Even though today’s reading is 29-33 I am including chapter 28, because chapter 28 is where the theme of these chapters begin. There are six woes and the first woe is in chapter 28, so really the last chapter of last weeks reading should be with us today.
The woes are things we still should be mindful of…by the way a “woe” is an interjection or exclamation setting up a lament.
Here are the woes:
Then the Lord said, “Because this people draw near with their words
And honor Me with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,
The third woe is also found in chapter 29 it is again against the leadership of Israel for planning and scheming thinking they can hide their dark desires and plans from God.
The fourth woe is against all God’s rebellious children in Israel who refuse to follow God’s plan but try and execute their own (30:1). Quick note remember Rahab not the former prostitute now redeemed forbearer to Christ, but the mythical sea monster in the book of Job. Yep, that must have been a popular myth because the sea monster of chaos Rahab shows up again in this Woe (30:7).
The fifth woe is against God’s people for relying on Egypt for protection/security rather than God.
The sixth woe actually isn’t against God’s people, this woe is against the enemies of God’s people who try to destroy, but in themselves will be destroyed.
I want to point out that in the midst of all these woes there are continual reminders of God’s love, care, grace, and promise that He still desires to be their God.
We see it in:
Some people would read these texts and only see the woes. Some may read the texts and only see the joyous promises.
Maybe read the text and see that they are both there. The woes to remind us to not be blind to the dangers, to not be hypocrites, to not make plans apart from God, to not trust in other powers than God, to not continue to ignore God’s ways, and to not seek to destroy the ways/people of God…but the texts of grace and love to remind us there is always a way out of these woes…none of us are stuck in the ruts we’ve made for ourselves!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Matthew 14-16
I told Christina tonight that Job has been the hardest of my reading thus far. I must be honest, maybe it is the stage I am at in life, maybe it is what genre of writing I prefer, but I cannot say anything new about today’s text that I did not say the last several times I wrote about Job.
So instead I’m going to take this post to endorse two books I read one based on the book of Job and one related to the book of Job which to me are two of the greatest books outside of Adventism to give voice to the great controversy narrative, “Disappointment With God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud” & “Where is God When it Hurts?” both by Philip Yancey.
As Yancey wrote,
“Chapters 3-37 contain no action to speak of, just the opinionated dialogues of five prickly men-Job, his three friends, and the enigmatic Elihu-concerning the problem of pain. They are all trying to account for the slings and arrows of outragious fortune that have fallen upon poor Job, who sits forlorn in the ashes of what used to be his mansion.”
In the lack of action I am struggling to find points, but I will continue on through remembering “All scripture is God breathed and useful…” so I will keep trying to learn. I hope you’ll stick with me 🙂
Tomorrow’s Reading: Isaiah 29-33
Before Psalm 16 even starts there is something interesting to note in the title: “A Mikhtam of David” This designation is also applied to Psalms 56-60. The meaning of this term is not entirely known, some say it means it is an “Epigrammatic Poem” or an “Atonment Psalm.” Ancient translations “construe it as a designation for an engraving or inscription in stone, suggesting that this psalm played an especially prominent role in the liturgy and ritual culture culture of ancient Israel.”
This is a Messianic Psalm and even though it begins in verse 2 in the English with, “I said to the Lord…” when actually the Hebrew reads “You said to the Lord…” The “You” whom David spoke is the Messiah, this indicates the rest of the psalm contains the words of the Messiah. By us understanding this we see two of the three God-head interacting…David is the author but he is prophetically writing the prayer of the Messiah.
The Psalm tells us much about the Messiah and reminds us that the Trinity had a plan long before Jesus came to this earth to live, die, and rise again on our behalf!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Job 11 & 12
Today we start a new book! The book of Judges. This book could be made into a movie, if you don’t believe me check out the story in 3:15-30 or what about the story of Deborah and Jael in chapter 4 those are two tough women!
