Month: July 2018

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Day 191 — Amos 1 – 5

As a sheepherder, Amos was among the most humble of humble people; it’s amazing that God would use him as a prophet. Note that God sent him to warn Israel, the Northern Kingdom, in the very days about which we have been reading in Kings and Chronicles. How could He possibly use such a humble man as His voice; who would even listen to such a lowly person?

God had a brilliant way for Amos to get the attention of his intended audience: he opened by announcing judgement on all of Israel’s surrounding neighbors. All of the peoples mentioned in chapter 1 and into chapter 2 bordered Israel. Note that each “nation” is also referred to by its capital city, other chief cities, and/or its leader. Again, we should be able to relate to this, because people around the globe equate our nation with Washington D.C. and our President. The judgment announced was for behavior that was generally accepted in that day: kings habitually raided other kingdoms in order to gain whatever they could. Although it was generally accepted, that didn’t mean that it was acceptable to God. The same would be the case for our culture today.

A feature I like about the prophets is that their references to the people’s sin give insight into how the people were living. So it is with Amos. In chapter 4 He calls Israel’s women of status “cows of Bashan.” Bashan was a fertile area of Israel, obviously known for its flourishing livestock. The high society women would not appreciate being called prize cows; think about what that implied – fatness, lacking intelligence, animal-like….

Consider the reasons God gives for His anger toward the Israelites, for which He intends to judge them. Do you notice any parallels in our culture today? In our churches? In your life?

God’s Old Testament people were much like people today: they wanted the easiest life they could get. They built fine houses, accrued wealth, enjoyed their entertainments – in some of the same ways people enjoy their entertainments today. They were rather single-minded in their efforts to get what they wanted, and when God failed to indulge them with their every desire, they sought other ways to fulfill their desires. Turning to other ways meant turning away from God. God will not accept our split devotion, for devotion that He has to share is not devotion that is worthy of Him, and is less than the intimate relationship He wants to have with us.

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Day 190 — Isaiah 5 – 8

One thing I especially like about prophecy is that it gives us insight into God’s thoughts that other genre of Scripture don’t give. And since God doesn’t lie, but is the source of truth, what prophecy reveals is truth.

So when God asks in verse 5:4, “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” (the vineyard being a metaphor for Israel and Judah), implying that He couldn’t have done any more for them, His assessment is true. Do you suppose His people appreciated the great care He had given them? Do we perceive and appreciate the great care God has given us? Or do we ignore His graces, or like King Ahaz later in today’s reading, treat them lightly?

Chapter 5 gives further details of the offenses of His Old Testament people. They enjoyed great entertainment, were all about their entertainments, but had “no regard for the deeds of the Lord.” They harnessed themselves to sin and wickedness, while professing an interest in what God was doing in their midst. Note further descriptions of these people who have aroused God’s anger to the point that He is planning their destruction by a mighty, efficient army. Do you see any similarities to God’s people today? Do you suppose God’s desire for His people today are any different than what they were for these people?

Chapter 6 is an important chapter. My Bible entitles it, “Isaiah’s Commission.” Its importance in part is its presentation of one of the few descriptions we have of what God looks like. So what did Isaiah say about what He looked like? He was “seated on a throne, high and exalted.” That’s it. The rest of the description talks about the train of His robe (which obviously is vast), the impressive creatures around Him, and smoke filling the temple. That’s it?! It’s not satisfying at all, is it? And yet, Isaiah’s description tells us a lot more than what he says. When we describe something, we relate it to something we know, and something our hearers know – that is the only way we have to comprehend something new to our experience, to compare and contrast it with something we know. Apparently there was nothing in Isaiah’s experience to compare with what he saw. Appreciate from that description that God is far beyond our comprehension.

Isaiah’s response to being in God’s presence was a dismaying understanding of his unworthiness. That is a likely description of what our response would be, what anyone’s response would be. The seraph offered a unique remedy for Isaiah’s sin that was obviously effective, and Isaiah’s response was then to act on God’s call to go. All of these are significant for us to consider.

Why would God send Isaiah to share His message with people with calloused hearts, dull ears and closed eyes, people incapable of perceiving or responding to the message? Truly, that is all of us, except for the grace of God. He sent Isaiah as a messenger to such people; He sent His beloved Son as a sacrifice to redeem such people for relationship with Him. That is a huge effort to reach those of mankind willing to seek God. Do you have a calloused heart and dull ears? God’s message is for seeking hearts.

