# daily_notes

day_number: 23/09
text:
The cities of refuge represented Christ as the ultimate place of refuge for those like us who have sinned, deserve to die, and yet didn't wilfully sin (Heb. 6:18). It should be noted that these cities were generally in areas which required some effort to get to- in the wilderness, in the mountains (1 Chron. 6:67) etc. This teaches that there must be some conscious effort on our side in fleeing to Christ; repentance and entry into Christ aren't momentary actions, they are highly deliberate and conscious acts from us. Jesus likewise went up into a mountain and invited those seriously interested in Him to come to Him there (Mk. 3:13).


day_number: 23/09
text:
Zedekiah became proud, was broken down by the Babylonians and Jerusalem was burnt (:12). Zedekiah comes over in Jeremiah as a weak man when it came to doing the right thing; it seems he wanted to obey God's word through Jeremiah, but feared the opinion of the princes and that the Babylonians might abuse him (Jer. 38:19-24). However, Ez. 19:11 fills out the picture- his fear of the opinion of others was due to his pride. We may appear humble, but if we are only so because we are image conscious- then in fact we are proud.


day_number: 23/09
text:
How we handle wealth [whether we have to manage much or little of it] is proportionate to how we will eternally be in God's Kingdom (:11). That is a principle which affects the stream of decisions which make up daily life.


day_number: 24/09
text:
Zelophehad had only daughters; usually, in his context, a man would have taken concubines in order to produce sons. The record of his only having daughters is presented in the context of genealogies which show that many Israelite men had more than one wife. But Zelophehad wasn't dragged down by this; God inspired him to maintain the higher level which he had chosen to live by. We too must seek to do what is ultimately right before God and not be influenced by the standards of our brethren who surround us in the body of believers.


day_number: 24/09
text:
Ez. 20:3 "Is it to inquire of Me?" shows that we can come to God's word in the Bible or bow in prayer before Him, but have our minds already made up, and not actually be seeking Him and His perspective at all. To truly "seek" God as we are often exhorted is not at all easy.


day_number: 24/09
text:
If someone sins so many times each day and claims to have repented, it's obvious their repentance isn't sincere (:4). So Jesus is teaching that we should forgive people without trying to assess if their repentance is sincere, or even if it is apparent that their repentance is insincere. The radical grace of God to us requires that we should simply forgive others without demanding their repentance.


day_number: 25/09
text:
When a passage is repeated twice, surely God wishes us to perceive something. 1 Chron. 8:30-34 is repeated in 9:36-40. The reason may be that the name 'Baal' was used by the leaders of Israel. Gibeon's children included Kish and Baal, Kish's son was king Saul, Saul had a son called Eshbaal as well as Jonathan, David's beloved friend; and Jonathan had a son called Merib Baal. These are not the names as recorded elsewhere; the Chronicles record is highlighting the fact that there was a strand of weakness for idols in the family of Saul, including in faithful Jonathan. We note that his love of God, of David, his appreciation of David's righteousness, his belief that David would have the future Kingdom, struggled against the fact that the worldly influence of his father and great-grandfather still rubbed off upon him. We find ourselves so often in similar situations.


day_number: 25/09
text:
Mary understood that through her conception, God had put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted them of low station in this life (Lk. 1:52). This clearly alludes to Ez. 21:26, where the princes are to be put down and him that is low is to be exalted, i.e. Messiah. But Mary felt that she had been exalted; thus she shared Messiah's exaltation because He was in her and she in Him. We too are in Him, and we should feel something of the pride and joy, along with the suffering, that comes from that identification.


day_number: 25/09
text:
Note the repetition of the fact they didn't understand the Lord's clear words about His upcoming sufferings (:34). They had a psychological barrier to the cross, just as we do in some ways- to share in the cross of Jesus is so demanding.


day_number: 26/09
text:
The genealogy of the sons of Korah is significant in that Korah was the ringleader of the rebellion against Moses which led to his destruction. His children however obeyed the command to leave the tents of their father Korah when he was consumed in the earthquake. Num. 16:27 mentions Dathan and Abiram's children standing outside their tents at this time, but there is the pointed omission of Korah's children; they had left the tents, in recognition of Korah's sin and dissociation from it. The descendants of Korah wrote at least 11 of the Psalms and protected the purity of temple worship. Conscious dissociation from sin is required of us; and it's often very hard, especially when it concerns family members. We also learn from this family that the spiritual failure of a father figure doesn't have to mean that the rest of the family likewise fail; in fact, they can learn from the tragedy and become strengthened spiritually by responding to God's judgment of sin as He intends.


day_number: 26/09
text:
Because gossip is such an epitome of the flesh, it is ranked in Ez. 22:9 along with sins like fornication, idolatry and murder. Other scripture teaches that to hate your brother in your heart was and is as bad as murdering him (Mt. 5:22; 1 Jn. 3:15). Here, the connection is made between gossip and murder. To gossip against our brother is to hate him.


day_number: 26/09
text:
There is an element of unreality in the parable of the pounds: wise use of a few coins results in power over several cities. We are left to imagine the men marvelling in disbelief at the reward given to them. They expected at most just a few pounds to be given to them. And in their response we see a picture of the almost disbelief of the faithful at their rewards. Our small efforts now for Him will be rewarded out of all proportion.


day_number: 27/09
text:
Although the armour bearer was one of Saul's men, in the anti-David camp, yet David's example of not killing Saul must have deeply influenced him. We do make a difference. We have more influence upon others than we may think. It can be that an illiterate sister in a male dominated society can think that her attendance at church meetings cannot encourage anyone. It can be that the Christian stockbroker feels that it is impossible for him to influence those he works with. But we do have influence. We have become so humiliated by a shame based society that we can underestimate the value and power of our own personhood.


day_number: 27/09
text:
Ez. 23:8 "Neither has she left her prostitution since the days of Egypt" is a reference to how Israel took the idols of Egypt with them through the Red Sea (16:8,9), just as we can take this world's idols with us through the waters of baptism (1 Cor. 10:1,2).


day_number: 28/09
text:
Benaiah killed a lion in order to prepare him for killing two lionlike men. God often works like this, using one experience in life to prepare us for another one.


day_number: 28/09
text:
The emphasis of Ez. 24:23 is on the psychological suffering of the condemned Israel. Ezekiel wasn't allowed to weep, which is the natural expression of grief. It therefore bottled up within him, causing deep psychological pain; in order to present Israel with an illustration of how they would feel under God's judgment. The punishment of the rejected at the final judgment will be "gnashing of teeth" (Mt. 24:51), which is again a picture of anger with oneself and internal torment at what might have been, the eternal future which they chose to miss. The wicked will not be punished with literal fire or torture; the internal psychological pain will be far worse. These pictures of condemnation are frequent in the Bible; not to scare us into submission, but to bring before us the eternal consequence of the decisions we take in this life, for the flesh or for the Spirit.


day_number: 28/09
text:
God uses bad situations in order to give us an opportunity to witness to others (:13). When we ask "Why this?"- perhaps one of the reasons is so that we might preach through it.


day_number: 29/09
text:
Those who followed David in his wilderness years were remembered by God by name for millennia afterwards. They became leaders in David's Kingdom after the death of Saul. We who follow Christ now, even though at times it may seem we are supporting a humanly hopeless case, will finally be rewarded in the future Kingdom.


day_number: 29/09
text:
God judged nations in order that men might know Him as Yahweh (Ez. 25:11). But did they? Often God states His intentions and wishes for people's faith as if they have been realized. In this we can see the hopefulness of God, like the shepherd who searches for the lost sheep with the attitude that he will search until he finds it (Lk. 15:4). We should have this hopefulness in all our witnessing to others.


day_number: 29/09
text:
Jesus knew the disciples would run away and Peter would deny Him. But He counted them as righteous (:28); and He sees us so positively today, for all our failings. Quite simply, because He loves us.


day_number: 30/09
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
Uzza was a Levite but not a priest; and the Law clearly emphasized that the sons of Kohath were to carry the ark on staves on their shoulders, not on a cart as David was doing (Num. 4:15). David almost boasted in Ps. 119 that he studied God's law day and night, but he obviously didn't see the obvious; he blanked off those commands in his mind, assuming the spirit of serving God would make the details of God's requirements superfluous. Because of our inattention to God's word, others may die; and we also see that God's holiness is never to be simply disregarded because we in one sense love Him and are joyful before Him.


day_number: 30/09
text:
Ez. 26:7  speaks of how Babylon will surround and destroy Tyre. But this never happened in recorded history- it was done by Alexander and the Greeks much later. 29:17-20 explains that because the King of Babylon laboured so hard to take Tyre (even though he never actually succeeded) God would give him the land of Egypt as a reward. This doesn't mean that the word of prophecy failed. Rather does it mean that God is open to a rethinking of plans and futures in accord with human response. Although all the conditions for Tyre's fall and Babylon's victory against her aren't given, evidently there must have been such unrecorded conditions; and they weren't fulfilled, hence Tyre was spared destruction by the Babylonians, and yet they were 'rewarded' for their part in the situation. God's purpose with us as individuals is likewise open, and will change and adapt according to our response to Him.


day_number: 30/09
text:
The pain and difficulty of speech in the position of crucifixion was such that it is apparent that the Lord meant us to hear and meditate upon the words He uttered from the cross. It would have been far easier for Him to have prayed those words to Himself, within His own thoughts; but instead He made the effort to speak them out loud. It should inspire a similar effort in us to communicate with others when we feel like retreating into ourselves; to comfort them with our forgiveness; to pray for our enemies.


day_number: 01/10
text:
Obed-Edom of 1 Chron. 15:21 was the one who had faithfully looked after the ark when others feared to have anything to do with it (13:14). He may have expected some great recognition for that, but he is listed along with many others as simply having a relatively small role in looking after it. If we are genuinely motivated by wishing to simply serve God's people and maintain His presence amongst His people, we will not seek for recognition or status for it.


day_number: 01/10
text:
Tyre in Ez. 27:3 was "perfect in beauty" in her own eyes. Arrogant self-confidence, opulence, human beauty, human wisdom, praise and respect from others, power... all the things which people so strive after in our society were all obtained to their fullness by Tyre, and yet these are the very things which they were condemned for. Note how the prophets pointed out to Gentile nations their sins and failures before the God of Israel; sin is still felt by God as sin, even if it is committed by those not responsible to His final judgment. It must be so hard for God, feeling all this offence against Him.


day_number: 01/10
text:
God does open and close our understanding, working directly on the human heart and perceptions (:31). Let's be patient with those whose eyes are still closed. There was a time when we too 'didn't get it'. And let's pray He opens our eyes to really 'get it' in spiritual terms.


day_number: 02/10
text:
Here and in 15:27 David acts as a priest, even though he was from the tribe of Judah and not Levi. On one hand, our understanding of the spirit and essence of God frees us from the need for literalistic obedience; but as David experienced at the time of the breach upon Uzza (13:10) and his sin with Bathsheba, this can lead us to disregard His principles to a point where it is counted as sin. On the other hand, when Uzziah acted as a priest he was condemned for it (2 Chron. 26:19-21). The same actions can be righteousness for one person and sin for another. In this lies the impossibility of our ultimately judging the outward actions of others; we simply must leave it to God.


day_number: 02/10
text:
Ez. 28:2 "Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre". For an asylum seeking exile like Ezekiel in Babylon to tell the king of Tyre that he was going to perish unless he repented... was a hard mission. And our witness is likewise not so easy, in the proud, secular world in which we are to make it. We note that the primary issue with the king of Tyre was not his idolatry, but his pride and playing God. This is what is so utterly abhorrent to God. And we must have that same perspective.


day_number: 02/10
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
If we too perceive that other brethren with whom we differ have been given a gift, a grace, and that they too preach the same Gospel (2:7), then we should also not reject them- even if we agree to work somewhat separately from them. The agreement that Paul would focus on converting Gentiles rather than Jews was pragmatic, but here we have a precedent for pragmatic decision making in the church.


day_number: 03/10
text:
God's grace is reflected in all this; David wanted to build God a physical house, and God responds by saying He doesn't need that but rather He will build David an eternal house in the sense of a family, based around David's descendant who would be Yahweh's own Son (Lk. 1:31-35). God loves to do for us above all we can ask or imagine of asking (Eph. 3:20); He delights to lavish grace upon us and we should delight to do the same to others, thinking what we could do for them that would make them say "Wow!" to God's grace.


day_number: 03/10
text:
Ez. 29:21 "I will give you the opening of the mouth in their midst". In the midst of the surrounding nations. But at the time of Christ's return, when Israel repent and enter the new covenant with Him, they will remember all their past sins and never open their mouth any more because of their shame (16:63). They will be so ashamed that they will feel as if they can never open their mouth. But Yahweh will open their mouth, and they will witness. In some anticipation of this, Ezekiel as the "son of man" prophet, a representative of his people just as the Lord Jesus was to be, had his mouth shut in dumbness, and he only had his mouth opened when Israel came to know [to some degree] that "I am Yahweh" (24:27). In all these evident connections something marvellous presents itself. Those who feel as if they just cannot open their mouths in witness are the very ones whom the Father will use; He will open their mouths and use them exactly because they are ashamed of their sins! And so it should be with us.


day_number: 03/10
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
When Paul had preached the Gospel to the Galatians, he had been an incarnation of Christ crucified (3:1). People should see in us, in our sufferings and 'weakness', something of the crucified Christ in His time of dying.


day_number: 04/10
chapter_number_to: 19
text:
David "reserved of them for one hundred chariots". The king of Israel was not supposed to multiply horses and chariots but rather trust in God (Dt. 17:16). David allowed himself a little weakness in this matter; and his son Solomon used it as an excuse to multiply so many horses and chariots that he had to build cities to store them in. The problem with allowing ourselves a 'little' sin is that sin by its nature spreads and multiplies, and is repeated in others for whom we are an example (like our children) to a far greater extent.


day_number: 04/10
text:
The wailing and lamentation for the fate of Gentile nations, even those who had been enemies of God's people, really shows how neither God nor Ezekiel had the slightest pleasure in the punishment of the wicked. God's desire is to positively manifest and develop His Name; this is His focus, rather than hitting back against those who rebel against Him.


day_number: 04/10
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
The very fact that we do not have long lists of commandments to obey should of itself inspire us to serve one another practically (5:13). The Law was fulfilled in love, but also fulfilled by the death of Christ; His death was love unto the end, the ultimate definition of loving our neighbour. By contrast, aggressive disagreement and argument with our brethren may cost us eternity (5:14).