In today’s post though I want to focus on the first two chapters because they set the stage for the rest of the book. Beginning in verse 27 of chapter 1 we see a pattern begin to take place:
This inspired writing is not just here to instruct us in history. Something very clear is happening, the people of Israel were to remove all the remnants of those who did not worship the one true God, and they did not. By not doing so this decision eventually led to what we see taking place in the rest of the book of Judges, a people constantly waffling back and forth between loyalty and compromise.
I want us to notice something though, the effects of this decision to not drive out the Canaanites at first doesn’t seem like such a bad thing from the perspective of Israel. In fact in several instances the scriptures tell us that the Canaanites were forced into labor as the Israelites servants. For an entire generation the decision to not drive these people out seemed “ok.”
“The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord which He had done for Israel.” (2:7)
But then…
“All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.” (2:10)
Why was this so?
“they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.” (2:12, 13)
Notice the phrase in there
“and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them”
And why were those people around them? Because they had chosen “not to drive them out”
Then in chapter 2 verse 21 God said
“I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,”
God is not being mean He is just not delivering them from their willful choice.
So my summary in all of this is:
From a Spiritual lesson that borderline sin that is hanging around or that slight compromise that might not seem like that big of deal to us at the time, may have great ramifications on the generations below.
I think of the parent that may watch some subjective movies with their kids…maybe no big deal for the parent in the big picture, but what if it opens the door for the kids to desire to explore even greater depths of that subjective material and the next thing the parent knows their children are addicted to pornography.
Or the parents that compromise slightly on their Sabbath afternoon activities, but they still go to church in the morning…no big deal…’till they see their own kids not taking the grandkids to church because they not only compromise Sabbath in the afternoon, they also compromise Sabbath in the morning.
I think it can also happen to us corporately just as it corporately effected Israel:
Just tonight a group of us that love sports (as we watched the Super Bowl I know the irony) were discussing the challenges of interscholastic sports within our Adventist schools (also a concern outside of Adventism as well).
Years ago our schools decided to move away from the counsel of Ellen White in regards to emphasizing or over promoting interscholastic sports,
“I do not condemn the simple exercise of playing ball,” Ellen White said, “but this, even in its simplicity, may be overdone. I shrink always from the almost sure result which follows in the wake of these amusements. It leads to an outlay of means that should be expended in bringing the light of truth to souls.” Ellen White, 2nd Selected Messages, p. 322.
She also states in another book,
“The games that occupy so much of … [the student’s] time are diverting the mind from study. They are not helping to prepare the youth for practical, earnest work in life. Their influence does not tend toward refinement, generosity, or real manliness. Some of the most popular amusements, such as football and boxing, have become schools of brutality. They are developing the same characteristics as did the games of ancient Rome. The love of domination, the pride in mere brute force, the reckless disregard of life, are exerting upon the youth a power to demoralize that is appalling. Other athletic games, though not so brutalizing, are scarcely less objectionable because of the excess to which they are carried, they stimulate the love of pleasure and excitement, thus fostering a distaste for useful labor, a disposition to shun practical duties and responsibilities. They tend to destroy a relish for life’s sober realities and its tranquil enjoyments. Thus the door is opened to dissipation and lawlessness, with their terrible results.” –Ellen Whtie, Education, pp. 210, 211.
By ignoring this counsel at some point years and years ago we now have people that love sports, some of us that played varsity sports all through Adventist Education now asking the questions, “Are we missing something?” “Are we really helping the current generation by endorsing this the way we do?”
This is not a diatribe on sports. I enjoy them very much, we (my family) enjoy watching the games of our school and supporting the youth of our area. But with this passage in Judges in mind and the conversation I was a part of tonight, I just must be honest…I take pause…
Of course could we say the same for the emphasis on classroom academics and our abandonment of more outdoor education, or starting kids in school at 4, 5, & 6 rather than 7, 8, & 9…
What about in the church are our shrinking churches in North America reaping the consequences of abandoning the model of pastor as church planter/evangelist for the more convenient model of settled pastor.