Refer to II Kings 15:27-31 for a reminder of who the “son of Remaliah” referenced in chapter 7 was. Ephraim and Samaria are references to Israel: Ephraim because he was designated the functional first-born of Israel after Reuben’s disgraceful behavior, and Samaria because it was the capital city of Israel. Aram was a northern neighbor of Israel, a long-time powerful enemy of Israel and Judah. II Kings said that God sent them against Judah. Why would God do such a thing, and then send reassurances to Ahaz? Can you think of a reason? What does that interaction with man teach you about God’s interactions with men in general? With you in particular?

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Day 189 — Isaiah 1 – 4

Prophecy includes both an element of revealing deep insight and an element of foretelling the future. Our own times are difficult for us to understand because we are too close to them, as funny as that sounds. Most of us are unable to assess our times accurately without the perspective offered by distance. The prophets revealed deep insight about the reality of their times that most of their contemporaries didn’t understand. For instance, the history we have been reading reveals what times were like when the book of Isaiah was written. Kings of Judah would seek God for a time, likely attempting to lead their people to do the same, but no one we have read about was wholeheartedly devoted to God. We saw in Uzziah’s life a form of devotion that offended God. In today’s reading, God called their faithfulness to Temple worship as prescribed by the Law “trampling My courts,” and He expressed a desire for them to stop going to the Temple, stop observing their holy days, and stop bringing their sacrifices. I believe those people were as surprised by that assessment as we would be today to hear God describe our church worship in the same way and express His desire that we stop attending. That is the kind of deep insight the prophets revealed about their day. And since God’s Old Testament people are object lessons for His New Testament people to understand the truth about man, about sin, about God’s interaction with men, these deep insights about their day often reveal deep insights about our day as well.

The times about which the prophets foretold could be any of the following:

  • A time that was in the future relative to them, but has come to pass long ago relative to us;
  • Jesus’ first coming
  • Jesus’ second coming
  • Time following Jesus’ second coming.

Often prophecy can refer to more than one time. The key to understanding what is being said is always to understand first what was being said to the original hearers, then to apply the truth revealed in that passage to ourselves.

Prophecy is challenging for a number of reasons:

  • The time about which the prophet speaks can change abruptly, without warning. Prophecy often seems written in a stream-of-consciousness manner that is difficult for the reader to follow. Sometimes the time to which the prophecy refers is not clear. To help me with this, I have color-coded in my Bible every time transition.
  • Prophecy is often written as poetry, which is generally not the format that offers the clearest understanding of what is being said. Its time and place of origin are so distant to us that we may not understand the imagery. And yet its imagery, once understood, can reveal a lot to us.
  • Prophecy can be obscure. God is unclear for a reason, given in Isaiah 6:9-10. A calloused heart is not a seeking heart, and won’t try to see past the obvious. God wants to speak to seeking hearts. Are you willing to invest effort into seeking to understand prophecy?

Isaiah is, in my opinion, the best book of prophecy to search to understand, because it teaches more about Messiah than any other prophet. Jesus fulfilled God’s every purpose and plan for Messiah. Thus, God’s plan for Messiah revealed in Isaiah teaches us as much about Jesus’ accomplishments on our behalf as the historical accounts in the Gospel teach us. Isaiah gives us God’s perspective of what Messiah means to us, which is not fully evident from New Testament teachings about Jesus Christ.

With the background covered, are you ready for insights from Isaiah? There is no way this post can cover everything in this book, but I hope to address the obvious questions at least briefly, and focus our attention broadly on what was said to the original hearers and how that applies to us.

As I’ve mentioned, what God said about His Old Testament people may be true of His New Testament people as well. Today’s reading challenges us to examine our worship of God. Is it possible that God despises our worship observances as He despised theirs? Have you ever asked God what He thinks of your worship? Perhaps the greatest worship we can offer Him is to offer up in sacrifice our ideas, our traditions, our preferences, and seek what He wants. He reveals it to us in part in these chapters. Are you willing to listen? If we insist on worshiping according to our own preferences, whom are we worshiping? If in fact it’s not God, then we are in danger of forsaking,  or have forsaken, God.

Notice that chapter two speaks of a time to come: the Day of the Lord. Any time the phrase, “in that day” or a reference to “that day” is used, it may be a signal that the prophet is speaking about the Day of the Lord. From the descriptions of that day, we can understand that it takes place upon Jesus’ second coming. Sometimes it also refers to His first coming, and the prophet treats them as a single appearance without distinguishing between the two.

