involved a convert. Ruth was not a child of Israel, but she’d married one and then remained with Naomi (her Israeli mother-in-law) even after the death of her husband. Ruth didn’t have to stay with Naomi; she was under no obligation, but she wanted to serve God, and so of her own free will left her Moabite people and heritage behind and remained with the Israelites.
- God is very clear in scripture that those who willingly choose to serve him are the same in his eyes as the children of Israel. He puts no difference between his genetic children and his adoptive children. On the other hand, the children of Israel (or by extension, Christians) who turn their back on God are no longer part of the family. God draws a clear line between those who free-willingly serve him, regardless of their heritage, and those who refuse to serve him, regardless of their heritage. Jesus talks extensively about this in the gospels, but the concept is already clearly delineated in the OT.
- Nice to see the rise of some good guys in this reading (Samuel, David, Jonathan) and somewhat of a return to order for the Israelites. A nation without a good strong leader is like sheep without a good strong shepherd, as we saw in yesterday’s chaotic and violent reading. Unfortunately, though, Saul wasn’t entirely up to the task of being king, since he had a problem with following God’s orders. He said he’d do what he was supposed to do, and then he’d veer off on his own course, doing what looked good in his eyes and in the eyes of the world rather than following God’s explicit directives.
- Samuel genuinely loves Saul and has his hands full trying to keep him on track. But even with Samuel’s constant interventions, Saul’s disobedience ultimately cost him God’s Spirit, which is a death sentence right there. Even so, Saul lived on for a while, plagued by a demonic spirit, just as the disobedient Israelites in the wilderness lived on for a while after being told they weren’t going to enter the Promised Land. God needed Saul to keep on being King while he was preparing David to take his place. God also used Saul as a means to test David to make sure his heart was in the right place and that he would be obedient under every situation. As Samuel mentions, “to obey is better than sacrifice”.
- The story of David and Goliath is one of the Bible’s most famous. It highlights David’s profound faith even as a youth, and shows how God can work through something even as flimsy as a slingshot and a stone if the person wielding them has unswerving faith. As the youngest son, David was ridiculed and dismissed by his family as inconsequential, but God, as we’re told in scripture, looks on the heart, not on the exterior. The world is almost always quick to judge and dismiss based on looks, age, wealth, education, etc., but thank God that God looks on the heart instead, so there’s hope for everyone!
- The deep friendship developing between Jonathan and David in this reading is very touching. In choosing to support and protect David rather than go along with his father (who is also his king), Jonathan demonstrates what Jesus later teaches us about the importance of doing God’s will rather than that of your family or your earthly ruler. If the two conflict, you should always choose to do the will of God, even if it means disobeying your mother and father (or local/state/federal laws).
- I love the whole Bible (as you’ve probably noticed), but I especially love reading about David. He’s just such the “whole package” – profoundly faithful and obedient to God, incredibly brave, a king, a warrior, a father, a husband, a poet, a musician, a singer, a dancer, etc.. There’s no-one else quite like him in all of scripture. Whatever he puts his mind to, he aces, and with God’s blessings. Plus, he’s really really good-looking (lol). Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, but dang, that guy sure pushes all the right buttons! Can’t wait to meet him up close and personal, if and when I make it home to Heaven. I want to see him dance the dance he danced when he was leading the Ark of the Covenant into the city of David (sneak peek at tomorrow’s reading!).
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I hope you’re enjoying the read-through as much as I am. I’m seeing things I hadn’t seen before, which is what always happens during a read-through (or any Bible reading). What are you seeing that you hadn’t noticed before? Feel free to leave your reflections in the comment section below.
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Wondering what’s coming up next? Click on the “Download” button for the BIBLE READ-THROUGH schedule on PDF:
CARITAS
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 31, 2021 – When God tells us he’ll never leave us or betray us, we need to pay attention.