day_number: 05/10
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
1 Chron. 20:3 seems an unnecessarily cruel way of punishing enemies. This is the period in between David's sin with Bathsheba and his repentance. His own bad conscience with God led him to such excessive punishment of God's enemies. Psychologically, it's understandable; he realized he had sinned and deserved to be punished. But instead of confessing his sin and accepting the consequences as rightful and just, he psychologically transferred the sin onto others, and punished them instead of seeing himself punished. Judgmentalism and aggressive attitudes toward others often arise from a bad conscience within a person; the answer is to confess our sins to God, repent before Him and accept any consequences. We are thereby made free from the need to transfer sin and guilt onto others and judge them for our own sin.


day_number: 05/10
text:
A month before Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians, Judah were desperately hoping that Egypt would come to their rescue, and in this prophecy there is the clear message that Egypt like Assyria before them, like all human strength, is doomed to not ultimately save us. Judah were intended to learn from history- the apparently invincible Assyrian had fallen, so would Egypt. But our human tendency to live in an eternal present means that we tend not to learn the lessons of history; yet God's word is full of history for us to learn from.


day_number: 05/10
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
God long ago prepared good works for us to do (2:10). We need to understand what is His hope for us, His expectation- and seek to fulfil it. Ask God today what those good works were which He planned for us from the beginning.


day_number: 06/10
text:
Indeed David was right in 1 Chron. 22:19; it is the state of the human heart which is critical. But David wrongly sees the natural outcome of a heart focused upon Yahweh as wanting to build the temple. Although God had forbidden it. God had clearly stated that the ark was where He wanted it- in a tent, behind curtains. And He did not want a brick house around it. And yet David urges people to enable the very opposite- to build a sanctuary in terms of a physical building, and to place the ark within it. The whole land was seen by God as a sanctuary / holy place s.w. Ex. 15:17). "Let them make Me a sanctuary" (Ex. 25:8) uses a very general word for making / doing, whereas David is trying to localize and define the sanctuary / holy place and is implying God had no such holy place- until it had been built according to his plans. The Kohathites are described as carrying "the sanctuary" (s.w., Num. 10:21); it was the ark which was the essential sanctuary or holy place. But David speaks about the building he proposed around that ark as being the sanctuary. And so form had replaced content, the external the internal, as so often happens when the pole of religion overtakes that of spirituality.


day_number: 06/10
text:
The prophesied judgment upon Egypt [a symbol of the world] included that the sun was to be made dark, and people would be "amazed" at her (Ez. 32:10). This is just what happened when Christ was crucified (Is. 52:14). The judgment of Egypt / the world had some elements of fulfilment in the 'judgment of this world' which occurred through the cross (Jn. 12:31). The crucifixion of Christ declared all worldly strength to now be nothing compared to the power of God's love toward us.


day_number: 06/10
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
We can "know" what is beyond human knowledge, because God will open our hearts and understanding- if we let Him (3:19). God delights to do for us more than we could even imagine; we should have the same generous spirit to others (3:20).


day_number: 07/10
text:
David rejoiced in 1 Chron. 23:26 that "The Levites will no longer need to carry the tabernacle and all its vessels for its service". David was enthralled with the idea that the tabernacle would now not be carried but would have a permanent place. But this was at variance with God's explanation to him of why He didn't want such a permanent place; He was a God on a journey, as He always had been, mobile and forging forward. But David's religious pole quite blinded him to the spiritual pole of perceiving the dynamic nature of God. And we see that tendency in all His people.


day_number: 07/10
text:
If we do not warn the wicked of their way, "his blood will I require at your hand" (Ez. 33:8). Some will have to give an account on judgment day of their specific lack of witness. Yet we can live day after day, saying nothing to our fellows, as if it doesn't really matter, because nobody notices... Not only our salvation but that of others can be limited by our exercise of freewill. If others' salvation is not to some extent dependent upon our preaching, then t


day_number: 07/10
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
The death of Christ on the cross isn't just something for us to look at from a distance; we should let there be a direct bridge of influence and inspiration between it and our lives today (5:2). Loving others in practical ways because He, there, so long ago, on a Friday afternoon, on a day in April, on a hill just outside Jerusalem- died for me.


day_number: 08/10
chapter_number_to: 25
text:
The 24 orders of priests are alluded to in the vision of the Heavenly court in Rev. 4:4; 5:8; 11:16; 19:4, where again there are 24 elders. God's people on earth are to reflect the system of their representative Angels in Heaven. But Israel tragically perverted this; in Ez. 8:16-18 we read of how the High Priest and the 24 elders worshipped idols within the temple. We on earth are not alone as we do God's work; we are part of a reflection on earth of the situation which is now in Heaven.


day_number: 08/10
text:
The passage in John 10 where Jesus speaks of Himself as the good shepherd who seeks out God's sheep is full of allusion to this chapter. When He says "I and My Father are one" (Jn. 10:30), He is speaking in this context of His being the shepherd on God's behalf. This principle of agency, of operating on behalf of God in His Name, doesn't mean that Jesus was God Himself in person, but rather that He manifested the Father, so that God's shepherding was achieved through the person and work of Jesus. And He is our shepherd this day.


day_number: 08/10
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Even imprisonment for false reasons can be used by God to lead us to meet people to whom we can witness the Gospel (1:12); and far lesser traumas and misjudgements will be used by Him likewise. We should genuinely rejoice that the real Christ is preached, even if we doubt the credentials and behaviour of those who preach (:18). The progress of Christ's Name and work is far more important than our personal disagreements with other preachers.


day_number: 09/10
text:
"Obed-Edom... God blessed him". Obed-Edom bravely had the ark stay in his home, when at the time all others thought that it would lead to the death of his family (2 Sam. 6:11,12). God blessed him for this- by giving him many children and grandchildren, 62 in all (:8). And yet Obed-Edom wasn't highly rewarded for this in human terms; his many children were doorkeepers in the temple, which Ps. 84:10 implies was seen as the lowest and least honourable work. There are times when we have to do what is right and disregard the fears of others in the ecclesia, even those of the leaders [cp. David]. Reward and honour for such faithfulness will not necessarily come in this life, nor should we expect it now, if our focus is upon the future Kingdom of God on earth as the time and arena for our reward.


day_number: 09/10
text:
Ez. 35:12 "I, Yahweh, have heard". The extent of God's knowledge is amazing. He consciously is aware of every thought, intention, implication and actual spoken word of every single person in the world, including Gentiles like Edom.


day_number: 09/10
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
"Forgetting the past" (3:13) is so difficult to do. But if we believe for sure that we will live eternally in God's Kingdom, we have so much to look forward to that the past weighs less heavily. And God can help us- He made Joseph "forget" or [Hebrew] 'neglect' the pain he suffered in his family (Gen. 41:51).


day_number: 10/10
text:
There would've been nothing morally wrong with taking a census of Israel's young people, the next generation; but David believed in the promise that Abraham's seed would be many, and so he didn't (1 Chron. 27:23). We can count every penny of our resources if we wish, but the higher level is to live in faith that God will fulfil His promise to provide for His people on their journey towards His Kingdom.


day_number: 10/10
text:
Entering the new covenant which God here proposed to His people involved Him promising to make them be obedient to His ways (Ez. 36:27). We who have entered this same new covenant (Heb. 8:8-13) are likewise party to this same operation of God on human hearts- if we want it.


day_number: 10/10
text:
When asked who he was, John's reply was simply: "a voice" (:23). He was nothing; his message about Jesus was everything. In all this there is a far cry from the self-confident, self-projecting speaking off the podium which characterizes so much of our 'preaching' today. So John's appeal to repentance was shot through with a recognition of his own humanity. It wasn't mere moralizing. We likely don't preach as John did because we fear that confronting people with their sins is inappropriate for us to do, because we too are sinners. But with recognition of our own humanity, we build a bridge between our audience and ourselves.


day_number: 11/10
text:
If we love God, we will not have a minimalistic attitude to serving Him, doing as little as we can get away with. We will eagerly seek out how to please Him (1 Chron. 28:8), what principles we should live by, what we should and should not do or be in order to please Him.


day_number: 11/10
text:
The Hebrew word for the "noise" of the bones coming together (Ez. 37:7) is the same word used in Ezra 1:1 about the "proclamation" of Cyrus for Judah to return to the land. But most of God's people didn't return; the majority preferred to stay in Babylon. They didn't come together and rise up as a great army because they rejected the Spirit. Therefore the prophecy was deferred in fulfilment until our times; the tragedy is that so much was potentially enabled at the time of Cyrus' decree, and Judah made such little use of it. And so much is enabled for us too- if we will accept it.


day_number: 11/10
text:
In Jn. 3:3-5 we see the importance of water baptism. But of itself, it's not enough- we must be spiritually reborn by the action of God's word within us (1 Pet. 1:23) if we are to enter the Kingdom of God when Jesus returns. Baptism is therefore very important. Urge others to be baptized. Contact us if you or anyone else would like to be baptized.


day_number: 12/10
text:
Gog is manipulated with hooks in his jaws, turned around as God wished (Ez. 38:4-6). If God can put thoughts in the minds of unbelieving Gentiles, how much more can His Spirit work upon our minds and the direction of our lives, if we are eager and willing to receive it.


day_number: 12/10
text:
It's quite natural to tell others of our experience of Christ (:29). The Gospels are full of people doing this. In Jn. 4:32 we see how having a stimulating, unexpected conversation about the Lord with someone takes away our awareness of our tiredness and material problems. Preaching is for our benefit and blessing too.


day_number: 13/10
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
"The house which I build is great", Solomon exalted. The Hebrew word translated "great" is used again by Solomon at the end of his life when he lost his faith and looked back at how he had built "great" buildings (Ecc. 2:4) in a vain search for self-fulfilment which he ultimately found to be vanity. The lesson of Solomon is that we can serve God on a surface level whilst our heart is far from Him, and the works we do for Him are in fact only a living out of our vain search for self-fulfilment, rather than a total devotion to Him and His causes.


day_number: 13/10
text:
Ez. 39 says that Israel's enemies will be destroyed "On the mountains of Israel". Here we see God's grace; because the mountains of Israel were the high places where Israel had built altars to other gods and sacrificed their children to them. But in these very places, God would show Himself strong for His people.


day_number: 13/10
text:
It's possible to read the Bible a lot but never truly come to Jesus (:39,40). To study the Bible but not have the living word / voice of God abiding in us (:38). We should be Christ-centric more than Bible-centric.


day_number: 14/10
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
The cherubim totally covered the ark. In the Psalms, David reflects that the righteous dwell under the shadow of God's wings (Ps. 17:8; 36:7), as if we are located on the atonement cover which was on top of the ark, where the blood of atonement was sprinkled, which represented Christ's blood. Our covering by God's Angelic cherubim protection is therefore total and complete. But the cherubim described here aren't those which covered the ark; these covered the entire Most Holy Place. Likewise the constant theme of cherubim everywhere in the temple suggests that Solomon wished to expand the concept of the holiness and protection of the atonement cover to the entire temple. The temple represents all God's people; for we are His temple. The New Testament expands the theme further- the person of each individual believer is the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:17; 6:19). Each of us personally becomes as it were within the Most Holy Place and likewise constantly in God's most intense presence and covered by His wings.


day_number: 14/10
text:
Under Nehemiah and then even in Malachi's time, these Kingdom prophecies could have had their fulfilment, but time and again Judah failed to live up to the necessary preconditions. In all this lies abundant exhortation for us; so much could happen but doesn't, because of our failure to live out and fulfil prophecy... instead, like Judah, we tend to assume that the time for fulfilment will inexorably arrive some day, regardless of our effort. The details of the temple are to the micro detail. They were commands rather than predictions, for Judah to fulfil. Ezekiel 40-48 was intended as an architectural record of the 'old' temple upon which a new one was to be reconstructed.


day_number: 14/10
text:
After their 'baptism' in the Red Sea, God's people walked through the wilderness fed only by manna (1 Cor. 10:1,2). After our baptisms, we too walk through the wilderness, eating the manna daily- taking strength from Jesus, His word and His sacrifice for us (:51) as we today walk through the wilderness of this world.


day_number: 15/10
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
Solomon was "Sacrificing sheep and cattle, that could not be counted". Whilst the record here isn't specifically critical of Solomon, he failed to understand his father David's reflection that all the cattle on every hill are God's (Ps. 50:10) and therefore God doesn't so much as seek animal sacrifice from us as desire faith and a broken casting of ourselves upon God. David came to that understanding because his sin against Uriah and Bathsheba deserved death and there was no animal sacrifice which could take away that guilt- he had to throw himself upon God's grace and learn that the real sacrifice God sought was that of a broken, penitent heart (Ps. 51:16,17). Solomon didn't recognize his sins as David did, he didn't mess up so publically as David did, and therefore he failed to appreciate this, focussing instead on the external rather than the internal. It's amazing how God uses human sin and failure to teach us; those like Solomon who don't sin publically and don't recognize the weight of their private sins are often lead into the shallow, empty spirituality and surface level service of God which we see in Solomon at this time.


day_number: 15/10
text:
The rooms around the temple were in Christ's mind when He spoke of how in God's house or temple, there are many rooms; and He has prepared one for each of us by His death on the cross (Jn. 14:2). We each have a unique and individual calling in this life, related to our unique eternal inheritance. It could be that He understood the temple as a spiritual house, and that the vision of 40-48 was going to be fulfilled in a more abstract, spiritual manner.


day_number: 15/10
text:
There's a hard logic in :34- we either seek Him now when we can find Him, or we will seek Him like the foolish girls of Mt. 25:11 will do- when it's all too late.  See Him today with all your heart.


day_number: 16/10
text:
2 Chron. 7:16 is a conditional promise, followed by five verses of conditions concerning Solomon's spirituality which he overlooked. Like Solomon, we too can fix upon promises without considering their conditionality. There is good reason to think that communally and individually we so easily shut our eyes to the possibility of our spiritual failure and disaster, the sense of the future we might miss. God constantly warned Solomon about the conditionality of the promises, before the building started (2 Sam. 7:14), during it (1 Kings 6:11-13) and immediately after completing it (1 Kings 9:2-9).