Based on what is prophesied for that coming day, do you fear it or welcome it? If you are indifferent about it, you might need to ask God to soften your calloused heart. If you fear it, humble yourself now and ask for ongoing help to keep humble so that you don’t have to be humbled in that day. If you welcome it, you might want to ask God to search your heart, and you might want to thank Him for His mighty work in you.

The reference to the “Branch of the Lord” in chapter four is an example of the ambiguity of prophecy. Isaiah refers to the Branch of the Lord without introducing Him to tell us who He is! Study reveals that the Branch of the Lord is Jesus.

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Day 188 — II Kings 15 & II Chronicles 26

How would you like to live in the chaotic years of Israel’s history described in today’s reading? The government was overthrown three times in 33 years; how great could any of the new leaders be, having taken control of the government by force, and then continuing in the same sin as the previous king had committed? Such a leader generally maintains order enough to gain a foothold on his kingdom only through more force. That couldn’t have made Israel a pleasant place to live, but that was only part of the fun. Assyria was a frightening threat. They seemed unstoppable in building the largest empire that part of the world had ever seen, and they did it with extreme and horrific cruelty. Israel’s king exacted his tribute to Assyria from the people, and yet the Assyrians came back for more, this time capturing towns with their brutal tactics, and deporting their inhabitants. Who would be next? They were unsettling and terrifying times for the people of Israel. This is what their sin brought them. This is what sin brings still today: instability, suffering, chaos. Why would we want anything to do with it, if we have a choice? And we do have a choice, “thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The stability of a single king in Judah during those years is quite a contrast. Uzziah’s (Kings calls him Azariah) seeking the Lord made a vast difference for the people of Judah: power, fame (meaning a reputation such that no one wanted to mess with Judah), building, rebuilding, fortifying, developing technology…. Does it make you wonder what would happen in our nation if our leaders would seek God? It’s too bad that we’re powerless to elect leaders whose primary interest is not in rebuilding the economy or making life easier for a segment of the population, but in seeking God for the benefit of the people…. Of course, the leaders we have in place right now could be transformed. Could God fill their hearts with the desire to seek Him, if we prayed that for them?

It’s interesting to note from II Chronicles 26:6-7, that some things never change. We call the descendants of the Philistines Palestinians. King Uzziah was striving against the neighboring Philistines and Arabs. How does the perspective of millennia of history make you feel about the tense situation in the Middle East today? God is in control of the situation as much today as He was then.

Uzziah’s life offers an obvious lesson to us about the dangers of pride. Let’s not be too dismissive of his experience, thinking it couldn’t happen to us. Although we aren’t given enough details to know for sure, I don’t think it happened like our enemy wants us to think it happened: that he got so arrogant that he thought he could ignore the office of priest, foolishly thinking he was wonderful enough to function as both priest and king. Rather, I suspect that it was more subtle than that, that he thought he was demonstrating devotion to God to want to bring incense before him. Perhaps he thought it fitting that as the political leader of the people he should seek God in this manner. In his zeal he ignored God’s plan in favor of his own great ideas. David did that once: remember his disastrous first attempt to move the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem? Although he was angry at God for “breaking out” against Uzzah, David learned from that experience, obviously sought God’s ideas on how to move the Ark (which he didn’t even have to pray about, because it was already revealed in the Law), and proceeded to do it God’s way. He later initiated his own plans to build the Temple, but God stopped him and let His desire be made known, and David gave up his great ideas in submission to God’s ideas. I believe Uzziah’s problem wasn’t brazen arrogance, but a greater devotion to his own ideas than to God. He apparently never sought God’s mind on the matter. His story is a reminder to us to check our own devotion God: is there anything, even our ideas of worship, to which we are more devoted than we are devoted to God? Then we are in danger of the same kind of pride Uzziah demonstrated.

Tomorrow we begin reading in Isaiah. I hope the idea of prophecy doesn’t turn you off. Remember how rich the books of the Law turned out to be? The books of prophecy are RICH! The book of Isaiah is a particular favorite of mine, as its study stands out in my mind as a milestone in my walk with God, it has been that transformational for me. I’m praying you will find as great reward in reading prophecy. Please approach it with prayerful expectation!