Jesus says we’re to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. If we love God like that, we won’t have any love left over for anything or anyone else. What we’ll have instead is caritas, which is the cup-runneth-over kind of love. Caritas enables you to be kind to everyone, regardless of how they are to you, and to treat others as you want to be treated. In other words, caritas enables us to keep the Commandments, including the one Jesus gave us to love our enemies.
Caritas is the by-product of receiving God’s love in return for loving him. When you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, so much of his love pours back onto you that you can’t contain it. That’s where caritas comes from. This overflow love is then meant for you to pour onto others.
The notion of caritas has been bastardized by the world and by the blind to refer to an obligatory form of giving (charity), but real caritas is God’s love overflowing you. You can give caritas to anyone indiscriminately, regardless of whether you know them or not and regardless of whether they hate you or not. God’s love fills you so much that you don’t require love from other people. If everyone in the world hates you but you know God loves you and you feel his love, you have more than enough love for yourself and to share.
When we love God the way scripture invites us to love him, we have no need to look for love in anyone or anything else. People who don’t love God are constantly looking for God-love substitutes, usually in other people, though sometimes also in material things or pursuits. But God made us to love him; we’re hardwired to love him; so if we try to rewire ourselves or override the wiring, we fail. We were built to fail if we try to find love in anything or anyone other than God. This is the failsafe that both drives us toward and brings us back to God, even if we don’t believe he exists.
As an atheist, I believed in love and I believed in truth, but I didn’t believe in God. I thought if I kept looking for love and truth, someday I would find them, though not necessarily in the same place. What I didn’t realize as an atheist is that God is Love and God is Truth, so the desire that drove me to find love and truth was actually the inborn desire for God that was hardwired into me by God himself.
God will never leave us or betray us. These are huge promises. No-one and nothing on Earth can give us these promises and keep them. Only God can. People will always leave you and betray you, just as you will always leave and betray them. You may look the other way and pretend they’re not leaving or betraying you, but you’re only fooling yourself.
Women are very good at this, fooling themselves. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of women I know who haven’t looked the other way while their significant other betrayed them. Most women would rather be betrayed and look the other way than lose their man, and that is just sad.
God will never betray us. HE WILL NEVER BETRAY US. He will neither leave us nor betray us. Imagine the enormity of such promises, and yet you don’t have to imagine, because these promises are real and unbreakable. God cannot break his promise to us. When he says he’ll never leave us or betray us, he won’t. When he invites us to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, we should. The rewards of loving God are infinite and nothing on Earth compares to them.
God is standing there with his heart on his sleeve saying “I love you, and I’ve made you to love me.” He’s not begging you; he’s reminding you that he loves you and that he’s made you to want to love him. The desire you feel to give and receive love is at heart the desire to love God and receive his love in return. You have been hardwired to love God and to receive his love.
In loving God and only in loving God can you find your peace and fulfillment. You’ll have no desire to look for love in others or to expect love from others.
In loving God and only in loving God can you truly give caritas.
BIBLE READ-THROUGH: DAY 9 REFLECTION (JOSHUA 22 – JUDGES 21:25)
“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”
DAY 9: JULY 31
JOSHUA 22 – JUDGES 21:25
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 31, 2021 – Remember when you were in junior high school, and the teacher got called out of the class, and she went out to the hallway to talk to someone and closed the door behind her, leaving the class to its own devices? Remember what the class got up to when the teacher was out of viewing and hearing range?
At first it was quiet, with just a few whispers and giggles, and then someone would make a wisecrack, and then someone else would start talking in a normal tone to someone else, and then more people would start talking to other people in a normal tone, and some would get up from their desks and wander across the room to talk to a friend, and then someone would throw a paper airplane, and then someone else would throw another one back until a paper airplane war broke out and there were things flying through the air, back and forth, not just paper airplanes any more, and then someone would go up the chalk board and start drawing pictures on it, usually a caricature of the teacher, and then someone else would start drawing “body parts” (lol)… and in the meantime the talking back and forth had turned into shouts and roars of laughter and a desk gets pushed out of place and a few guys at the back start shooting spitballs at each other and someone gets hit in the eye and starts crying and the friends of the girl who got hit in the eye start yelling at the spitball guys who yell back and before you know it more desks are being pushed around and knocked over and THE SPITBALL GUYS ARE STANDING UP AND YELLING AND THE GIRLS ARE STANDING UP AND YELLING BACK AT THEM AND NEARLY EVERYONE ELSE IS STANDING UP OR SITTING ON TOP OF THEIR DESKS SHOUTING “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!” AND BANGING THEIR FISTS ON THEIR DESKS –
And then the teacher walks back in.