day_number: 16/10
text:
There was to be a wall "to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common" (:20).  This is alluding back to Ezekiel's earlier lament that Judah had not made that very separation (Ez. 22:26). This reflected the difference between God's people, His "sanctuary" (Psalms 114:2), and the surrounding world. But Judah did not 'separate' themselves from the surrounding tribes but instead married them and worshipped their idols (Ezra 9:1 "The people of Israel... have not separated themselves from the people of the land"). Separation from the world is a critical aspect in being separated unto the things of God's Kingdom.


day_number: 16/10
text:
The Pharisees studied the Bible all the time and could recite much of the Old Testament. But Jesus said they didn't know God. Knowing God is an experience, not head knowledge (:19).


day_number: 17/10
text:
Solomon had so many horses and chariots that he needed to build cities to store them. This was a specific disobedience to the command that the king of Israel was not to multiply horses to himself (Dt. 17:16). Yet that was the very section of the Law which he had to copy out and remember (Dt. 17:19). He had the ability, like all of us, to know God's requirements and yet do the very opposite. He must've assumed that somehow he was an exception... but if we accept and love God's principles we will not wish to make ourselves any exception to them.


day_number: 17/10
text:
How close God was ought to have made them quit their idolatry. But their cognizance of the closeness of God was merely theoretical. They didn't feel nor respond to the wonder of it. And truly, He is not far from every one of us (Ez. 43:8).


day_number: 17/10
chapter_number_to: 10
text:
There is something instinctively attractive to us about the words of Jesus. His sheep know His voice (10:5). When we read the uninspired 'gospels', it's clear almost instinctively to Christians that they aren't the true words of Jesus. We should love to read and hear His words. The Greek verbs for 'knowing' in 10:15 are in the continuous tense. God grows in knowledge of Jesus, and Jesus grows in knowledge of God. It's a dynamic relationship between them; eternity won't be 'the same old scene' for us, we too will grow in knowing God- and even vice versa.


day_number: 18/10
text:
We reflect from 2 Chron. 9:23 that Solomon had God's wisdom throughout his apostasy (Ecc. 2:9), as the Truth ever remains with us in intellectual terms. God put that wisdom in his heart in order for him to help others, both in Israel and in the world; yet Solomon failed to realize that he needed to apply it to himself. The more truth passes through our lips to others, the stronger we are tempted to not apply it to ourselves personally.


day_number: 18/10
text:
The priests were to shut the gates (Ez. 44:2; 46:2,12); but the returned exiles in practice refused to do this unless they were paid for it (Mal. 1:10). The potential set up simply wasn't realized because of petty selfishness. And that is the same in so many lives, collectively and individually.


day_number: 18/10
text:
Jesus thanked God for the answer to His prayers even before the answer had happened, i.e., before Lazarus had come forth, Jesus thanked God for hearing His prayers for the resurrection of Lazarus (:41). Jesus was no hypocrite- He was practicing what He had taught in Mk. 11:24: "When you pray and ask for something, believe that you have received it, and you will be given whatever you ask for".


day_number: 19/10
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
2 Chron. 11:18 implies that David married his own niece. There were many anomalies in David's life, especially in his personal relationships; and yet God accepted him and spoke so highly of him. This isn't to justify any sin or complacent attitude in ourselves personally; but to encourage us in the hard work of being patiently acceptive of those who have similar anomalies in their lives.


day_number: 19/10
text:
"The people of the land" were to have a part in the new system of things (Ez. 45:16,22; 46:3,9), and yet this very phrase is repeatedly used concerning the Samaritan people who lived in the land at the time of the restoration with whom Judah intermarried and whose gods and language they accepted (Ezra 4:4; 10:2,11; Neh. 9:24; 10:30,31). God's intention was that they should eventually be converted unto Him; it was His intention that Ezekiel's temple be built at the time of the restoration under Ezra. And yet Zech. 7:10; Mal. 3:5 criticize the Jews who returned and built the temple for continuing to oppress these strangers / Gentiles. So much was made possible potentially that never happened, because of Judah's short sightedness and failure to grasp it. The same is true in the lives of God's people today.


day_number: 19/10
text:
Many people today 'believe' but will not openly admit it, because they are worried what people will think of them (12:41). God arranged circumstances so that rulers like Nicodemus and Joseph 'came out' openly; but others didn't respond to that and because they hid their candle under a bucket, they lost their faith, their light went out. He will today be provoking you to 'come out' for Him. If we believe and confess that faith, through baptism and an open life of commitment, then God glorifies us- in His own book, in His own way (:43).


day_number: 20/10
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
"When Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them" was an exaggeration, because he was 41 when he became king (12:13). We can so easily justify the sins and weakness of others whom we perceive as being 'on our side', trying to reduce everything to a simplistic black and white view of the world, whereby people are either wonderfully good or totally bad (2 Chron. 13:11). Reality is far different- we only have to realistically analyze our own lives and personalities.


day_number: 20/10
text:
Ez. 46:12 "One shall open for him [the Prince] the gate". David in his humility aspired to be such an anonymous gatekeeper in God's temple (Ps. 84:10). And yet "the prince" is defined as being "David" (34:24; 37:25). He was the prince exactly because he wished merely to the anonymous gatekeeper who would open the doors for the prince. In this we see the classic illustration of Christ's teaching that true greatness is in humility; He will be the highest in the Kingdom because in this life He debased Himself lowest (Mt. 23:12; Mk. 9:35; 10:44).


day_number: 20/10
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
Jn. 14:13 is not a blanket promise for Jesus to do whatever anybody asks in prayer; whatever we ask that glorifies God, He will do. So our prayers must be focused around that, and they will be heard.


day_number: 21/10
chapter_number_to: 15
text:
2 Chron. 15:8 says that Asa "Put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah". But 14:3 says that Asa did this at the start of his reign. Whenever we root out weakness from our lives, it tends to return. The records of Judah's kings are full of such accounts of purging out the idols- and then we read the same again soon afterwards. The tendency to idol worship was and is very strong.


day_number: 21/10
text:
The restored Kingdom of God could have come when Judah returned from Babylon. It was therefore potentially possible for the returning exiles to inherit all the land outlined in Ez. 47:13-21 and share it out between the twelve tribes. But according to the record in Ezra and Nehemiah, they grabbed every man for himself, his own farmstead, his own mini-Kingdom. They had no interest in the wider vision, nor in subduing extra land; and the majority of the Jews didn't even want to inherit it; they preferred the soft life of Babylon, the Kingdom of men rather than the Kingdom of God. And thus the Kingdom made possible was never actually fulfilled at that time.


day_number: 21/10
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
Islam and many other religious systems speak much of 'submission'. But we are the friends of Jesus, not His slaves (Jn. 15:15). Our work for Him is from a motive of love, and is performed in active co-operation with Him as we work together to the same end- the glorification of God.


day_number: 22/10
chapter_number_to: 17
text:
By giving the wealth of the temple to Ben Hadad, Asa was acting as if it was his personal wealth, to spend as he wished. But those things had been given or dedicated to God; if you give somebody something, it's theirs and no longer yours. Although God was invisible to Asa, it's as if He was sitting there in that temple with His silver and gold- which had been given to Him in thanks for what He had done for His people. And then Asa walks up to God and takes that silver and gold right from His presence and gives it to a pagan idolater whom he considers a better defence against enemies than God. The more we sense the presence of God, the more we perceive His total ownership. What we dedicate to God is His, it's not for us to 'play God' by then taking it back and acting as if it's ours. And we are asked to dedicate our whole lives to God.


day_number: 22/10
text:
It was Ezekiel, as he sat with the exiles in Babylon, who was to divide the land by lot unto the various tribes (:29). The tragedy of all the details recorded in Ezekiel 40-48, and the very reason for their being preserved to this day, is to show us to what great extent God has prepared potential things for His people, and yet they can be totally wasted if we don't respond. In fact according to Mic. 4:10, it was God's purpose to exile His people to Babylon, and there to deliver them from their enemies. And yet they preferred to side with their enemies and to prefer non-deliverance from Babylon. The tragedy of it all is almost unthinkable, and yet this is what we do if day by day we choose the things of this world against the deliverance from this world which there is in Christ.


day_number: 22/10
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
Barabbas is a symbol of us all. According to Jewish tradition at the time (Pesach 8.6) "They may slaughter the Passover lamb... for one whom they [the authorities] have promised to release from prison". The Passover amnesty freed a man justly condemned to death- on account of the death of the lamb. We can imagine the relief and joy and almost unbelief of Barabbas, as he watched or reflected upon the crucifixion of Jesus- that he who rightfully should have been there on the cross, was delivered from such a death because of the cross of Christ. The image of condemned prisoners being released due to the death of Messiah is an Old Testament figure for our redemption from slavery.


day_number: 23/10
chapter_number_to: 19
text:
2 Chron. 18 shows how Jehoshaphat was wrong to make this alliance with Ahab; our covenant with Yahweh precludes any other covenant. Ahab was one of God's people, but clearly his faith in Yahweh was weak and he had surrounded himself with false prophets who claimed that whatever Ahab wanted to be true was in fact the word of Yahweh (:4-7). Even within those who are externally the children of God, we must be careful whom we choose to closely associate with; for not all are seriously interested in following God's word.


day_number: 23/10
text:
There was nothing in the Law of Moses which specifically forbad eating or drinking the things which Daniel refused. But Daniel would've been defiled in his conscience. We too should go to great lengths to always have a good conscience, even if in the eyes of the world and of other members of God's people we appear strange.


day_number: 23/10
text:
Only close relatives could ask for the corpse of the crucified. Beholding the cross motivated Joseph to 'come out' openly for Jesus, feeling as part of His family, and therefore openly asking for the body (:38). The cross should motivate us likewise. And in the same way, the cross motivated Nicodemus to spend his wealth to honour Christ. For he bought a huge amount of spices to embalm Him with (:39), more than the Caesars were buried with. The cross motivated Nicodemus to spend his wealth to honour Christ.


day_number: 24/10
text:
There is a strong theme of praise (1 Chron. 20:21); and praise is something one does to their God after a victory, not before it. Humanly, they must have feared that they were being asked to trust in mere words. Yet Jehoshaphat praised God for the assurance of victory as if it had already happened; and his battle plan was hardly humanly wise. He sent out ahead of his troops a group of priests who were praising God for the victory. Such faith is all about adopting God's perspective, who speaks of things which are not yet as if they are, so sure is His word of promise of fulfilment (Rom. 4:17).


day_number: 24/10
text:
Given the urgency of the situation, Daniel would've been tempted to rush in to the King with the interpretation, knowing that every second counted to save the lives of his friends and himself. But firstly he takes time to thank God; we should do the same in life's crises.


day_number: 24/10
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
The three questions, asked again by a fire, were to undo Peter's three denials. Our love for Jesus personally is revealed in our care for His sheep (:17). But we are so easily distracted from following the Lord by our focus upon the quality of the discipleship of others (:22). If they follow Him, if they shall be saved, how they follow Him... so easily distracts from the call to us to personally follow Him and not take our focus off Him.


day_number: 25/10
chapter_number_to: 22
text:
Ahaziah was severely punished because he didn't learn the lesson from spiritual history. Jehoshaphat had been nearly killed because of his union with Ahab the king of Israel; we really are intended to learn from Biblical history and take concrete action based upon what we perceive within it, rather than let these records drift over us without taking a grip upon our lives in practice.


day_number: 25/10
text:
Even if God didn't preserve them, the friends vowed that they would still serve Him alone. Perhaps they had Job's words going round in their minds: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job 13:15). We cannot expect nor demand Divine deliverance from our crises; our love and trust of Him lead us to accept that He truly knows best and wishes us only our eternal good in our latter end.


day_number: 25/10
text:
Peter sets us an example of how to proceed in decision making. He looked at the Old Testament prophecies, precedents and principles, and then concretely did something (:20). It was written in the Psalms that another would take the place of the betrayer- and so Peter got on and did something about that. Bible prophecy requires that we do our part in fulfilling it.


day_number: 26/10
text:
"The people of the land rejoiced" (2 Chron. 23:21) in the same way as "all the people" destroyed the temple of Baal (:17) and "all the people" rejoiced at the idea of Joash being made king (:13). Although the people were spiritually weak at this time, there was deep within them a desire to do the right thing- they just lacked the strength to do it, and needed someone like Jehoiada to present it clearly to them. We may consider those around us to be totally disinterested in spiritual things, but if we present them with the right way, we will be surprised how this is passively and unconsciously what a lot of apparently 'worldly' people are in fact looking for.


day_number: 26/10
text:
Daniel in those moments of Dan. 4:19 must have been sorely tempted not to speak forth God's word, suspecting it might cost him his life if he did. We too have those moments when we struggle whether or not to open our mouth and testify as we should.


day_number: 26/10
text:
Believing what the apostles did, praying together and breaking bread together are all signs of our fellowship. Fellowship isn't limited to just breaking bread together (:42).


day_number: 27/10
text:
In 2 Chron. 24:17, "The king listened to them". So often the history of the kings repeats itself. This was exactly the mistake of Rehoboam- listening to bad advisors and rejecting the Godly advice of older men (1 Kings 12:8,10). Our life situations likewise tend to repeat in essence the situations faced by Biblical characters; and we really are expected to learn the lessons. We have to ask how often it is that we base a life decision specifically upon a Biblical precedent... How much does Bible history really affect our life choices today?


day_number: 27/10
text:
God allows things to happen and permits nations to prosper for specific periods of time (Dan. 5:26). The number of our days is likewise numbered (Job 7:1; 14:5; 38:21). God isn't absent from our world; everything is under amazingly tight observation and control.


day_number: 27/10
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Levites weren't supposed to own property, according to the Law of Moses. But they 'got around' this by owning property outside Israel, e.g. in Cyprus. But when Barnabas converted to Christ, he realized that all such 'getting around' God's laws is wrong; simple, loving obedience from the heart is what God wants (4:37). So let's not seek to 'get around' God's laws.


day_number: 28/10
text:
"When the kingdom was established to him, he killed his servants" (2 Chron. 25:3). This sentence structure is common in the record of the kings; when they became strong, once they were set up in life, then they did wrong (11:17; 12:1; 17:1; 21:4; 26:8,16). Some people never get set up in life or become financially or domestically 'strong' as they would wish, and resent it. But remember this formula; perhaps if that had been granted them by God, they would turn away from Him. Amaziah repeated the pattern of Jehoram, who became strong in his kingdom, and then killed his brothers (21:4). Again we see how God intended Amaziah, as He intends all of us, to perceive how we should be and live on the basis of the examples in the history of His people. This is why reading the records of these kings is so valuable for us; and more than valuable, God intends us to be familiar with the history He has recorded and carefully preserved for so long, and learn from it, applying it specifically in our lives.