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Day 187 — Jonah

A lot of people in Jonah’s day had long hated the city and people of Nineveh. As a center for the worship of Ishtar, goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and war, the city was well-known since times ancient to Jonah for its decadent practices in the name of religion. As the capital city of the cruel Assyrian Empire, it was closely associated with the widely, intensely-hated Assyrians. No wonder Jonah didn’t want to go there! No self-respecting Israelite would want to have anything to do with that place or its people; everyone would delight in seeing it justly destroyed.

But God sent his prophet there to warn the people of Nineveh of their coming judgement. Jonah is not a light-hearted tale about a fish swallowing a man and then vomiting him up on land three days later; it is a profound story of God’s profound love for the least lovely of human beings. He loved them too much, even after centuries of their depraved idol worship and inhumane treatment of other peoples in the winning and maintaining of their vast empire, to let Jonah go his own way to avoid them.

Their repentance gave them another 250 years of prosperity before they were judged. I’ll save those details for when we read about them again in another book of prophecy. God demonstrated much patience even in judging people who were not His chosen people.

Are you like Jonah in your hatred for a people group? Do you have yourself convinced that your hatred stems from godly anger and therefore is honoring to God? Based on this story, how do you think God feels about those people? What do you think He thinks about your hatred?

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Day 186 — II Kings 14 & II Chronicles 25

Joash’s son learned from his father to do ”what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not wholeheartedly.” This is yet one more lesson from so many of these kings’ lives: a child follows the example of his parent’s divided heart. It frightens me to think that my half-hearted devotion may teach my children to be content with the same, possibly jeopardizing their intimate knowledge of God. Let’s not miss the reminders in these history readings; let us use them as opportunities to re-evaluate our own hearts and lives, to renew commitments to God as needed, to seek God’s help as needed to live according to our commitment. The lessons here may seem repetitious, but that is because their lives reveal the need for such repetition. That is one of the reasons we need to be in God’s word daily, year after year, reading the same Bible over and over again. The assaults of life that work to wear us down are too unrelenting, and the enemy is too active, to allow us to remain faithful without constant reminders, and the stakes are too high. Peter told his readers in II Peter 1:12-15, “So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory…, and I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.”

Notice that the text equates Amaziah’s choice to worship the gods of Edom with his turning away from following the Lord. A choice to sin is always that, a choice to turn away from following the Lord. Our enemy doesn’t want us to see our choice from that perspective, and we may give in to his deception and refuse to see our choices as turning away from following God; however, God’s assessment of that situation is true whether or not we acknowledge it.

Amaziah’s choice to worship the gods of Edom after defeating Edom is astonishing. Any of us are capable of such incredible choices if we are not fully devoted to God. This is another reminder of how critical wholehearted devotion is, and why half-hearted devotion is no devotion at all. Even a fully devoted follower of God is vulnerable to such choices if he is not on guard. Sometimes the good times are more treacherous to our faithfulness to God than times of suffering. It may be tempting to think poorly of Amaziah, but we must appreciate that we are all capable of such stupidity. We are in the greatest danger of that when we least think we are.

Once Amaziah gave in to temptation, God so worked that he would not listen to reason, but made more poor choices in pursuit of the route by which God brought his judgment for his sin. Let us not miss the fact that sin’s consequences are most often unforeseeable, and worse than we can imagine. May these examples from other lives reinforce in us a hatred for sin that keeps us clinging to our Savior and faithfully doing all we know to do to guard ourselves from giving way to temptation!

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Day 185 — II Kings 12 – 13 & II Chronicles 24

Joash’s life is a sad example of what it means not to be established. Recall from King Jehoshaphat’s life, described in II Chronicles 17, that God established his kingdom because he sought God and followed His commands with a heart devoted to God’s ways. A heart that wasn’t devoted, and his failure to seek God resulted in Joash’s not being established enough to remain faithful to God once Jehoiada was gone. This story of his life challenges us to examine our own hearts and our own seeking. Is there something or someone propping you up so that you are following God’s commands without a heart fully devoted to Him? Recall that Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God; simply following God’s commands without a devoted heart does not promote that intimate relationship Jesus was describing in the word He used for “know.”

Are you a Jehoiada to someone else, propping him or her up so that it looks like he or she is following God, when he or she is really following you? Jesus’ command to His followers is that we “make disciples”; He didn’t mean for those disciples to be ours, but His. Think about the training you’ve provided for your children: are you preparing them in such a way that they love God whether you are here or not? Are they following God, or just following His commands?