That’s kinda like today’s reading, only there’s no teacher walking back into the room. Moses and Joshua are long gone. There’s just “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!” and more of the same, with the children of Israel fighting against the heathens and against the other children of Israel, and all of them fighting against God.
What a mess!
They were warned by Moses and Joshua what would happen to them if they didn’t love God with all their heart and all their soul. They were warned what would happen to them if they intermarried with the heathen and started worshiping heathen gods. They were warned that the result would be chaos and confusion, with paper airplanes flying every which way, dirty pictures scrawled on the chalkboard, and spitballs taking out an eye (or in Samson’s case, both eyes).
Maybe it’s easy for us to sit back and judge the disastrous goings on in the aptly-named book of Judges, but WHAT THEY HECK WERE THEY THINKING???
My only comment is that this is what happens when there is no strong leader: The sheep go astray. As scripture says, there was no king in Israel in those days, so everyone just did what was right in their own eyes.
Poor God!
Even so, we’re not much better today. Can’t really talk about the specks in the eyes of the historical children of Israel when we’ve got beams sticking out of our own. Mainstream formerly Christian society is not much better than the society we read about today. In fact, mainstream formerly Christian society is probably pretty much on par with the society we read about today. The only real difference is that we’re sugar-coated with high tech and good hygiene.
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I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s reading. I skipped ahead to see what it was, and I spied David in the pages.
YIPPEE AND THANK GOD!
See ya tomorrow! 😀
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The PDF schedule of the BIBLE READ-THROUGH is directly below:
BIBLE READ-THROUGH: DAY 8 REFLECTION (DEUTERONOMY 28 – JOSHUA 21:45)
“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”
DAY 8: JULY 30
DEUTERONOMY 28 – JOSHUA 21:45
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 30, 2021 – I always get a little teary-eyed when I read the passages where marquee characters like Moses leave the earthly stage. Moses had grown from a young man who was so skittish that he’d fled the country in fear of a murder charge, to a strong and godly man who fearlessly led millions to freedom. Nothing cowed Moses in the end, not even an angry God confronting him about his wayward people; Moses simply (and always successfully) intervened for them. In this, he was the prototype of Jesus.
- The death of Moses remains a mystery that can’t necessarily be solved by referring to the Bible. We read that Moses went alone to the top of the mountain to die, but scripture doesn’t tell us how he died. We are only told that God buried his body in the valley below and that no-one knows where his grave is.
- I’m wondering if no-one knows where Moses’ grave is because the grave is no more? I’m wondering if perhaps Moses ascended to Heaven like Elijah and like Jesus later ascended? In the transfiguration, Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah. Elijah ascended without dying, and Moses was supposed to have died and be buried, but maybe God instead brought him home the way he brought Elijah home. That would make sense, since both Elijah and Moses were obviously up and about on Heavenly missions (such as informing Jesus of how and when he was going to die), not dead and buried and awaiting resurrection on the last day. It’s possible that Moses died and was buried and then rose to Heaven a short time later in an ascension (like Jesus), or the story of him being buried in an unmarked grave in the valley might just be a deflection from Moses ascending to Heaven straight from the mountain top.
- Moses and God were very close. Few other characters in the Bible were as close to God as Moses. I’m sure God told Moses a lot of things that Moses didn’t tell his people (not even Joshua, his minister), the way that Jesus kept a lot of things to himself, knowing that even his closest disciples weren’t ready to handle the Truth. So it’s highly plausible that God took Moses home the same way he took Elijah home or the same way he took Jesus home, but I guess we’re going to have to wait until we get to Heaven to find out the truth about that! However, that Moses and Elijah appeared together to Jesus is to me a huge tip-off as to what happened to Moses either at or shortly after his death.
