For today, One Year Bible Online links here. Christmas is coming soon. Let us remember what it is truly about, the birth of Jesus Christ. Let us strive to not be caught up in the commercialism which is what this season is about for many in our society today.
There are some things which you cannot satisfy by giving them more. No matter how much is burned up in a fire, it will always be able to burn more. No matter how much rain falls in the desert, it will be dry almost as soon as the rain stops. No matter how many people die, the grave will always have room for more. We need to recognize those things which cannot be sated.
This psalm conveys an important message. One which I cannot sum up better than the way the psalmist says it.
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
…
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
God knows everything we think and do. He knows what we are going to say before we even think it. The psalmist goes on to tell us that there is no place we can go to be separated from God. No matter where we go, God is already there.
John describes two witnesses/prophets who will arise and prophesy in Jerusalem. They will perform miraculous signs and, during their period of testimony, any who try to harm them will die a sudden death. When they complete their testimony the forces of evil will make war against them and kill them. Their bodies will be left to lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three and a half days. During that time, the people of the world who do not worship God will gloat over their death. Then God will raise them up to life again, terrifying those who witness it. They will be called into heaven.
I am convinced that much of what is written here is figurative. However, I am also convinced that when this happens, those who truly worship God will recognize it as fulfilling this passage. In addition, many people will come to serve the Lord as a result of these events, some because of the prophesying by these two witnesses, and some because they see how these two witnesses fulfill this passage.
Haggai called on the Jews who had returned from exile to rebuild the Temple. He calls them to task for putting their own comfort ahead of doing God’s will. This message is an important reminder to us to put God first in our lives. The returned exiles had good intentions. As soon as they got the local economy back up and running, they were planning to rebuild the Temple. But everything they tried fell just a little short. They never managed to accumulate the surplus they thought they needed to be able to spare the time and effort to work on the Temple. This is so much like us.
Haggai’s message to them was to do the Lord’s work now, not to wait until conditions were just right to do so. God wants the same thing from us today. If we wait until we get everything going the way we think it should before doing God’s work, we will never get there. Let us start doing what we know God wants us to do first. Then God will bless us by showing us how to make the rest work as well.
I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day in advance. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
Haggai was called to prophecy after the people of Judah returned from the Babylonian Exile. Haggai confronts the returned exiles over the fact that they had built luxurious homes for themselves but had not rebuilt the Temple. He points out that their labor is not producing as much as they had anticipated. He goes on to tell them that even what they get, both in harvests and in money, does not last as long as they expected. All of this he tells them is a result of them putting their own desires ahead of God. Rather than waiting until they are financially where they want to be before they start spending their resources on God, they need to put God first. This is an important lesson for all of us. There is a discipline that comes from putting God first that makes everything else we do more productive.
I just started a new job after being laid off for a month. I will take listen to the message of Haggai and put God first. I will not wait until I have paid all my bills back to where they would be if I had not gotten laid off. I will put God first and trust Him to provide for everything else.
John’s vision continues with Him seeing the Temple in Jerusalem. He is told that Gentiles will control the city of Jerusalem and the Temple courtyard, interfering with people worshiping God anywhere but within the Temple itself. During this time, God will raise up two prophets to prophesy to the entire world. Anyone who attempts to interfere with them during their ministry will die by fire which comes out of their mouths. They will have the power to prevent it from raining during their ministry and the power to produce other signs that they speak the word of God. At the end of the time which God has appointed them to preach, the “beast” will arise from the Abyss, overpower them, and kill them. For three and a half days their bodies will remain lying out in public view where the people of the world will gloat and celebrate their deaths. At the end of the three and a half days, God will raise them from the dead, striking terror into the hearts of all who witness it. The two prophets will then be called up to heaven by God. As they rise up to heaven an earthquake will destroy a tenth of Jerusalem.
Following this, the seventh angel will sound the seventh trumpet. At that point the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of God and Christ will begin His eternal reign over all of it. The Temple of heaven, of which the Temple on earth is but a copy, will be opened and all will be able to see the Ark of God’s covenant within it. At that moment there will be another terrible earthquake and a hailstorm over the whole earth.
As I read the beginning of this a thought came to me. Since the view of the New Testament is that the Temple of God is composed of the bodies of believers, is John’s vision of Gentiles trampling over the outer courts and the city of Jerusalem a metaphor for our society telling us that we should only worship God in the privacy of our own thoughts and not allow our religious beliefs to enter into the public square of discourse?
This psalm so wonderfully sums up our relationship with God. He knows everything about us, even things we do not know about ourselves. He knows our every action and every thought. He will go before me to show me the way and follow behind me to guard me from attack. There is no place that I could get away from God’s presence. Wherever I find myself, God will be there and able to see me in full detail. No matter what circumstances I find myself in, God is willing and able to guide me. God saw me before I was even born, while I was yet a zygote in my mother’s womb, even then He knew the plans He had for my life. I will seek His counsel and request that He show me anything in my life which offends Him. I request that He put His Spirit upon me and lead me along the path He desires for me.