Okay I will save those for another post 🙂
Whether you agree or disagree I hope we will all think and be cautious if not for ourselves, for the sake of future generations in all our decision making.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Psalm 15-17
The obvious topic to write on in today’s reading is the story of God’s call to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and then His intervention when He observed Abraham’s trust and faithfulness.
But…
That is not what I am going to spend time looking at.
What I needed to hear and what spoke to me in my devotional today is the story of Abraham and the return of his deceit to not claim Sarah as his wife. I see in this story that Abraham is a repeat offender of the same sin, just like I can be…but that is not what caught my attention…
What truly caught my attention was God’s response to Abimelech,
“But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” 4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. 7 Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.” -Genesis 20:3-7
God spared Abimelech from unknowingly sinning, but God still calls it sin. “I who kept you from sinning against me.” When I was a child I was taught to pray forgiveness for both the sins I was aware of and the sins I was unaware of. Society has shifted, even within the church, now sin is only sin if “I” think it is sin or know it is sin. Sin to me is no longer defined by God it is now defined by themselves. God clearly shows here that it didn’t matter that Abimelech didn’t know it was Abraham’s wife, if he had touched her it would have still been sin.
The sins we’ve committed both with knowledge and without knowledge Jesus took both on the cross. That is what is said, “I who kept you from sinning against ME.” All sin known and unknown is sin that killed Jesus, let us return to seeking forgiveness for both.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Judges 1-6
In chapters 1-11 Paul has been expounding on our need for and the mercies of God and now Romans 12:1 is a transition statement into the practical response to The Lord’s mercies,
“Therefore (or in light of God’s mercies) I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
Paul in verse 2a tells us how to do the previous,
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,”
and to what end 2b,
“so that you may prove (discern) what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
And then beginning in verse 3 Paul lays out the implications of “being right” with God, but please note, the implications of “being right” with God are not to be played out in private or I should say their ultimate value comes not in isolation, but within the context of the “Body of Christ” the church (vv. 4 & 5).
Verses 6-8 then paint a beautiful picture of the gifts that are to be exhibited and lived out within the body of the church.
Something jumped out at me when I read this list I realized it describes most churches expectations of a “singular pastor.”
Biblically though one individual does not likely possess all these gifts, they’re more likely distributed amongst many.
Could this be the problem…or rather I would state this is the problem I believe in many churches. The teacher and exhorter is also expected to be the manager and the merciful one.
When building a team a church or the lead pastor should think to fill in his or her gaps. If we have the opportunity to hire another individual at the current church I serve at I will be looking for someone with the gifts of nurturing and mercy (a flat side for me). I brought in someone “who leads with diligence” (the word “leads” is slightly deceiving for our modern culture as the true translation would be better served as “gives aid to” or “manages.”) another semi-flat side in my ministry. We as pastors must see our weak sides and build a team accordingly…sorry for this ramble…remember this is my response to my devotional along with hopefully a blessing to you. Anyway, back to my point churches I believe suffer when they hire a pastor thinking he or she should possess an abundance of all these gifts, they should be patient knowing that the pastor will always have a flat side or maybe more than one, and hopefully that pastor will acknowledge that flat side and put a team around them to fill the gaps or if there are not the resources for a paid team then a group of elders around them that can fulfill this gift listing in Romans 12.
And while we should all serve primarily in the area(s) of our giftedness sometimes we must be willing to move out more broadly and verses 9-13 tell us how.
And then finally verses 14-21 tell us how to live in relation to the secular world beyond the confines of the Body of Christ. We are to still live and serve and witness in this world and so we must know how to be outside of those most like us.
Romans 12 is a practical chapter that I believe all of us as Christians should read and apply on a regular basis.
Oh and can I go back once more to the listing of the gifts…
Will you pause and ask yourself which one of those gifts most aligns with me (maybe check out also the lists in 1 Corinthians 12 or Ephesians 4), and would others agree. And then ask yourself are you stepping up to use those gifts as God has given you in the context of your local church?
Happy Sabbath!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Genesis 20-23