- I don’t know about you, but Moses’ final reminders to the children of Israel sear straight into my soul. He didn’t mince his words. He said if you do a, b, and c, things will go well with you, but if you do x, y, z, you’ll lose everything. He couldn’t have made it clearer to them or us.
- It’s hard not to look at our own lives and the lives of those who well know Moses’ words and see where we fall, whether on the side of blessings or the side of curses. It’s also worth noting that those who appear to be blessed (worldly wealth) but are not following Jesus are likely under the protection and reward of Satan and being given the same “greatness” that Satan promised to Jesus if he would fall down and worship him. My grandmother used to say “the devil is good to his own”. You’ll know who is being rewarded by God, because their lives will look like Jesus’ life.
- The crossing of the children of Israel into the Promised Land, with the parting of the River Jordan to let them cross on dry land, is like the parting of the Red Sea 2.0, but without the Egyptians pursuing after them. It doesn’t get as much press as the parting of the Red Sea, but it’s just as miraculous. I’d love to know where those twelve stones are, but I guess I’m going to have to wait until I get to Heaven (if I get to Heaven) to find that one out, too!
- The fall of Jericho always gives me goosebumps at the part where all the people, who’d been cautioned by Joshua to stay completely quiet (except for the blowing of the trumpets), suddenly erupt in an earth-shattering cry. How joyful that must have sounded to God’s ears! And how that must have terrified the people of Jericho, who would then have been even further terrorized when the only thing standing between them and certain death (the walls) came a-tumblin’ down.
- Love the story of God rewarding and protecting Rahab and her family. Interesting that they all stayed with the Israelites after their rescue from Jericho. That would mean they were converted. Scripture mentions “strangers” quite a few times, and cautions the children of Israel to accept and be kind to strangers who choose to live with them and follow God’s Commandments. This foreshadows the conversion of the gentiles to become followers of Jesus.
- Spiritually, all those who are obedient to God are kin. Being obedient to God now necessarily includes following Jesus, too, as Jesus and God are a package deal; you can’t get one without the other.
- From the perspective of our more delicate 21st century sensibilities, it’s sometimes difficult to read about the slaughters carried out by the Israelites. They didn’t just mow down the fighting men, but also killed all the women, children, and elderly. Everyone in the path of the Israelites was killed and their cities burned to the ground. All that escaped were livestock and a few items that could be melted down and used in the tabernacle.
- When we read this part of scripture, we need to remind ourselves that the Israelites were doing God’s will, and that the people who were slaughtered had it coming. God’s justice was just as perfect then as it is now. The Israelites were bringing God’s justice to those who hated him. I guess the moral of this story is that you want to be on the same side that God is fighting on; you definitely don’t want to be on the side that God is fighting against, because you ain’t never gonna win that battle.
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What are your thoughts on this reading? Did something jump out at you that you hadn’t noticed before? Or if you’d noticed it, does it seem to have particular relevance this time around, either for your life or for the world in general? What is God highlighting for you? Share it with us in the comments below. Don’t be shy!
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Full schedule of the BIBLE READ-THROUGH on PDF:
BIBLE READ-THROUGH: DAY 7 REFLECTION (DEUTERONOMY 1-27:26)
“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”
DAY 7: JULY 29
DEUTERONOMY 1 – DEUTERONOMY 27:26
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 29, 2021 – Today’s reading is the final (fifth) book of Moses’ contribution to the Old Testament. It’s essentially a summary of the highlights of the Israelite’s 40-year trek through the wilderness, as delivered in a series of speeches (or sermons) by Moses to the children of Israel just before his death and their entrance into the Promised Land. Don’t blink in this reading, because you’ll miss something important.
