365 Reflections

If you've ever struggled with why God allows evil and suffering, the Prophet Habakkuk knows exactly how you feel. His book is written in the aftermath of great trouble upon Israel.  Habakkuk 1:2-3 (ESV) O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. The questions Habakkuk posed came after the fall of Israel to the North and before the fall of Judah to the south. He looked upon a nation in the south that was rapidly deteriorating spiritually. The reforms of the last righteous King Josiah were no longer in effect, and the nation seemed worse than ever. Habakkuk wonders how long it will continue. In response to the prophet, God offers a SHOCKING bit of information about what the future holds. Habakkuk 1:5–6 (ESV) “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doin...

Often times, when we think about the prophets of the Old Testament, we perceive them as a sort of grumpy, dour, negative doom and gloom sort of individual. But have you ever thought where the nation, and even the world, would be if it were not for a prophet willing to tell us the truth?  Amos 7 introduces us to the response of the prophet as God declared His intentions to judge faithless Israel. He is first presented with the image of a locust plague devouring the nation. The prophet, who we may mistake as an angry doom-sayer, intercedes on behalf of the people.  Amos 7:2–3 (ESV) When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, “O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” 3 The Lord relented concerning this: “It shall not be,” said the Lord. Another prophesy of doom comes to the prophet from the Lord. This time fire swept across the land and devoured it. Once again, the prophet intercedes.  Amos 7:4–6 (ESV) This is what the Lord God show...

The prophet Hosea is the last voice of God's warning to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. There were no righteous kings in the North, but there were still some seasons of prosperity. Hosea's minister begins on the heels of one such season. The people of Israel were worshipping idols and doing detestable things, and perhaps they assumed they could get away with it.  Not so.  To capture this nation's attention for the final time, the Lord asks Hosea to do the unthinkable.  Hosea 1:2–3 (ESV) When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. The initial command to Hosea was to illustrate through his own family the spiritual condition of Israel, who whored after the false gods of other nations. God often asked His prophets to illustrate in dras...

Lamentations 4 is another sad poem chronicling Israel's demise as she lies in exile. The passage gives far more clarity than others as to the people's perception of themselves before their defeat by the Babylonians.  We find that people were unaware that anything like this could ever happen. First, Jeremiah laments the tarnish on her royalty by noting the gold is now diminished: Lamentations 4:1–2 (ESV) How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street. 2 The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands! Riches blind a person and a country. They make you think you are impervious to disaster. But there are many ways to lose money. One of the consistent warnings in the Old and New Testaments is how unreliable wealth is to one's defense of life.  Proverbs 23:4–5 (ESV)  Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. 5...

To be a preacher of the Word is to be wounded in spirit by those who misuse it. That is the heart of Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23:9 (ESV) Concerning the prophets: My heart is broken within me; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD and because of his holy words. Jeremiah ministered at a time when many false prophets led most of the nation astray. Jeremiah 23:10–11 (ESV) For the land is full of adulterers; because of the curse the land mourns, and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right. 11 “Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their evil, declares the LORD. Jeremiah throws down the gauntlet later in the discourse: Jeremiah 23:13–14 (ESV)  In the prophets of Samaria I saw an unsavory thing: they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray. 14 But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lie...

Jeremiah is a man of God and a man of truth. Those two must go hand in hand as to be the former you must be devoted to the later. The proof? He wasn't afraid to call out the entire nation for her sins against the Lord. He brought everyone's actions into account. He spoke against the political leaders, the religious leaders and even the "so called" spiritual leaders.  This was God's calling and design for him if you remember back to Jeremiah 1.  Jeremiah 1:18 (ESV) And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials , its priests , and the people of the land. Jeremiah's ministry would offend the gamut of Israel's populace. So it should come as no surprise when he turns his target on the priests of prophets of Israel in Jeremiah 6. Jeremiah 6:8 (ESV) Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land....

Happy New Year! Let's begin with the final section of scripture that I have yet to cover in this blog. The Prophets! I have longed for this content. Wisdom literature was tough. But the prophets are a wonderful portion of God's Holy Word. In them, we see both God's hatred for sin, coming judgment, and His firm decision to be compassionate and provide hope. What a God of mercy! Isaiah begins.  Isaiah 1:1 (ESV) The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The most notable thing in the first verse of this book is that Isaiah's prophetic career spanned the reign of four kings in Judah. Two of them were good, Uzziah and Hezekiah, the other two, not so much. The nation was corrupt and trending downward. The kings came and went, but God's sure servant, bearing witness to God's Word, stood the test of time.  The diagnosis of Judah is not good.  Isaiah 1:3–4 (ESV) Th...

The news for Judah seems dismal. The threats of Sennacherib loom over the land. Will Judah fall to Assyria as the Northern tribes of Israel did? The propaganda from Assyria seems certain and pulls no punches letting the people know it. Hezekiah sends messengers to Isaiah and Isaiah responds with words of assurance that the Lord will frustrate the king of Assyria yet Hezekiah sees very little in the way of victory even after the words. Instead, Rabshakeh, the minister of propaganda keeps taunting the defenders on the wall and pronouncing inevitable defeat. After all, there were many nations before Judah who called out to their “gods” and they were vanquished. What made Judah different?  The answer is found in the theme of Hezekiah’s prayer offered in 2 Kings 19.  2 Kings 19:14 (ESV) Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. Hezekiah takes the taunts of the enemy and “spr...

Judges 6:7–8 (ESV) When the people of Israel cried out to the LORD on account of the Midianites, 8 the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. For the first time in the Judges cycle, when Israel is oppressed they don't get a deliverer, they get a prophet. The point is clear. God knows their previous and current repentance has been superficial. They have only lamented the loss of their freedoms or abundance. God will now speak to them about what sin has really cost them: Himself.  You and I were made for God. The scripture says of Him: Romans 11:36 (ESV) For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. You are from God. You are living THROUGH God, and you are going back to God. Your entire being for eternity is established and sustained in God. Any departure from His is only death all the time. Th...

Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. As much as Jesus came to reveal who He was and what He was here to do ... He was equally clear at times what He was NOT here to do.  In this case - He did NOT come to abolish the law or prophets. I'm amazed at the common lack-luster effort many give to know the Jesus in the Gospels. Sometimes "Christians" use Jesus as an excuse to pick and chose what we must do as New Testament Christians.  Many like to cherry pick the passages that are palatable to their personal preference or sensibilities.  But Jesus makes it clear from here on out - the standard is going up, not down.  The law is going to be fulfilled through his life and death and resurrection, but it's not going away. He even says in four verses:   VERSE 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the...