day_number: 28/10
text:
Daniel could have just prayed privately, in his heart. Many other Jews probably did this. But he chose to continue to openly pray. He was prepared to give his life for what was only a conscience issue. We too must establish and be prepared to live by our conscience, no matter what others think. Note that Daniel and other faithful believers like David (Ps. 55:17; 119:164) prayed regularly, just as the incense (cp. prayer) was offered regularly. Regular prayer is a good discipline in the life of the believer, rather than praying only when we have the mood or in emergencies. Daniel was willing to die in justification of his habit of open, unashamed, regular prayer.


day_number: 28/10
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
The crowd were so fickle (5:26). They initially believed Jesus, cheering Him as He entered Jerusalem; then they turned against Him and shouted "Crucify Him!". And now they are again supportive of His cause. God wants stable, loyal hearts and not commitment which is blown about so easily because it has no root in His word.


day_number: 29/10
chapter_number_to: 27
text:
Uzziah is here condemned for doing what only the priests could do. However, David also did what only the priests (of the tribe of Levi) could do; but he was of the tribe of Judah and therefore not a priest (1 Chron. 15:27; 16:3). So we conclude that the same action can be sinful for one person but a sign of spiritual maturity in another. We need to bear this in mind when considering the behaviour of others, and try not to legislate against it in a legalistic manner but treat each case on its merits. We also learn from this that motive and not external action nor appearance are of ultimate importance to God. All our works need careful analysis once we grasp this point. It could be that Uzziah was trying to imitate David in acting as a priest when he wasn't; for 2 Kings 14:3 emphasizes that Uzziah did not do his good deeds in the spirit of David. It was all just an attempt to externally mimic a righteous man when the heart was far from spirituality; and God judges such hypocrisy very hard.


day_number: 29/10
text:
The saints will in some way be under persecution when Christ comes (Dan. 7:21,22). This may be yet future; or it could be that the colossal moral pressure upon true Christians from every angle which we now experience is in fact effectively persecution.


day_number: 29/10
text:
Stephen's point in :2 is that God had a relationship with Abraham when Abraham didn't even live in the land of Israel; and without any temple building. That relationship was based around the promises God gave him, of eternal inheritance of the land in the Kingdom of God, due to the work of his "seed", or descendant, who was to be Jesus. The essence of relationship with God is independent of a "temple", a church structure with all that goes with that.


day_number: 30/10
text:
The "rage" of sinful Israel against sinful Judah in 2 Chron. 28:9 was likely because they transferred their own sins onto their brethren, and then eagerly punished them for them. This psychological phenomenon explains why there is so much judgmentalism and anger against other members within the church. To avoid it, we must face up to our own sins, and believe that the judgment for them has truly been laid upon Jesus. We will therefore know our guilt to have been lifted and will not feel the need to transfer it onto others.


day_number: 30/10
text:
There are few Bible characters who use their own name so much- but Daniel is always calling himself "I, Daniel" (7:28; 8:1,15,27; 9:2; 10:2,7; 12:5), despite having been given a Babylonian name. His self-perception was very clearly that he was a Hebrew, and a witness to God's justice / judgment. Daniel has much to teach the man or woman caught up in the corporate life, the engrossing pull of business, education or social contact. His self-perception was that he was not of his surrounding world, even though those around him wanted to see him as one of them. And further, God Himself frequently addresses Daniel by his name- "Daniel". Daniel realized that this was how God perceived him; and he wished to perceive himself as God perceived him. And he didn't show one face to the world, and one to God. He openly showed himself to the world as he perceived himself, and he perceived himself as God perceived him. We too should show no shadow self to this world, no appearance; but the person whom we essentially are, and whom God perceives us as being. His children, His witnesses, His people.


day_number: 30/10
text:
People cannot hear the Gospel without a preacher (8:31; Rom. 10:14). There are people out there waiting for us to explain the Bible to them. Let's go to them.


day_number: 31/10
text:
We wonder how it could be that such an evil man as Ahaz had such a righteous son as Hezekiah. Perhaps the extreme sinfulness of Ahaz made Hezekiah reflect upon the wrongness of sin; perhaps Hezekiah was angry with his father for killing his brothers and sisters in sacrifice to stupid idols (28:3) and so he went the other way, as it were. Whatever, we learn that bad background doesn't force people into sin; Hezekiah had an awful spiritual background but he was righteous. We can't blame our sin on anything, including bad background.


day_number: 31/10
text:
Dan. 9:15 "We have sinned". So often in this prayer, Daniel associates himself with his sinful people. No matter how weak we perceive our fellow believers to be, we are part of the body of Christ as they are, and we cannot in this sense disassociate ourselves from them. When we see their sins, we should feel shame for the fact that the body of God's people behave like this, and ask God to forgive us.


day_number: 31/10
text:
Paul asks us to see his conversion as typical of that of us all (9:3; 1 Tim. 1:16). The blinding light of Christ has also shined in the darkness of our hearts (2 Cor. 4:6). And as with Paul, this is to radically affect our whole lives.


day_number: 01/11
text:
If we truly love God, we will not be minimalists, doing the minimum required by His word; we will joyfully go beyond, as in 2 Chron. 30:23. For His commandments are but a springboard to more total dedication by us on our own initiative. We need to ask, when was the last time we decided to do something for God as it were "extra", on our own initiative?


day_number: 01/11
text:
An Angel is sent from Heaven to earth for the sake of human words... The prayers of a man standing at a bus stop on earth can call forth cosmic action. This is the power of prayer, and the extent of God's sensitivity to us.


day_number: 02/11
text:
Several times in the record of Israel's history we have the feature of response to a call for donations far over what was required (e.g. 2 Chron. 24:10; 31:10). And yet the prophets emphasize that Israel never really quit idol worship and were constantly rebellious against Yahweh. We observe from this that there was a conscience toward God amongst them, and people love and need to be given some concrete way of serving God; generally, people lack initiative and need to have a structure given to them within which they can serve God. But we also see that it's far easier to give material things at one point in time than to give our hearts to God for a lifetime.


day_number: 02/11
text:
The rival kingdoms of men appear so powerful and stable, and are so confident- for a time. Chapter 2 has explained how human empires all pass off the scene, they cannot 'stand' for ever, they last only for a time, and will be finally replaced by God's eternal Kingdom when Christ returns. Regardless of the exact details of fulfilment, the chapter gives us the general impression of the vanity of human strength, how all human beauty fades to grey, earth's proud empires pass away, and only the things and people of God's eternal future Kingdom will ultimately stand for ever.


day_number: 02/11
chapter_number_to: 12
text:
Considering that Jesus had clearly commanded to go and preach to the Gentiles (Mk. 16:15,16), the early believers [who were all Jews] were very slow to grasp the fact that in Christ, Jew and Gentile now meant nothing (11:3). We too are at times very slow to grasp the most basic teachings of Jesus, because our culture and background is so against those teachings.


day_number: 03/11
text:
We see in 2 Chron. 32:12 the nature of Israel's apostasy. They hadn't rejected Yahweh totally, become atheists; rather they had proclaimed the pagan high places and altars as actually being Yahweh's, thus justifying pagan idol worship as if it were a form of Yahweh worship. Something similar happened when the pagan feast of December 25th and the worship of the evergreen tree was declared a Christian festival, and the pagan tree turned into the "Christmas tree". But we make the same mistake countless times, in justifying fleshly behaviour (e.g. anger, judgmentalism, gossip, pride, exclusivity, character destruction etc.) as a form of serving Yahweh.


day_number: 03/11
text:
Dan. 12:13 is a promise to Daniel of personal resurrection and receiving a specific place or "lot" in God's future Kingdom on earth. We shall each have our unique personal inheritance and role throughout eternity.


day_number: 03/11
text:
In Acts 13:18 God is called a "nursing-father". We see here the gentleness of God as He lead His people through the wilderness. After baptism we pass through the wilderness of life towards God's Kingdom... and God is so gentle in His leading.


day_number: 04/11
text:
Manasseh's father Hezekiah was a righteous man; his grandfather Ahaz a very wicked man. This just shows that spirituality isn't totally the result of our upbringing and background. We each stand as individuals before God and can overcome the influence of where we came from; and on the other hand, faithful parents are no guarantee of personal spirituality. It could be that Hezekiah in the last 15 years of his life was somewhat switched off from devotion to God, resting on his laurels and enjoying the good life in retirement. Whilst he didn't himself turn to other gods, this laid back attitude to the true God meant that his son turned away from Him.


day_number: 04/11
text:
Hos. 1:10 "Yet the number...". "Yet" is the challenging word. In the face of all Israel's sin, in the face of the inevitable judgment which this attracted, in the very moment when it is declared, God goes on to speak of His loving salvation. This is so hard for humans to take on board, called as we are to manifest this same grace of God. In the heat of the moment of others' sin against us, we rarely find it in us to think let alone speak of their ultimate hope of salvation by grace. But this is the challenge of Hosea.


day_number: 04/11
chapter_number_to: 15
text:
God opens doors to those who knock (Acts 14:27; Lk. 11:9). Maybe there had been Gentiles who had been begging for acceptance by God in His Messiah / Son, and so God worked through the persecution of the Jewish Christians, and in the life of Paul, to ensure that this happened. And He will send us today to open doors to people- if we pray daily for meetings with such people.


day_number: 05/11
text:
Jeremiah (Jer. 15:16) says that when this book was found, it was to him the joy of his heart and he as it were ate it. Yet the part of the Law which was found listed the judgments for disobedience and the explanation of the terms of the covenant (2 Chon. 34:31). He didn't regard these things as some might- the boring droning on of God about sin. Jeremiah perceived in it God's requirements and the blessings for obedience, and rejoiced in it all, as only one who truly loves God can do. Note that in the generations that didn't have access to this book of the Law, there were still people who pleased God greatly, including Josiah. And yet they did so in ignorance of all His word. We who have the completed word of God so conveniently accessible can come to think that therefore anyone without a complete knowledge of God's word on every point cannot please Him or have a relationship with Him. But this is clearly not the case; for those at Josiah's time and the generation before who were ignorant of parts of God's word could still please Him. However we who have God's completed word have a far higher level of responsibility before Him. It could also be argued that God revealed more of His word and requirements to Josiah in response to Josiah's zeal to do the right thing before God so far as he knew, as with Cornelius in the New Testament. Those who truly seek after God will have His true word revealed to them.


day_number: 05/11
text:
Hosea decides that he will withdraw this generosity from her, and then, he surmises, "she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband'" (2:7). This was Hosea's hope, and in his own mind, he put these words in her mouth. The hopefulness of Hosea was a reflection of the love he had for Gomer. And all this speaks eloquently of the hopefulness of the Almighty Father who thought "surely they will reverence My Son" when He sent Him. And He has this same eager hope for you and me.


day_number: 05/11
chapter_number_to: 17
text:
The Acts record emphasizes how "immediately" people were baptized, the same day they heard and believed the Gospel. The content of the Gospel wouldn't therefore have been presented in a very complicated nor lengthy manner. The vital importance of baptism is shown by how the family were baptized in the middle of the night, after an earthquake had struck, and with the prisoners able to escape. But they put God first; and all other things fell into place. And that is an abiding principle for our lives today.


day_number: 06/11
text:
"Serve Yahweh your God and His people". We serve God through serving His people; our attitude to them, our care for them, is effectively our attitude to the Lord, and will be the basis upon which we are judged at the last day (Mt. 25:40). We can't simply believe in God from the isolation of our own homes or computer screens, and not get involved with actively serving His people.


day_number: 06/11
text:
In the same way as Hosea had this plan to get Gomer to "return" to him, so God likewise planned that "afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh" (3:5). Both God and Hosea thought that their beloved would return if they distanced themselves from her (5:15). But it didn't work out like this. Both God with Israel and Hosea with Gomer ended up pleading with her to return (14:1); "yet they do not return to Yahweh their God, nor seek Him, for all this" (7:10). It was and is a tragedy. In our preaching to Israel and to humanity generally, we are pleading with them to accept this most unusual love. The pain of God, the way He is left as it were standing there as a tragic figure, like Hosea was, of itself inspires us to plead with people all the more passionately; and to respond ourselves, to be the loving woman to Him the ultimately faithful man.


day_number: 06/11
chapter_number_to: 19
text:
After seeing what happened to the sons of Sceva, it would appear that some who had 'believed' went up to a higher level of commitment (19:18. This would seem to imply that despite having 'believed', perhaps with the same level of shallow conviction as some 'believed' in the teaching of Jesus during His ministry, their faith wasn't so deep. They were taken up to an altogether higher level of commitment, resulting in 'confessing and declaring', and quitting their involvement with magic. There are levels up the ladder of faith and commitment. The language here seems to be intended to connect with the description of baptism in Mt. 3:6, where converts confessed and shewed their deeds at baptism. The way the Ephesians made their statement "before all men" again recalls the concept of baptism as a public declaration. Yet the Ephesians did all this after they had believed. It would seem that we are being invited to consider this as a re-conversion; and we can all go through such a process.


day_number: 07/11
text:
"Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus". Although God can work directly on the mind / spirit of people, Dan. 10:13 says that the Angel who brought this about was initially resisted by the king of Persia for 21 days. This amazing proclamation by Cyrus, to allow the Jews to return to their land with his blessing and rebuild their temple, was genuinely from him; and yet the Angel had worked through various ways to stir him up to it. The amount of Angelic activity going on behind the scenes in our lives and in the geopolitics of the world is amazing; God isn't indifferent nor inactive, but is ceaselessly at work to bring about His Kingdom plans for us His people.


day_number: 07/11
text:
Gilgal and Beth Aven were border towns between Judah and Israel. The nominally faithful people of Judah were slipping over the border to do quick idol worship and then returning, protesting their loyalty to Yahweh. This kind of hypocrisy can so easily be slipped into.


day_number: 07/11
text:
Paul felt so truly and absolutely forgiven that he could say that he was "pure from the blood of all men" (:26). Yet as he said that, he must surely have had the blood of Stephen on his mind, trickling out along the Palestinian dust, as the clothes of the men who murdered Stephen lay at Paul's feet as a testimony that he was responsible for it. But he knew his forgiveness. He could confidently state that he was pure from that blood. Righteousness had been imputed, the sin covered- because he was in Christ. And today we can feel the extent of that same wonderful covering of our sins and failures.