- What I find compelling is the repetition of important points that Moses obviously wanted to drive home to his listeners and future readers (that would be us!). When I first started reading the Old Testament years ago, I would occasionally think I had lost track of where I’d stopped reading the day before and was going back over the same text, but that wasn’t the case. It was different text but the same topics. The repetition serves the purpose of hammering into us information that needs to be so familiar that it becomes second nature or part of us, and the way to do that is stating the same things over and over but using slightly different words.
- Here are some of the main topics that are repeated by Moses: 1) We need to be obedient to God or we’ll end up like the heathens and get the same punishment as them; 2) we need to remember the children of Israel’s slavery in Egypt and how God brought them out with miracles; 3) we need teach our children and others about the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt and how God brought them out with miracles; 4) we need to keep the Commandments and all relevant laws, statutes, and holidays (note that for us born-agains, most of the laws, statutes and holidays are no longer relevant, other than for the Ten Commandments and the Passover feast, which Jesus commanded us to celebrate in the way he showed us on the night before his crucifixion. But we do – without exception – need to keep the Commandments); and 5) we need to separate ourselves from the heathen (no intermarriage) and not adopt their demonically-inspired sinful ways.
- The fifth point mentioned above became a major trap for the children of Israel. They end up intermarrying with the heathen, which then made them susceptible to adopting the culture of the heathens, which then pitted them against God. I like how God tells his people to utterly smash down the demon-worship pillars (that is, the obelisks) in the heathen cities, and yet today we see obelisks everywhere in supposed Christian nations, including and especially in Vatican City. Some of the abominations in that alleged Christian enclave have even been brought from Egypt at great financial and human cost (with several people dying in the transport of the abominations). It’s like no-one in Vatican City has ever read the Bible, or if they have read it, they decided to do the opposite of what God tells his people to do.
- I have to laugh a little bit at how God reminds his people through Moses (who, by the way, appears to be speaking for himself now that Aaron has passed away) that they were not chosen because they were such a great (i.e., populous) nation or because they were so righteous. In fact, God tells them that the only reason they were chosen is because the heathen were even wickeder than they were. So it’s like God gave the Israelites a D- for their righteousness, but because the heathen got an F, the Israelites win the prize. But a D- is nothing to crow about! One of the prophets later says that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and Jesus says that none is good but God. So God isn’t actually expecting us to achieve righteousness, though we still have to try our hardest to achieve it. No dropping out or quitting, even for ‘mental health’ reasons. The harder we aim for righteousness, the more God blesses our efforts.
- Why did God make the children of Israel wander for 40 years in the wilderness? There were actually a couple of reasons, and Moses mentions them in the reading. The first is that the generation that sinned early on in the wilderness trek needed to be killed. God didn’t want to kill them all at once, as they had their uses, but none of them were allowed to cross the River Jordan into the Promised Land. So it took 40 years for them to die in various ways, most of which were natural causes.
- Another reason for the 40-year wander is that God needed to pace the overthrow of the heathen nations. This couldn’t be done all at once. So he organized for them to sack a certain place and purge (i.e., kill) all the inhabitants but keep the food and cattle, and then live there for a while until he told them to sack the next city and purge all the inhabitants but keep the food and cattle, etc. In this way, the Israelites were provided for but didn’t overextend their military resources or take on too great a burden (too much booty).
- But the main reason for the 40-year wander in the wilderness is that God needed to prove the Israelites, to humble them, to know their heart, and to see whether or not they’d keep his Commandments. If you’re born-again, you know exactly what this means. God is proving you and humbling you, even as he’s providing for you, in order to see what’s really in your heart and whether or not you’ll keep his Commandments (especially under duress). In other words, the Israelites’ 40 year-trek was a training time and a testing time as well as a filtering-out phase for what didn’t belong in the Promised Land. As a born-again believer, I 100% identify with the children of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness, because I’m living them now. All born-again believers live them. It’s our earthly reality until we make it to our Promised Land of Heaven (that is, IF we make it to our Promised Land of Heaven).