There are those who can never be satisfied no matter how much we give. Let us recognize that we will never be able to give enough to satisfy all of the needs of the world. We can kill ourselves trying to care for the needy and there will still be more need. Let us not be disheartened because we are unable to satisfy all of the needs in the world.
I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
The prophet Haggai spoke to the people of Israel about their attitude towards God. They said that it was not time to rebuild the Temple because they did not yet have enough. They were barely meeting their own needs, how could they give more in order to rebuild the Temple? Haggai tells them the problem is that they have their priorities wrong. If we wait until we have enough before we start giving to God, we will never get there. There is a line in this that resonates with me, “Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!” It is so easy to justify covering our expenses before we give to the Lord, and there are times when that is the right thing to do. The prophet is not telling the people that they should have started building the Temple in the past. He is telling them that they are to start building the Temple NOW! I believe that I am receiving the same message. My finances had gotten disrupted earlier this year and I decided to stop my tithing until I got things straightened out. This passage is telling me that it is time to resume my disciplined giving to the Lord. The timing on this is perfect as I will be receiving my end of year bonus in my next paycheck.
The passage tells us that when the people responded positively to the prophet’s message, the Lord sparked enthusiasm within them. The prophet then talks to the priests about the way that clean things become defiled by contact with the unclean rather than things becoming holy by contact with holy things. He says that in the same way everything that the people had done and offered had been defiled by their sin. As a result of this God had caused all of their work to be unproductive. The prophet tells them that now that they have begun following the Lord’s commands and put their priorities in order, God would bless them in all that they do. The prophet told them to take note that he was making this prophecy before they had even planted the seed for the next harvest and before any of the perennial fruits had begun to blossom.
This passage is often used by “prosperity gospel” preachers. This passage is not a promise that we will get wealthy if we obey God. It is a call to get our priorities straight. We need to understand that no matter how hard we work at something, it is not going to prosper if we do not put God first. If we as Christians want to have a bountiful harvest of new believers, we need to get our priorities straight and put God first in our lives and in our ministries.
The writer tells us that in his vision he was told that God would appoint two witnesses to prophecy to the world. Anyone who attempted to harm these two witnesses during their time of testimony would be destroyed. These two witnesses would have the power to strike the earth with plague whenever they wished. At the end of their time of testimony the beast from the bottomless pit will attack and kill them. The bodies of the two witnesses will not be buried and people throughout the earth will gloat over their dead bodies. After three and a half days, God will bring them back to life and those who see them rise up will be terrified. A voice will call out from heaven calling them up to heaven and they will rise up to heaven while their enemies watch. Immediately after this happens there will be an earthquake that will kill many, the survivors will give glory to God.
After this the seventh trumpet will sound. The writer heard voices cry out from heaven that the kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of God. The twenty-four elders gave thanks to God and declared the time had come for God to judge the dead. God will judge the dead, reward his servants and destroy those who destroy who destroy the earth. The writer saw God’s temple in heaven open followed by flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, a mighty earthquake and a severe hailstorm.
There are a lot of things in this passage, but at the moment I see two things of importance. First, when the Lord returns, no one is going to miss it. The second is that no matter how scary all of this imagery sounds, that day will be a day of joy and thanksgiving for those who love and serve the Lord. We should not fear the Lord’s return (although we may pray for its delay in order to bring the Gospel to more people).
This psalm has a lot in it. First, it tells us that God knows everything about us, everything we say and do and think. God’s understanding of our thoughts and our actions is beyond our ability to comprehend. No matter what we do or where we go we cannot escape God’s notice. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. We are not insignificant. Even if no one on this earth knows who we are or what we do, God does. We are not insignificant nothings. God knitted each of us together in our mother’s womb. This is not an insignificant image. Have you ever watched the care with which someone knits? God put that much care into each and every one of us. On the other hand, it also means that God is aware of every mistake we make and wrong thing we do.
We are precious to God and He is with us every moment of every day. When we wake first thing in the morning, God is already there waiting for us to follow Him.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
I make this my prayer. Oh Lord, show me what I do that offends You and change me so that I no longer desire to do those things. Help me to do that which is pleasing to You and only that which is pleasing to You. Help me to care as much for those around me as You do.
Giving Tree At Perkiomenville Mennonite
Our desires will burn us up and destroy us, demanding ever more. If we wait for our desires to be satisfied before we begin to serve the Lord we will never serve the Lord because our desires will never be satisfied. Attempting to satisfy our desires will lead us to the grave as surely as water poured out in the desert will evaporate or be absorbed into the ground with no noticeable effect.