day_number: 08/11
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
The majority of Jews preferred to stay in Babylon. "The province" (singular) suggest that only a few Jews who lived in the province of Babylon returned (one out of 127 provinces), even though there were significant numbers of Jews in all the provinces, as the book of Esther makes clear (as also does Neh. 1:8, which says that the Babylonian captivity fulfilled God's prophecy to scatter Israel amongst all nations). Those who did return were very significant to God, and He has therefore recorded their names and numbers to the individual, even how many donkeys went with them- each one who returned was so special to Him, just as we will be if we respond to the call of the restored Kingdom and come out from 'Babylon'.


day_number: 08/11
text:
The way Hosea's final child is called Lo-ammi was because "you are not My people" (1:9). This suggests that although Hosea did presumably have sexual relations with Gomer, these children were not actually conceived from him- i.e. she was continuing her relations with other men; her conception of the children is said to have been "shameful" (2:5) because they were the result of her prostitution (2:4). He calls them "her children". Gomer appears to reason in 2:4 that the children were her lovers' payment to her for her sexual services. And in the parallel relationship between God and Israel, Israel were unfaithful to Yahweh and "begotten foreign children", whilst at the same time claiming to keep the sacrifices and Sabbaths of the Law (:6,7; 2:11). This would confirm that Gomer acted as Hosea's wife, assuring him of her faithfulness, in the same way as the sacrifices and Sabbaths were intended to reflect Israel's exclusive faithfulness to Yahweh. Our unfaithfulness to God is this painful for Him.


day_number: 08/11
chapter_number_to: 22
text:
Paul did indeed write in his letters that circumcision is of no spiritual meaning for the believer in Christ, regardless of whether we are Jews or Gentiles (e.g. 1 Cor. 7:19). But sometimes the way of Christian wisdom is to not insist upon principle, but to go along with the weakness or limited understanding of others (21:21).


day_number: 09/11
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Ezra 4:24 means that the work of rebuilding the temple was suspended for 21 years. This corresponds to the 21 days (a day representing a year) during which the Angel Gabriel worked on the prince of Persia to make him genuinely support the work of rebuilding, even though during that period the prince of Persia resisted him (Dan. 10:13). This was in response to Daniel's 21 days of prayer (Dan. 10:1,12). So although it may seem that God is distant and everything is in the hands of human rulers, in fact the Angels are actively at work, not forcing people to do what they don't want, but seeking to arrange circumstances so that they make the choices which favour God's work going forward. But because of this desire not to 'force' men, there are such delays. This is one way to explain the apparent silence of God at times in our lives, and the way that humanly, things can appear to 'go wrong'.


day_number: 09/11
text:
Hos. 6:6 "I desire... the knowledge of God". Israel and Gomer were "destroyed for lack of knowledge" (4:6). Yet they cried out that "My God, how we know You!" (8:2). Israel's attitude to the Law can so easily be our attitude to the principles of the Gospel, the New Covenant, in which we stand. We can 'know' it all, and externally keep it... but in reality not know it at all, focusing on the external sacrifices whilst knowing nothing of the God we supposedly worship. All this was exemplified by Gomer being an observant Jewess, whilst worshipping Baal and living a shameful life.


day_number: 09/11
chapter_number_to: 24
text:
Can we say that we have lived in good conscience with God (Acts 23:1)? But the Lord Jesus Himself informs us that Paul kicked against the pricks of his own conscience before his conversion (Acts 9:5). Maybe Paul perceived his 'life' to have begun at his conversion? We have a conscience which in God's eyes is cleansed of sin, knowing that our sin has been overcome once and for all, and that we have access to this through baptism. Our hearts were purified by that faith (Acts 15:9); we were cleansed from the conscience of sins (Heb. 9:14); all things became pure to us (Tit. 1:15; Rom. 14:20). This is a good conscience, Biblically defined. When Paul said he had a pure conscience before God, they smote him for blasphemy because there is an association between a clear conscience and perfection (Heb. 9:9; 10:14). A clear conscience therefore means an awareness that in God's eyes, we have no sin. Whilst we may still have twinges of guilt, and sins to confess, from God's viewpoint the slate is clean, and has been since our baptism. It is impossible to believe this without responding- we are purged in our conscience so that we might serve the living God (Heb. 9:14).


day_number: 10/11
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
The account of Judah's separation from the surrounding peoples (Ezra 6:21) reads similarly to that of the purges from idolatory during the reign of the kings. They separated / purged, and then, within a few years, we read of them doing so again. Initially, the exiles separated from the peoples of the land; by 9:1 they are in need of separating again; and by 10:11 likewise; then they separate (10:16), only to need another call to separation by the time of Neh. 9:2; 13:3. Our natures gravitate downwards, and any personal spiritual reformation we achieve has to be consciously maintained.


day_number: 10/11
text:
Sensitive Hosea remembered every unfaithfulness of Gomer (Hos. 7:2); and in this sense God too remembered every sin of His people. This is what makes His patience and grace all the more remarkable, given that He doesn't mentally function as human beings do, forgetting sins against us just because of the nature of our fading memory rather than because we have forgiven them.


day_number: 10/11
chapter_number_to: 26
text:
Why did Paul appeal to Caesar (Acts 25:11)? Maybe it was simply because he so wanted to go to Rome in order to spread Christianity at the very heart of the Roman empire. Maybe he was spiritually ambitious enough to think that he might be able to testify the Gospel to Caesar himself- and even convert him? After all, Paul prayed that King Agrippa would become a Christian (26:29). What are our ambitions today in the Lord's service?


day_number: 11/11
text:
Ezra went up to Jerusalem with his heart set on fulfilling God's word there (Ezra 7:10); and this was exactly the attitude of Jesus. It was evident from His body language that His heart was set upon going to Jerusalem to die there (Lk. 9:51,53). Ezra's single-minded focus upon his objective should be our pattern too; not gaining worldly wealth or honour, but rather the building up of God's house and people, and the things of His Kingdom.


day_number: 11/11
text:
Hos. 8:13 says "they will return to Egypt". Yet God says the very opposite in 11:5. We have God showing His extreme emotion, just as a betrayed and angry husband would- shouting threats one minute and then cancelling them out in expressions of deep love the next. The most hurt man on earth would, however, be nowhere near the pain and hurt felt by God Almighty at the unfaithfulness of His people. The huge extent of His love for Israel is reflected in the depth of His pain and the emotional nature of His outbursts. God has emotion and passion- for us, we who are but water, calcium and complex chemicals, specs of dust on the earth...


day_number: 11/11
text:
"Adramyttium" means 'the house of death' (:2). The whole journey can be understood as an allegory of our journey in Christ until the daybreak of God's Kingdom. We shall be preserved, even if we lose all things. And on the way, it often happens that those associated with us are blessed because of us, even if they are unbelievers (:28). Especially is this true of our children and partners (1 Cor. 7:14).


day_number: 12/11
text:
The returning exiles had been comforted by the prophetic word: "Fear not... I will help you" (Is. 41:10). Ezra was ashamed to ask for help against Judah's enemies, the implication being that he wanted that human help but was ashamed to ask for it from the King. He had initially believed those words of Isaiah, but found it hard to maintain that level of faith. We find ourselves so often in this situation as we struggle to believe God's promises in the midst of our secular lives.


day_number: 12/11
text:
God looked upon Israel as if they were perfect when they left Egypt (Hos. 9:10; Num. 23:21), even though they were not. He was in love with them, as He is with us, having counted His righteousness to us as we emerge from our Red Sea / baptism into Christ.


day_number: 12/11
text:
Paul, a relatively old man afflicted by a "thorn in the flesh", was the one out there gathering firewood- a wonderful example of service. Let us live in his spirit today (:3).


day_number: 13/11
text:
Ezra referred to the Jews in Babylon as those "bondservants... in bondage"- when historical records, as well as the book of Esther and the fact Nehemiah the Jew was the king's cupbearer, show that the Jews were very far from being servants in Babylonian society. Yet Ezra perceived the spiritual poverty and servanthood of remaining in that affluent society, compared to the freedom of giving it all up and going to rebuild the ruins of Zion.


day_number: 13/11
text:
Hos. 10:11 has God praising Israel for "Her beautiful neck" just as He utters judgment upon her. This isn't sarcasm, rather is it God recognizing the beauty of the woman He was having to judge. Such is His love even for those He has to reject. If God loves even those He rejects, how much more does He love us?


day_number: 13/11
text:
God arranges circumstances in our lives so that the essence of the sufferings of Jesus are experienced by us- so that we might also share in His resurrection life. Only in this sense can we begin to "rejoice in my sufferings" (1:24).


day_number: 14/11
text:
The suggestion to divorce their Gentile wives and send them away to their Gentile families, even with the children they had had by them (Ezra 10:44), was on their initiative. When there was a similar repentance about marriage out of the faith in Nehemiah's time, this wasn't done. There are degrees to which we can repent; the word 'repent' literally means a change of mind. Repentance is a matter of the heart, hence we can't judge others' repentance. But it will be articulated to different levels by different people. The fact there are different levels on which we can respond to God shouldn't encourage a spirit of minimalism within us, but rather a desire to serve Him on as high a level as we can.


day_number: 14/11
text:
Gomer must have lied to Hosea so much. Israel are criticized throughout his prophecy for just the same (Hos. 11:12). The untruthfulness became compulsive and obsessive: "he daily lies more and more" (12:1). Gomer would've lied about where she was going, about how she spent Hosea's money, about whose the children were...  The key proof of our spiritual sincerity is whether we are in the core of our beings truthful, both with our God and with ourselves.


day_number: 14/11
text:
For Paul, prayer was a striving with God (2:1)- based upon the example of Jacob wrestling with an Angel until his request was heard (Gen. 32:24,25; Hos. 12:4). It was not a rattling off of platitudes and the same old stock phrases.


day_number: 15/11
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
The urgency of 'fleeing' from Babylon was understood by Nehemiah; he speaks of those who had returned to the land as those who has "escaped" from Babylon (Neh. 1:2)- even though they had returned with every blessing from the authorities. He perceived as few did the  danger of remaining in the soft life of Babylon. The call to leave Babylon is used in the New Testament as the basis of the appeal to mentally leave this world and start a journey towards the restored Kingdom of God on earth at Christ's return.


day_number: 15/11
text:
Hos. 12:3 "In his maturity he had power with God". This suggests that Jacob reached spiritual maturity that night he wrestled with the Angel. To be that familiar with God that we can reason with Him, struggle with Him in prayer, seek to change His will over an illness or situation... this is spiritual maturity. It was by his prayer and tears that he had this "power with God" and in a sense prevailed over God's intention to slay him (:4). This whole characteristic of striving with God was memorialized in his new name: Israel, implying 'striver and prevailer with God and men'. And this must be the characteristic of Israel after the Spirit too.


day_number: 15/11
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Masters of slaves were not to think they were unaccountable to anyone (3:25; 4:1). Even if in some aspects of our lives and thinking we are free from being accountable to people- we are still accountable to God and He will repay us at the day of judgment, when Christ comes.


day_number: 16/11
text:
Goldsmiths and perfumers were hardly civil engineers and building site labourers; neither were the wealthy daughters of a ruler (Neh. 3:8.12). But God's work at times requires us to do what is quite against the grain of our natural inclination; resulting as it did here in men and women of totally different backgrounds, social positions and specialisms working together to do His work. It should be the same in the ecclesia of today.


day_number: 16/11
text:
Often in Hosea, God appeals to Israel to let Him be their 'king' (13:10). But there is a Hebraism whereby a husband is called the 'king' of his wife. God's appeal was reflected in Hosea's desire for Gomer to as it were re-marry him, to let him truly be her king / husband. And yet she felt like Israel: "What then should a king do [for] us?" (10:3). She was so selfish that she didn't see anything in it for her... when so much love was being offered to her. As it is to us.


day_number: 16/11
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
In 1 Thess. 2:7 the figure is of a wet nurse this time feeding her very own child. This was the tender, special care of Paul for his brethren, and it should be ours.


day_number: 17/11
text:
Is. 51:3-11 is clearly in a restoration context: "For Yahweh shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places... Hearken unto me, you that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law; fear not the reproach of men [the same word used in Neh. 1:3; 2:17; 4:4; 5:9 about the reproach of the Gentiles against the partially rebuilt Jerusalem], neither be afraid of their reviling". Insofar as Nehemiah and the Jews knew this prophecy, they would have taken great encouragement. But maybe they were unfamiliar with it, and yet still did the work, although lacking the encouragement which they could have had. Our familiarity with God's word becomes of great value when in a difficult situation we suddenly perceive how we are being spoken to directly by God's prophetic word.


day_number: 17/11
text:
Hosea's prophecy ends with God protesting His eternal love for Israel, and a description of them in the Kingdom, when they will have 'returned' to Him. Remember that the God / Israel relationship was a reflection of the Hosea / Gomer situation. I take this final, majestic section to be a reflection of Hosea's fantasy, his day dream, that one day Gomer would return to him and blossom as a person. For fantasies are all a part of true love. "From Me you will acquire fruit" (14:8) is perhaps his fantasy that somehow, this worn out woman with dry breasts and a miscarrying womb (9:14) would somehow one day still bear him children of their own, and that in him "the fatherless" [a reference to Gomer's illegitimate children] would find mercy in being accepted into the family (14:3). Hosea died with his dream unfulfilled. God's fantasy for them will be fulfilled through a new Israel. If the latter, and we are that new Israel, then we can imagine what passionate joy the Father finds in our bumbling attempts to respond to Him and be His loyal and faithful wife. Whatever, the simple fact is that it all reflects an amazing grace, an ineffable love... and this God is our God, and Hosea who reflected all this is truly a pattern for ourselves in daily life. The very existence of such passionate love for us, love beyond reason, carries with it an inevitable warning as to our responsibilities.


day_number: 17/11
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
If our self-examination reveals that we are loving toward others, we shouldn't be complacent. Love by its nature grows and grows. Are our lives characterized by ever increasing love (4:10)? In 4:11, "aspire" translates a Greek word means 'to be ambitious'. In spiritual reality, our ambition should be for spiritual growth and not material things.


