For today, One Year Bible Online links here. We are approaching the end of the year and the beginning of a new one. Let us seek to serve God in all that we do in the New Year.
The writer warns against wasting one’s strength on women. It is worth noting the use of the plural here. If one spends one strength and money on multiple women one is wasting it and it will lead to their ruin (the same can be said of women dealing with men as well). He then goes on to warn against allowing alcohol to impair our judgement. Those who are in circumstances where nothing they can do can make things better, or worse, are encouraged to drink in order to forget their pain, but it is worth noting that the writer is suggesting it only for those for whom things can get no worse.
There is joy in singing praises to God and it is fitting to do so. The psalmist gives us many reasons why we should do so, but the first is the one that I will highlight today:
and bandages their wounds.
Let us remember this about God and strive to be the tools He uses to accomplish this task.
In John’s vision he heard great rejoicing in Heaven after the fall of “Babylon”. The rejoicing was because of the pain and suffering which “Babylon” had inflicted on the poor and destitute throughout the world. Over the last few days I realized something I had never noticed before, John points out that immorality (sexual and otherwise) leads to the oppression of the poor. All too often, Christians (and others) are accused of focusing too much on sexual immorality and not enough on injustice and greed. There is unfortunately some truth to that accusation. However, all too many people who focus on injustice and greed overlook the ways in which sexual immorality plays a role in creating social injustice.
Zechariah prophesies that a day will come when the nations around Israel will attack Jerusalem. They will gather a great force to attack, but the only result will be loss for those who joined in the attack. I do not know if this prophecy refers to what has been going on in the Middle East over the last 60 years, but there is a similarity between what Zechariah says here and what has been going on. I think that what Zechariah is talking about is something else, but the similarities make me wonder.
Zechariah tells us that a fountain will be opened to cleanse people of all of their sins and impurity. As the waters from that fountain wash over the land all idolatry will cease and people will reject all forms of idol worship. I believe that Jesus is the source of the fountain to which Zechariah refers. As evidence for that I will point out all of the times in history when faith in Jesus spread through a land causing idol worship to be washed away as in an overwhelming flood.