- I’m going to include most of a passage here, because for me it sums up everything we should be and do as inheritors of God’s promise and followers of Jesus. God, through Moses, is speaking directly to us:
12 And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
13 To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?….
16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:
18 He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.
19 Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
20 Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.
21 He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.
(Deuteronomy 10:12-21)
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I hope you guys are enjoying the read-through and getting out of it what you need to get out of it. Feel free to leave a comment below if something jumped out at you in this reading that you want to share. We all read the same words, but God highlights different ones for each of us at different times. In this way, God’s Word always stays fresh and always has something new to teach us, to cherish, and to apply to our lives.
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For the full schedule of the BIBLE READ-THROUGH on PDF, see below:
STOP WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND READ THIS BLOG
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 28, 2021 – I want you to stop whatever you’re doing right now (except for reading this blog) and take a moment to think about a time when you could have done something but chose not to do it. I’m talking about something you felt drawn to do – maybe even called to do – but you ended up not doing it because something or someone got in your way. Maybe it was something as simple as touching base with an old friend you’d lost touch with for a while, or something more involved like pursuing a graduate degree or a professional designation. Or maybe there was someone you wanted to thank for something they’d done for you years ago, only to find, when you finally got around to sending your thanks, that the person had passed away.
I’m old enough to have accumulated quite a collection of these regrets. Chronic spiritual ulcers, they are. They’re different from mourning, which stays with you all your life but as a scar rather than an active sore. Regret for something you could have done but didn’t do is a festering wound that never heals.
Now imagine being called by God and putting off answering him. Imagine coming up with excuse after excuse after excuse after excuse as to why you don’t want to answer him or can’t answer him right now. Imagine being told that time will soon be up to answer him but still delaying your response.
And now imagine the crushing weight of regret you’ll feel when it’s too late to answer him. And imagine feeling that horror not just for the rest of your life but for all eternity.
When Jesus called his disciples, they immediately dropped everything to follow him. Dropping everything meant they left their wives, their children, their jobs, their homes, all their possessions – everything – from one second to the next. They didn’t even take a bug-out bag with them. All they had were the clothes on their backs, and off they went with Jesus.
I am constantly amazed by people who know of God but never want to go any further than that, never want to get to know God one-on-one: never want to be reborn. They think going through the motions at a church service is enough, giving charitable donations a few times a year is enough, having a Bible in the house (though never reading it) is enough, and that hurriedly mumbling some scripted words every now and then suffices for prayer. Or they’ve become “spiritual” and concede that there is more to serving God than just showing up in a church building, but they stop short of genuine repentance and never do actually believe the Gospel.
They want to be religious, but not too religious.
I can’t get into the mindset of these people because I went from 0 to 100 – from atheist to Jesus freak – in a matter of milliseconds. Being a Jesus freak is a reality that I cannot deny. It is who I am and who I have been for the past 22 years. So when I see people who are obviously being called acting as if it’s no big deal and that they’ll think about it and get back to God when they have time, I want to scream at them. I want to reach out and grab them by the shirt and slap them hard across the face, the way men in early Hollywood movies used to slap hysterical women to knock some sense into them.
If you feel you’re being called by God and you’re delaying answering him for one reason or another, you need some sense knocked into you. So put your face closer to the screen and let me slap you.
A little closer.
There. Consider yourself slapped.
You do not want to delay answering God’s call. If you delay answering it until it’s too late, you’ll not only hysterically and forever regret it, but you’ll have missed out on the only thing that matters in this world and in the one to come. Nothing else matters – not your kids, your job, your mortgage, your spouse, your pension, your investments, your belongings – nothing else matters but saying “yes” to God and following Jesus.
There is no life outside that. You may think there is, but there isn’t. You may think you have all the time you need to decide whether or not to say “yes” to God, but you don’t have as much time as you think you do. The expiry on God’s offer comes like a thief in the night (that is, when you’re asleep and least expect it). He gives you fair warning, but when time’s up, it’s up.
If God’s calling you, you need to answer him now, and you need to answer with a “yes”. Just a simple “yes”. And God will take it from there.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 