day_number: 18/11
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
"Why should the work cease?" (Ezra 6:3). This should be our perspective in such times of conflict; cries of unity and reconciliation can be used as a mantra to make God's work cease, and we shouldn't be afraid to see them for what they are. The way the opponents of God's work created a false allegation- that Nehemiah was setting himself up as king- and then tried to blackmail him over it (Ezra 6:7,8) is typical of what happens in these situations. We can simply insist we are telling the truth and not be afraid to name false accusation for what it is (Ezra 6:8).


day_number: 18/11
text:
If we lose joy, we have lost our faith. It was the same with Israel. "The vine [of Israel is] withered... for joy is withered"; the people of God were to be a people of joy, and when their joy was no more, they were no longer God's people; for "joy and gladness" were cut off from the house of God (:16). The experience of joy is the litmus test for a community of God's people. This thought gives rise to some sober self-examination, especially for those who may have come to feel that 'holding the faith' is a matter of glumly trudging onwards through this evil world, grimly gripping hold of our faith as we bemoan the state of those around us. To hold on to the Faith is described as holding on to the rejoicing of the hope unto the end (Heb. 3:6).


day_number: 18/11
text:
"The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night" (5:2). The Lord comes as a thief to the unready (:4; Mt. 24:43; Lk. 12:39; Rev. 3:3). The argument is: You don't need to know the day nor the hour; just watch, be aware of the Lord and eager for His return at all times. This would explain why Paul writes as if the Lord's return was imminent when it wasn't in reality. We are to live, as part of the Christian faith, in expectation of His coming at any moment, regardless of any other indicators in prophetic fulfilment which might encourage us that His coming is near. We are to be watchful exactly because we do not and cannot know the exact date of the Lord's return: "Watch therefore; for you know not what hour your Lord does come" (Mt. 24:42).


day_number: 19/11
text:
Comparing the list of names in the list of returnees in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7, we find that a number of names recur in both lists, e.g. Bazluth (Ezra 2:52; Neh. 7:54). It could be that some went from Babylon to Judah with Ezra, then returned to Babylon, and returned with Nehemiah. This hardly sounds like the glorious, positive, confident return of the captives to Zion prophesied in the restoration prophecies. Like us at times, God's people lost their nerve in quitting this world and dedicating themselves to the things of His Kingdom.


day_number: 19/11
text:
Despite having spoken as if God's judgment was inevitably going to come, Joel knew that God can state things and then change His planned judgments because He is so sensitive to human repentance. And so Joel calls for a fast, and for absolutely everyone in the community to repent and beg God for mercy. Even those in the process of marriage were to break off the ceremony (:16) and come to a special assembly (:15) to beg God to change His mind. Joel was so certain that God's prophetic word would be fulfilled that he appealed to people with such urgency and insistence to repent, so that the prophesied judgments wouldn't happen to them. Our belief in God's word will likewise motivate our witness and impart a spirit of urgency to it which we couldn't have if we weren't so convinced that the prophecies will come true.


day_number: 19/11
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
The fact we experience tribulation is a sure token that we are in fact going to be accepted into God's Kingdom (1;5); for through such tribulation we have to enter the Kingdom (Acts 14:22).


day_number: 20/11
text:
In Neh. 8:10 they were to "Send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared". The receipt of forgiveness from God should lead to our being materially generous to others. Hence Paul urges the Corinthians to be materially generous to their poorer brethren because of God's grace to them, thus making a play on the fact that the Greek word translated "grace" essentially means a gift. God's gift of forgiveness to us leads to our giving to others.


day_number: 20/11
text:
The basis of judgment will be how individuals have treated God's people, both natural and spiritual Israel (Joel 3:2). Jesus was very clear that how we treat the least of His brothers or sisters is how we treat Him, and He will judge people on this basis (Mt. 25:40).


day_number: 20/11
text:
"Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified" (:1). Paul's frequent requests for prayer show his need, vulnerability and equality with his converts. We ought to unashamedly ask others for their prayers if we too believe that the prayers of third parties really can influence our path and the success of our preaching work. The word of the Lord was glorified when people believed it (Acts 13:48), but Paul believed that the prayers of others could somehow influence whether individuals believed it or not.


day_number: 21/11
text:
The account of Judah's separation from the surrounding peoples reads similarly to that of the purges from idolatry during the reign of the kings. They separated / purged, and then, within a few years, we read of them doing so again. Initially, the exiles separated from the peoples of the land (Ezra 6:21); by Ezra 9:1 they are in need of separating again; and by Ezra 10:11 likewise; then they separate (Ezra 10:16), only to need another call to separation by the time of Nehemiah 9:2; 13:3. Our spiritual progress often has too much of this kind of pseudo repentance associated with it.


day_number: 21/11
text:
The reasons for the judgments are all because of what people did to other people. Human treatment of others is the basis for God's judgment. We also learn from this chapter that God noticed how Gentiles treated other Gentiles. He doesn't just ignore the unbelievers, zoning out on their actions and issues with each other. His sensitivity to human sin, and His total knowledge of all that goes on in this world, His reading of every motive behind every action, is simply colossal. It should encourage us that we are not alone in this world; the amazing knowledge of God means we can thereby feel His presence. The reference to "For three transgressions... and for four" can be read as meaning that God doesn't switch off, as it were, after the third sin; He is sensitive also to the fourth. He doesn't simply write people off as 'sinners' after a certain amount of sin; He keeps noticing their behaviour and the hurt of their sin continues growing within Him.


day_number: 21/11
chapter_number_to: 3
text:
Our service of others of itself develops our faith (3:13). This is an example of the upward spiral in spiritual life; years of humble service make faith deeper, which in turn motivates us to more service.


day_number: 22/11
text:
The people "separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters... they joined with their brothers". Close fellowship with our brethren arises from having gone out from the surrounding world and being separated unto the things of God's word. The Hebrew idea of "holiness" carries the idea of being separated from the things of this world unto the things of God. We see that happening here; separation isn't a merely negative idea. The separation is positively unto other things.


day_number: 22/11
text:
Am. 2:11 says that "I raised up... Nazirites". Becoming a Nazirite was totally voluntary. Yet God works through our freewill and will confirm us in whatever freewill decisions for Him which we make this day.


day_number: 22/11
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
A spiritual life not only gives us hope of eternal life, but gives us blessing in this life. But the things of the Gospel can't be a hobby, something we show occasional enthusiasm for. We are to give ourselves to them "wholly" (4:8,15).


day_number: 23/11
text:
The city was large and great, but the people who returned from Babylon were few who lived in it, and the houses weren't rebuilt there (cp. Neh. 7:4). When "the time to favour Zion" came, at the end of the 70 years, God's servants were to "take pleasure in her stones, and favour [even] the dust thereof"; and then, "when the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory" (Ps. 102:13-16). But the few Jews who returned chose not to live in Jerusalem, preferring to carve out for themselves farmsteads in the countryside, and the strength of those that shifted the rubble in Jerusalem decayed... they saw her dust and scattered stones as a nuisance, and didn't take pleasure in them (4:10). And so the Lord could not then appear in glory. Short term attitudes, satisfied with our little lives and homes, rather than the bigger picture of God's glory, a failure to perceive our potential as individuals and as a community- this is what limits so many possibilities which God has potentially enabled. God was therefore especially sensitive to those who had the faith to live in Jerusalem, and for millennia He has recorded their names and brought them before Bible readers- hence the detailed list of their names in this chapter. Note that the list of names of those who lived in the towns outside Jerusalem isn't so detailed (Neh. 11:25-33).


day_number: 23/11
text:
The lion has roared: who shall not fear? God has spoken: who can but speak forth? If a lion roars, so a man naturally fears as a result of it. God speaks, and just as naturally we can do nothing but speak it forth. Hence the hearers are to publish God's purpose to the Gentile nations around them. The lion roars, and man fears; and we are set up to expect: God speaks, and man should fear. But there is an intended dashing of this expectation. God has spoken, just as the lion may roar; but we are not to fear but rather to speak it forth to others. If we believe that the Bible is indeed the inspired word of God, if we hear that voice of Yahweh, we will inevitably speak it forth to others. Hence Peter says that he could never agree not to speak forth God's word, because to do so is a natural process for the believer (Acts 4:20).


day_number: 23/11
text:
As our societies become increasingly money based, "love of money" (:10)is a temptation for our generation as never before. "Pierced themselves through" is the language of crucifixion. We must be crucified one way or the other- either with Christ, or in trying to amass wealth. Suffering with Christ therefore becomes the logical choice.


day_number: 24/11
text:
Ez. 48:31-34 envisaged the 12 gates of Jerusalem being named after the 12 tribes of Israel. But it seems no accident that twelve separate gates of the city are mentioned in the restoration record- but they weren't renamed after the tribes of Israel. Here are the names of the city gates in Nehemiah: valley (3:13); horse (3:28); east (3:29); Miphkad / muster (3:31); water (8:16); dung (12:31); fountain (12:37); Ephraim, old, fish, sheep and prison gates (12:39). No wonder some wept when the rebuilt temple was finally dedicated- the pattern of Ezekiel's vision hadn't been followed, even on such basic matters as the names of the twelve gates of Jerusalem. They could have renamed them, but lacked the willingness to see God's prophetic word as relevant in detail to their lives, just as we can wish to constantly place a distance between God's word, the black print on white paper, and our lives today.


day_number: 24/11
text:
Nothing in the natural creation is static; although the mountains may appear so permanent and lifeless, God is forming them in an ongoing sense (Am. 4:13). God's ongoing, unceasing work in the natural creation is the constant comfort that we are not alone.


day_number: 24/11
text:
Paul writes to so many that he prays for them constantly (e.g. 1:3). This means he must've spent much of his time in prayer for others, both individuals and groups. Do we? We commit things to God in prayer (:12), and He commits things to us (:14). There thus develops a mutuality between God and man.


day_number: 25/11
text:
Is. 60:10,11 had foretold: "And the sons of strangers shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister unto you [as happened in the decree of Cyrus]...Therefore your gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night"; and then as Ez. 43 had also described, "I will glorify the house of My glory" (Is. 60:7). But due to the Jews' abuse of the Sabbath and their refusal to believe Yahweh would be the promised wall of protecting fire to them, the gates could not be open continually, and had to be shut at night (see too Neh. 7:3). And Antiochus quite soon after Nehemiah's time destroyed them [which shows how the spirituality involved in what we do, e.g. the building of the wall, is the essential thing, rather than the achievement of anything in itself]. The implication of the prophecies about Zion's open gates was that whosoever wished could then come at any time to seek Yahweh. But men were potentially turned away from Him, and His Kingdom not realized... just because greedy, materialistic Jews wanted to have a few more coins in their pocket as a result of their trading on the Sabbath. And so with us, our meanness towards God's word, our selfishness, our desire to have more than we need to cover us in the case of any eventuality, all this effectively shuts up the Kingdom against men. If the Pharisees could do just this, it is possible for us to do it. The salvation of others has been delegated into our hands.


day_number: 25/11
text:
Peace offerings were freewill offerings of devotion to God. We can make them and other sacrifices to God, worship God enthusiastically (:23), keep the feasts solemnly (:21- cp. the breaking of bread meeting)- and yet God will be irritated by these things and angry with us if at the same time we are guilty of injustice to others (:24 and most of the chapter). Justice and not being harmful to others is of such paramount value to God.


day_number: 25/11
text:
If we "consider" God's word, He will confirm our efforts by giving us the understanding we seek. But we must reflect upon the Bible and life, rather than being unthinking and superficial (:7).


day_number: 26/11
text:
The language here is exactly that used about God's tabernacle and temple. The cups used in Esther 1:7 may well have been those taken from Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem (Jer. 52:19; Dan. 5:2). The Persian empire is therefore being presented as a fake Kingdom of God on earth. God's people living there had to break from it and obey the command to return to the desolate land of Judah and rebuild God's true Kingdom there. We have the same call in responding to the Gospel today, in leaving this world, which appears to be God's Kingdom but isn't, and take the hard, self-sacrificial journey in life towards His true Kingdom which will be re-established on earth at Christ's return. "His glorious kingdom" (:4) uses the same two Hebrew words as in Ps. 145:11,12, where we read [in a Psalm that may well have been written or used by the righteous remnant in Babylon] that it is Yahweh God of Israel who has a Kingdom of glory, and who ultimately hears the cry of His people in distress, as Ahasuerus did. The Kingdom of Media and Persia had books in which the good and bad deeds of the citizens were written (10:2); and so in the one true Kingdom, there are 'books' from which the ultimate King will judge His people. Clearly, the Kingdom of Ahasuerus is being set up as an anti-Kingdom of God, with an antichrist figure ruling it, faking the Kingdom of God.


day_number: 26/11
text:
The situation described here before the "day of the Lord" in those days is exactly the situation today. Self-indulgence, laziness, over sleeping, over eating, brainwashed by music and ignoring the needs of others, whilst psychologically putting the reality of God's judgment far away (:3)- this is the spirit of our age, and it heralds the final day of the Lord.


day_number: 26/11
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Persecution shouldn't surprise us (3:12). It may not involve physical suffering, but in some sense, the unbelieving world will persecute us. Just as happened to Paul. Paul's life and character are set up for us in the Bible as our pattern (:10)- not just something to be historically studied, plotting where he went on a map, viewing him as a mere historical figure.


day_number: 27/11
text:
So much of later Isaiah is taken up with mockery and criticism of the Babylonian gods and the Marduk cult. The book of Esther, with Mordecai as the joint hero, named as he was after Marduk, demonstrates how caught up were the Jews with the Babylonian gods. 'Esther' in Persian means 'star' and appears a reference to Ishtar or to the Persian stara, or 'star', the Babylonian goddess of love. Even her Hebrew name Hadassah means 'myrtle', a tree which is a native of Babylon, not Israel. Ezekiel repeatedly reveals the idolatry of the Jewish captives. Isaiah was therefore an appeal for the Jews to quit the Marduk cult and believe in the radical prophecies about the overthrow of Babylon. The situation is analogous to how the New Testament is full of references to the Roman imperial cult of empire worship. So much of the Bible is like Isaiah and the New Testament- a radical, counter-cultural call to see our present world for what it is, and to perceive that the ways of God simply can't be mixed in, watered down or compromised with the way of this world.


day_number: 27/11
text:
God reveals His intention regarding Israel, but then Amos makes a case against this and is heard. In fact, these and other examples suggest that this is almost a pattern with God- to devise His purpose, and then in the 'gap' until its fulfilment, be open to the persuasion of His covenant people to change or amend those plans. This could be what 3:7 is speaking of: "Surely the Lord Yahweh will do nothing, unless He first reveals His secret to His servants the prophets". It's as if He reveals His plans to them so that they can then comment upon them in prayer. And we are His servants who can likewise talk to Him about His stated purposes.