If the truth of our lives is that we are not fully devoted in our following God, Satan doesn’t want us to know that. He wants to deceive us into thinking that we’re “all right,” and he does have the ability to blind unbelievers. God alone knows the condition of our hearts, and we must ask Him to search us and reveal to us anything of which we need to repent. We can’t so much as seek Him without His help; ask for whatever help you might need today. If an honest and open appeal to God reveals nothing lacking in your heart, your devotion, your seeking, your following, your knowledge, your intimacy with God, then don’t let Satan deceive you into thinking there is a problem that isn’t there. Rather, thank God for the privilege of relationship with Him and renew your commitment to go ever deeper in your intimacy with Him. Ask Him to establish you so that you are a Jehoshaphat, and not a Joash!

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Day 184 — II Kings 9 – 11

What gruesome stories fill today’s reading. Slaughtering every male descendant of Ahab was extreme; killing boys because of who their parents are is horrific. How can a God of love and justice impose this harsh judgment on an entire family because of the parents’ sin? Even if these stories don’t raise such questions in your own mind, they will raise questions in others’ minds, for which we need to be prepared with answers. Not answers to give to questioning people necessarily, because a seeker is best directed to God and not given our attempts at satisfaction. We need to know that God has a satisfying answer to such questions so that we can confidently direct seeking souls to Him.

If God is who He says He is, then He is just in bringing such judgment on this family. Do you believe that God is who He says He is? Then you must seek to understand how this judgement is just. Think about it: God deems the killing of his every male descendant as just judgment for Ahab’s sin. If the awful killing is just, that indicates that the sin is awful. We may fail to accept that the judgment is just because we fail to see the sin as awful. As has been pointed out before, we can’t have a true understanding of the awfulness of sin because we are in the midst of it; we must look to God for a true understanding of sin. One way He teaches us about sin is in the judgment He decrees for it. Reading such accounts reminds us about the awfulness of sin, because we need to be reminded. We need to hate sin for the awful thing it is, hate it enough to want free of it, hate it enough to see our Savior for the heroic and powerful Savior He is. Be horrified at the extremely violent justice described in today’s reading, and understand how horrifying sin is, and run to the Savior who can free you and heal you from it.

The sins of Ahab and Jezebel brought judgement on Judah’s royal family because Jehoshaphat was accommodating enough to pursue an alliance by marriage with Ahab’s family. He could have saved his descendants a lot of hurt in maintaining standards for his family and his nation. Standing alone may have gone against the standard practices of the day, against common sense, against what was perceived as common decency – but it would have saved them the judgment. The higher nature of God’s ways make them more difficult for us to reach, but the effort will be rewarding. Ignoring His higher ways drags us into the same horrible sin and its effects as the people with whom we mingle and partner. Given this object lesson in today’s reading, is there some rising above that you need to choose today?

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Day 182 — II Kings 1 – 4

Do these men of God seem excessively crabby to you as they do to me? God could have protected his servant from King Ahaziah’s forces without killing off those 100 men; why did Elijah call down fire from heaven to consume them? Elisha’s calling a curse on boys showing a lack of respect seems way overboard for punishment. And Elisha ordered his servant to do his bidding in a high-handed manner that doesn’t befit a man of God in my opinion.

My explanation for what seems like grouchiness is in part a cultural difference. Perhaps Elisha’s treatment of his servant was just the way everyone treated their servants. A culture in which the Law required capital punishment for children who did not honor their parents, would not tolerate rude children like our culture does.

However, a possible cultural difference doesn’t wholly account for my impression that these men were harsh to others. Do their attitudes and behavior provide a justification for us to be harsh toward others who give us difficult times? They do help us to understand that even men of God get disgusted with the human race. But Jesus showed us a more perfect way. The natural human response to mistreatment, demonstrated by Elijah and Elisha, can be overcome by love, as demonstrated by Jesus. And remember the truth from Ephesians 1, that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is alive in us, so that we can overcome the natural response of fallen man, just as Jesus did.

I am left wondering why Elijah didn’t have to die. He lived in a very low time in the history of God’s people, and he suffered hopelessness in those circumstances even though he was a man of God. The last word of the Old Testament (which leaves God’s people in a diminished state) was that Elijah would return to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. Elijah was thus held up as a beacon of hope for the people. How fitting that it should be Elijah!