day_number: 27/11
text:
The giving of Jesus in His death makes us "zealous of good works" in that the sensitive, reflective believer cannot be passive to the cross of Christ. We have to respond in practice to such love and grace (2:14). But are we ready to good works, whenever the opportunities present themselves, whether the timing is convenient or not (3:1)?


day_number: 28/11
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
It's apparent that the Jews were no longer sitting weeping by the rivers of Babylon, but had become influential and wealthy throughout the empire- hence Haman's desire to kill and plunder them. The vast sum he offered to the King for permission to do this was presumably on the basis that a percentage of the plunder would be given to the King; for Herodotus estimated Haman's offer to approximate to two thirds of the annual income of the Persian empire. The only way he could realistically have offered this would've been on the basis that the Jews were wealthy and he would totally plunder them. Hence when the whole plan was reversed, the Jews were allowed to plunder their enemies (8:11). They certainly didn't take any wealth with them into captivity; they must have experienced meteoric prosperity and success in all their business dealings. Hence their desire to materially support the exiles who wished to return, but most of them were too caught up in the good life to heed the call to come out from Babylon / Persia. And we, faced with that same call in these last days, must enquire whether we're not the same.


day_number: 28/11
text:
"I will not again change My mind about them" (Am. 8:2) Implies that Amos had successfully persuaded God to change His mind, but God says He will do so no more. And yet even then, there were changes in His plans, influenced always by His passionate desire to save at least some. The Divine statement here is proof enough that God does change His mind, as we see clearly in His altering of purpose regarding Israel's destruction (Num. 14:34) and that of Nineveh. He is only unchanging in His essential grace, in that the sons of Jacob are not consumed when they ought to be (Mal. 3:6). We really can engage with God in prayer and seek to change or affect how His purpose works out.


day_number: 28/11
text:
Paul acted as if his prayers for deliverance for prison were going to be answered- so much so that he, a prisoner, asks someone to prepare a room for him to stay in when he next visits (:22). This is the principle of Mk. 11:24- to act and feel as if we have already received what we are asking for.


day_number: 29/11
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
When Esther's nerve failed and she cops out of making her request by asking the King and Haman to come to a banquet, she finds herself saying: "Let the King come with Haman today" (Esther 5:4). The Hebrew text reads: "Ybw' Hmlk Whmn Hywm"- the first letters of those four Hebrew words spells YHWH, the Name of God which never occurs in the book of Esther. Truly God's strength is made perfect in human weakness. In that very moment of failure, the cop out, God was revealed in His essence. And He proceeded to work through the element of suspense which her request created... to pique the King's desire to help, and to raise Haman's pride at having been invited, so that he would act even more foolishly, leading to his downfall. It could also be noted that Esther's entire intercession could so easily have been spoilt if Haman had suspected her machinations against him. But he didn't; he felt very honoured to have been invited by Esther to the banquet, and he boasted about it. In other words, Esther concealed her true feelings towards him. And where did she learn to do that? Surely in a lifetime of concealing her true Jewish identity and religious feelings, when actually she shouldn't have done so.


day_number: 29/11
text:
Acts 15:14 speaks of God visiting the Gentiles, and quotes Am. 9:12 about the Gentiles seeking the Lord as proof of this. God is in search of man, and some men are in search of Him. They meet in that moment of baptism into His Name as it is in His Son, and the union is a wonderful and eternal one.


day_number: 29/11
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
God cannot be tempted (James 1:13), He has no possibility of sinning. But Jesus had temptation in a meaningful, legitimate sense- in that He had the real possibility to sin. As we waver between turning to the right or left when we are faced with temptation today, remember Jesus. Bearing our same nature, He turned always to the right (2:18). He is thereby not just a saviour from sin, but an inspiration not to sin.


day_number: 30/11
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
Esther made her request for "my life... my people" in parallel (Esther 7:3); and when her own safety was assured, she didn't just relax and mop her brow with relief, she went on to petition for them- with all the risks this involved for her (see too 8:3). We can't possibly just rejoice in our own salvation, that we have found the Lord and are secured in Him; if we have truly experienced this, we will wish to share it with others.


day_number: 30/11
text:
Pride, indifference to others' pain even though it is a judgment for their sins, resentment, feelings of superiority... These mental attitudes, rather than the many other sins of Edom, were what so angered God.


day_number: 30/11
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
Our baptism is like leaving Egypt, crossing the Red Sea and entering the wilderness journey with Israel (1 Cor. 10:1). All that happened to them there, especially their failures, becomes a warning to us (3:17). It's no bad thing to have a sense of the future we may miss if we turn away. For the Hebrews, that meant turning back to reliance upon their own works and legal obedience (4:1).


day_number: 01/12
chapter_number_to: 10
text:
Ezekiel had prophesied that those who survived the famine and invasion of Judah would go into captivity, "and I will draw out a sword after them" (Ez. 5:2,12). We would expect from this that the exiles would be persecuted and slain in captivity, and this surely was God's intended judgment. But in Esther we find the exiles in prosperity, in positions of power and respected by their captors; and Jeremiah concludes his prophecy with the information that Jehoiachin, Judah's exiled King, was exalted "above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon" and he was given special favour and honour by the King of Babylon (Jer. 52:31-34). We can only understand these things as pure grace. God showed tenderness and favour to His people in captivity, far above what He had intended or what they deserved. And He does the same with us- He gives us so much more than we deserve. And yet most of Judah abused that grace; they were so taken up with the good life God gave them in captivity that they chose to remain there and not participate in the restoration. And we so easily can end up abusing His grace likewise. In this sense the book of Esther has a sad ending- the Jews are even more popular, even richer. Our loving Father gives us as His children what we beg Him for materially- but so often, it's not for our good spiritually. God must be so torn- between giving us what we want, what we whine for, what humanly we obviously need and would desperately like to have... and yet knowing that this is not for our spiritual good. We wonder what happened to Esther. Ahasuerus was slain soon after the events of the book of Esther- typically, the wife and supporters of the King would've been slain or persecuted. Was this not another prod from God for Esther and Mordecai to return to Judah?


day_number: 01/12
text:
We can't escape the call- God will repeat it to us through life's circumstances, even through our very efforts to avoid the call. The obvious lesson is to willingly and in love respond to the calls we receive, rather than go through the agonies of seeking to avoid them.


day_number: 01/12
chapter_number_to: 7
text:
Jesus "offered up Himself" (7:27)- He was both priest and sacrifice. This indicates how in control He was of the situation as He died, despite the evident pain and distress He was under. We too can be in control of situations rather than being railroaded into sin by them. And when we fail, His sacrifice can atone for us, because He was tempted like we are, but didn't sin.


day_number: 02/12
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
We learn here that God can bring suffering into the lives of His children for reasons other than because they have sinned. There is no direct relationship between sin and suffering in this life; for the wicked often prosper. The day of judgment and reward for how life has been lived is ultimately at the final day of judgment when Christ returns. As Job struggles with the question of 'Why suffering?', he is progressively driven to a clearer understanding of the future day of judgment and resurrection of the dead to get the reward which God's justice requires. Thus he was driven by experience and reflection on life to the doctrinal truths which are made explicit in the New Testament. Job begins the book presented as a complete spiritual person and he ends the book presented the same way. The reason for suffering isn't always so that we personally may develop through it; in Job's case, it was so that others would learn principles, not least the friends and the 'satan' character, and us the readers of subsequent generations. Some experiences and sufferings we have are perhaps more for the benefit of others who are observing, rather than for our own development.


day_number: 02/12
chapter_number_to: 3
text:
Jonah knew his Bible well; his poem is absolutely full of references to the Psalms. And yet Ps. 139 had clearly stated that we cannot flee anywhere from God's presence; for even in the deep sea, He will find us. Jonah knew this; and yet he didn't know it. He had to learn what this meant in practice. And so, incident by incident, blow by blow, our theoretical knowledge is turned into flesh, into reality for us; for the same God who worked so hard in Jonah's life is at work in ours.


day_number: 02/12
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
Blood was required for the forgiveness of sins, so animals had to be offered. But there were cases where the Law of Moses stipulated that if someone was too poor to offer an animal, they could offer grain or flour. Hence "almost" in Heb. 9:22. This shows how although God respects His own principles, He is so eager to grant forgiveness and have fellowship with people, even if their personal circumstances preclude them from serving Him in the way He ideally requires.


day_number: 03/12
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
"Whoever perished, being innocent?" (Job 4:7). The friends were reasoning from the position that suffering only comes as a punishment for sin; and therefore, they concluded, Job must have been a huge secret sinner. Therefore they laid false guilt upon him, and urged him to repent for things he hadn't done. We too live in a world which often loads us with false guilt. We must take guilt for our actual sins, and allow the reality of our personal relationship with God to free us from the false guilt others wish to place upon us. The righteous remnant in exile had struggled with the question of how the righteous had perished in the Babylonian invasion (Is. 57:1), and the book of Job was an answer to their struggle over this.


day_number: 03/12
text:
God created a great wind with which He brought Jonah and his fellows to their knees in 1:4. God here creates another great wind with which to teach Jonah something else. Jonah ought to have perceived the same hand of the same God at work with him. Jonah's life "ebbed away" inside the fish (2:7)- and a very similar word is used here in 4:8 about his experience as he sat under the vine. In the fish, Jonah prayed that God would save his life, and was heard. But when he was made to feel the same again, he instead prayed God to take away his life. Perhaps this shows that even when we respond well to circumstances, those same circumstances may repeat in order to test us as to whether we will continue to make that right response.


day_number: 03/12
text:
God does state in the Old Testament that He forgave people their sins when they offered sacrifice. They were forgiven not because God was pleased with the blood as red liquid (Heb. 10:14); but on account of the fact that it pointed forward to the future sacrifice of Christ, and because it showed they recognized that sin brings death. By placing their hand on the head of the sacrifice, they accepted it as their representative. This is what we do in baptism, and continue to do so by a life lived in open identity with Him our sacrifice.


day_number: 04/12
text:
"His children are far from safety" (Job 5:4). The friends often allude to Job's situation in describing the fate of the wicked. They assumed that because Job's children had been killed, therefore he was wicked. This kind of indirect hitting on a person is very hurtful; when we experience it, we can think of Job.


day_number: 04/12
text:
Rolling naked in the dust... this was the extent of Micah's passion for the repentance of his audience. Our preaching isn't to be an emotionless publicity campaign for our denomination or local church, but a passionate appeal for real response. Indifference, lack of passion, is the besetting tragedy of our age. When did you last really shed tears? When were you moved, really wrenched in your gut, by the suffering of others, by the sin of this world, your own sin, your part in humanity's tragic rejection of God...  when did you last feel for God in His pain, as He sees His beloved children and creation walk away from Him day after day, second after second? When did you last feel ecstatic joy, deep sadness... in this post-modern world of surface level emotion? It's in all this that the words of the prophets and their personal nature as people challenge us- and their spirit is to be the spirit of our testimony to Jesus in this world (Rev. 19:10).


day_number: 04/12
text:
Noah so believed God's word that he could imagine the future flood (:1,7), although at the time he had never seen rain. His faith and related imagination was so vivid that he feared greatly and therefore built the ark. Our faith therefore involves likewise imagining outcomes yet unseen- and acting accordingly.


day_number: 05/12
chapter_number_to: 7
text:
Job excuses himself in Job 6:3 by saying that his rash words were an inevitable result of the situational pressure upon him; he likens himself to a donkey who inevitably neighs when there is no grass (:5). Yet seeing the situations came from God, this was effectively blaming God for his failure. We must recognize that sin isn't inevitable. We can only blame ourselves, not the situations which we have caved in to.


day_number: 05/12
text:
The apostles were likewise ordered not to preach as in Mic. 2:6, but their response was that it was impossible for them to keep quiet about God's word as it was in Christ (Acts 5:28). We cannot but share God's word with others if it really has a place in our hearts (Am. 3:8).


day_number: 05/12
text:
Heb. 12:5-11 teaches that suffering comes from God, and in the context of Christian life it is given in order to develop us spiritually. The idea that good things come from God and bad things from Satan is therefore wrong. Nothing is chance or bad luck in our lives. God is in control and all negative things occur for our ultimate good as believers. This takes some faith to accept. Our ultimate hope is to "see the Lord" (:14). Job in the Old Testament rejoiced in this same hope- that in the very end, he would see God face to face (Job 19:26).


day_number: 06/12
text:
In Job 8:8-10, Bildad emphasizes the view of traditional wisdom; and one theme of Job is that traditionally accepted ideas about God are shown by His word and by actual experience to be wrong. Bildad insists that Job must have sinned because traditional wisdom taught that calamity is always the result of sin. We see here how wrong understandings lead to damaged personal relationships and tragic misjudgements in practice.


day_number: 06/12
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
God assembles the nations to judge / thresh them, but they assemble themselves (Mic. 4:11,12).This is part of a large Biblical theme- that those who are judged in fact judge themselves. The only ones who will be rejected by God are those who themselves don't wish to be in His Kingdom. What a comfort!


day_number: 06/12
text:
Heb. 13:3 is a high challenge- to be so closely connected with our brethren that we feel their sufferings as if they are happening to us. This is what Jesus does for us. It isn't true that Jesus was loving and mild when on earth, but will return in angry judgment. The Jesus who loved children, with whom fallen men and women felt at ease, the sinners' friend, who delighted in grace and forgiveness... is the same Jesus who now looks down upon us, and whom we shall meet at the day of judgment (:8).


day_number: 07/12
text:
"I know that You..." (Job 9:28). Note the change of pronoun. As Job talks about God as "He" in replying to Bildad, he moves on to address himself directly to God (see too 16:5-7). Dialogue with others about our faith and turmoils often leads to our direct approach to Him in a way which would never have happened if we'd not bothered to have that dialogue but stored all these things up internally.


day_number: 07/12
text:
The Lord Jesus was to be smitten with rods (Mic. 5:1), and He was (Mk. 14:65). Perhaps it was in this sense that the rod comforted Messiah (Ps. 23:4) in that He saw immediately that prophecy was being fulfilled in Him. Our darkest moments likewise can be our greatest encouragement if only we perceive them as we should. As men mocked Him and smote Him, thus they were treating their judge at the time of judgment. In His time of dying, the Lord Jesus was the judge of Israel. This explains why when we come before the cross, not only at the breaking of bread but whenever we reflect upon Him and His death, we are in some sense coming before Him in judgment.


day_number: 07/12
text:
Sin and temptation come from within; we are tempted by our own desires, not by any cosmic being called Satan (1:14,15). We are therefore totally responsible for our sin, and the result of sin is therefore quite rightly death. Don't shift that responsibility today. Don't blame circumstances, nor reason that spiritual failure is inevitable. The word of God is likened to seed (:18). This is what has the power to birth the spiritual man within us. We should therefore be quick to hear it (:19).


day_number: 08/12
text:
"Again You show Yourself wonderful to me" (Job 10:16).  Job felt as we sometimes do that one moment God is tender and gracious, but the next almost violent and rough with us. But this is only because we fail to perceive the full picture of God.


day_number: 08/12
text:
Micah comes to the point where he would fain make sacrifice for Israel, even to the point of offering his firstborn son, so strongly did he take upon himself the sins of his people. But he tells Israel that even this will be no good; they must repent themselves, for God doesn't work on the basis of substitution but representation. In all this, Micah came close to the spirit of the Father and Son. For the Father would give His firstborn for their sin.


day_number: 08/12
text:
The teaching in 2:26 of works being required to show faith is no contradiction here with Paul's teaching of justification by faith without works. If we really believe that by God's grace we shall surely be saved, on the basis of His grace alone, then we cannot be passive to this; if we really believe this, we will concretely do something in response to such total grace.


day_number: 09/12
text:
In Job 11:10, Zophar claims: "If He... convenes a court... who can oppose Him?". Job disagreed. He felt as did Moses and others that we can enter dialogue with God, disagree with Him, ask Him to change His mind. Zophar is reasoning from the perspective that all we can do is to submit to God, in an almost Islamic sense. Yet God thirsts for relationship with us; and therefore we can reason with God, even in the court of Heaven.


day_number: 09/12
text:
In the day of judgment, people will be ashamed of the size of their "might" (Mic. 7:16), their bank accounts, the trust they put in investments, influential people, wealth, bodily strength. All human advantage will be despised- and we must live in that spirit today.


day_number: 09/12
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Our words really can lead us to eternal condemnation (3:6); for by our words we will be either condemned or saved (Mt. 12:37). The control of our thinking and words is so utterly vital; and it is these things which are the essence of Christianity.


day_number: 10/12
text:
Job 12:3 "I am not inferior to you" shows how Job refused to take false guilt, nor to feel himself inferior to those who accused him of sinning and who insisted he take their advice and adopt their perspectives. He realized that those who were trying to push him down beneath them were mere men like him. We too at times have to consciously refuse to be psychologically pushed down beneath others.


day_number: 10/12
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
"The feet of him" (Nah. 1:15) is a prophecy about Christ which is quoted in Rom. 10:15 about our preaching, but with a subtle change of pronoun: "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach". We are the Lord Jesus to this world, because we are brethren in Him. This alone is a powerful imperative as to who we are, how we speak, the men and women we show ourselves to be.


day_number: 10/12
text:
Even when it seemed God wasn't answering Job's prayers nor helping him, He was in fact very pitiful of Job (:11). He is of us too.


day_number: 11/12
text:
There are wonderful words in Job 13:15: "Even if He slays me, still I will trust in Him". The language of 'slaying' takes us back to the Mosaic commands about how a 'slayer' of a man might be killed by the 'avenger of blood' (Dt. 19:6). Job saw God as slaying him; yet he also sees God as the 'witness' in the case (16:19), and the avenger of Job's blood (19:25). Job even asks God to not let the earth cover his blood, so that God as the avenger of Job's blood may avenge Job's death (16:18). Job does not see 'Satan' as his slayer, and God as the avenger of his blood. Instead Job- in a quite breathtaking set of associations- sees God in all these things: the slayer, the legal witness to the slayer, the avenger of blood, and the One who will enforce the doing of justice in this case, the One who will not let the earth cover Job's blood. If Job really believed in a superhuman Satan, in Satan as the bad guy and God as the avenger of the injustice, he surely would've expressed himself differently. As Job imagines God as it were taking vengeance on Himself, so he came to portray for all time the way that evil and good are indeed both ultimately from God.


day_number: 11/12
text:
"Nineveh is laid waste". At the time Nahum was speaking, she was prosperous and powerful. But God's word is so sure of fulfilment that He can speak in the present tense, speaking of things which haven't yet happened as if they have (Rom. 4:17). We also, by faith, must view this world with the same eyes. It's all over for this world, right here and now, so certain is it that Christ will return and establish His Kingdom upon the ruins of the kingdoms of men.


day_number: 11/12
text:
The result of believing "the truth" will be sincere love of our fellow believers; we can't discern and believe "the truth" and remain disengaged from others, otherwise we haven't really understood "the truth" (:22).


day_number: 12/12
text:
Job laments in Job 14:4 "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?". Job seems to be justifying his sins by arguing that sin is inevitable because of our nature. This is just a theological form of the stubborn refusal to face up to our sinfulness as seen in Job 13:20-22. The Lord Jesus had our nature and yet didn't sin; all that we say about human nature we say about Him. We aren't inevitable sinners, victims of a human nature which wasn't our fault as it were.


day_number: 12/12
text:
The closer we are to God, the more we will be able like Habakkuk to question Him, to have dialogue with Him (Hab. 1:2), rather than accepting the principles of the Bible as His cold word to us which we simply have to accept without any response from us back to Him.


day_number: 12/12
text:
God's intention is that we should be a priesthood (:5,9). Priests serve others and empower them to give to God; this should be the focus of our lives. Most religions teach that just some religious leaders are the priests; but we are all to be priests. We are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (:9)- the very terms used about the Old Testament people of Israel (Ex. 19:6). By baptism into Christ we become the children of Abraham (Gal. 3:27-29) and are thus a new, spiritual Israel (Gal. 6:16). We should therefore feel our national identity as "spiritual Israel" rather than whatever nation we were physically born into.


day_number: 13/12
text:
Eliphaz's view of both human beings and Angels was wrong (Job 15:14,15). We aren't inevitable sinners just because of our nature; it's no sin to be human, to be alive, and the wrath of God isn't kindled upon every baby who is conceived and born just because they are humans. God perhaps answers the wrong idea that Angels sin by commenting that all of them rejoiced in His creation (Job 38:7).


day_number: 13/12
text:
"The justified shall live by faith". Much is made of this verse in the New Testament, to teach that we sinners are counted righteous, declared in the right as we stand in the dock before the judgment of God, on the basis of our faith in Christ- rather than our works (Rom. 1:17; Heb. 10:38). The context of this verse teaches that living by faith is the antithesis of being proud. The life of faith, trusting thereby in grace, is a life of humility.


day_number: 13/12
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
We shouldn't be surprised if the world views us as strange and even gets aggressive with us because of our refusal to do the sinful things which they do. What they don't appreciate is that we have to give account to God for our lives, whereas they simply live and die for ever (4:4,5).


day_number: 14/12
chapter_number_to: 17
text:
In Job 16:17,18, Job associates himself with unfairly persecuted Abel; he likens his cry for justice to the crying of Abel's blood from the ground in Gen.4:10. He is trying to justify his refusal to recognize that he, a relatively righteous man, was in fact a serious sinner. It's perhaps easier for those the world considers sinners to come to repentance than it is for those whom the world considers 'normal' and even righteous. This includes many of us; hence the biting relevance of Job to us.


day_number: 14/12
text:
After twice approaching God with the question of "Why?", and each time being given fresh insights into the awful nature of the judgment to come as a response, Habakkuk ends up with a trembling body and lips that 'quivered at the sound' of God's word... and yet, at the very same time, feels that he still "will rejoice in the Lord" (:18), even though he doesn't fully understand. Faith involves an element of acceptance that God is right, even though we don't understand.


day_number: 14/12
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
The Bible uses "the heart" to refer to the mind. Our mind thinks in regular patterns; we are to exercise it, but not with unspiritual thoughts (2:14). To be spiritually minded is the essence of Christianity. There is an upward spiral in spiritual life, just as there is a downward spiral. One spiritual strength is connected with and leads to others (1:5,6).


day_number: 15/12
chapter_number_to: 19
text:
Bildad throughout Job 18 is alluding to Job's loss of his home and family, and is certain that the next step is for Job himself to die without descendants- because, he assumes, Job has sinned. The restoration of Job's health and the gift of a new family at the end of the book proves Bildad so wrong. We need to learn the lesson not to assume things about others' relationship with God nor about the meaning of events in their lives.


day_number: 15/12
text:
In weak moments we all tend to assume that God is somehow in limbo, indifferent and not paying attention to our behaviour or situation here on earth. The temporary silence of God doesn't mean that He is not watching intently. These people who thought that God was indifferent were themselves "settled on their dregs" (Zeph. 1:12), they hadn't moved for a long time, and they thought God was like them. We must resist the temptation to think that God's attitudes to things and people, our own selves included, are merely a reflection of our attitudes (Ps. 50:21). The Bible reveals to us God's judgments, positions and emotions, and we must accept this revelation rather than assuming that God is somehow created in our own image.


day_number: 15/12
text:
2 Pet. 3:9,15 could imply that God is delaying the return of Christ because He is so passionate for human repentance, so that as many as possible may live eternally in His Kingdom. We should therefore not only repent ourselves, so that our spiritual development hastens the return of Christ (:11,12); but also seek to spread the Gospel to others and thereby hasten the second coming (Mt. 24:14).


day_number: 16/12
text:
Zophar was once Job's friend, but he now speaks with a seething anger against him and claims all kind of false things against Job- which as his "friend" he surely knew weren't true. This radical change was related to Zophar's false understanding that suffering always comes as a result of sin. He became convinced Job was a sinner, and when he couldn't prove that, he simply fabricated things in his mind and then became persuaded they were true. If Zophar had to admit that Job was righteous, then he would have to revise his view of suffering; admit he had been wrong; and be prepared to accept that suffering may strike him too, despite his own apparent righteousness. And it would seem that his jealousy at Job's wealth was then vented out. He felt that if Job was a sinner, then he could treat him in a less than human way. Fear of revising ones' own understandings, admission of being wrong forced upon people by others' experiences, dashed expectations and false assumptions... can lead to this kind of seething hatred and false accusation, and is the root of much relationship breakdown today.


day_number: 16/12
text:
God used the swords of pagan nations to do His judgments, but effectively they were His swords (Zeph. 2:12). The fact God uses people to do His will doesn't mean they are righteous. When bad things happen to us at the hands of evil people, we needn't think that God has left us at the whim of the wicked and forgotten us. He is actually using those people according to His plan.


day_number: 16/12
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
True Christian fellowship is based around a common belief in the same basic Gospel message which both Jesus and John preached, and living according to it (1:3,7). Christian fellowship as John speaks of it isn't the same as social friendship, although it may include this. Bitterness against our fellow believers creates a stumblingblock in our spiritual path which can cost us our place in God's Kingdom (2:10). We must urgently let go of all bitterness (Eph. 4:31).


day_number: 17/12
text:
"Why shouldn't I be impatient?" (Job 21:4). Job falls into the trap of justifying poor behaviour because of the extremity of the circumstances. Eventually he is led to the final climax of chapter 42, where he stops making excuses, blaming his nature, his situation and the machinations of others- and accepts his sinfulness in toto. It was so hard for him to do this because relatively speaking he was righteous. But spiritually middle class believers who keep their noses clean publically and avoid major personal scandals have got to all the same radically repent; and this is the pointed relevance of Job to so many believers today.


day_number: 17/12
text:
In the Kingdom of God on earth, God will empower those who now long to be obedient to God's commands but cannot be due to circumstance or weakness. We will all then be able to serve God as strongly as we now wish. Our experiences in this life, even of our own weaknesses, are preparing our desire for that eternity which we will then be given (Zeph. 3:18).


day_number: 17/12
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
God took the initiative in loving, and we are asked to love others in this same way. We should be thinking how we can initiate loving acts towards others, rather than simply responding to others' love to us by loving them back (4:10).


day_number: 18/12
text:
In Job 22:6, Eliphaz falsely claims: "You have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked". This was absolutely not the case. But Eliphaz was so convinced that suffering comes as a result of sin that he concluded Job must have sinned and therefore imagined these things until he became convinced Job had done them. People who start imagining false things about others because of gut feelings about them end up genuinely believing those things are true. It all arises from an inability to accept we may be wrong in our worldview and therefore in our judgment of others.


day_number: 18/12
text:
Unholiness spreads easier than holiness does. In spiritual things, it's easier to slip into a downward spiral than into an upward spiral. The Jews thought that mere vague association with holy things would somehow make them holy. Our attendance at meetings, identification on a social level with God's people, breaking bread etc. will not of itself make us holy (Hag. 2:12,13).


day_number: 18/12
text:
God is prepared to forgive some sins for the sake of others' prayers to Him about them. If third party prayers are this powerful, we should like Paul be praying for our fellow believers all the time (:16). Anything that detracts our focus from the simple fact that we shall live eternally in God's Kingdom is an idol, and we should shun it (:21).


day_number: 19/12
chapter_number_to: 24
text:
As eating is a regular necessity which we automatically find time for, so our feeding upon God's word each day should likewise be regular and natural (Job 23:12). In our generation, it ought to be that we can't easily lay our head down each night unless we have read or heard His word some time during the day.


day_number: 19/12
text:
God is frequently called "Yahweh of Armies" in Zechariah because the prophecy is seeking to assure the Jews that although everything seemed quiet on earth and in the land of Judah (:11), God's invisible armies of Angels were very actively working. We need to also be aware of this.


day_number: 19/12
text:
If our idea of joy is purely self-centred, we won't find it. The writings of John and Paul show they felt joy because of the spiritual health of their brethren (3 Jn. 3,4). The early preachers were motivated in their work by God's Name (:7)- they wished to share with others the personality and character of the Father and His Son. As this was their focus, they weren't so interested in taking money from their audience.


day_number: 20/12
chapter_number_to: 27
text:
"How small a whisper do we hear of Him!" (Job 26:14). We must ever bear this in mind when speaking of 'the truth' and the need for correct Biblical interpretation. When in difference with other believers about Biblical interpretation, we must remember that we ourselves only know a fraction of God's truth. We mustn't assume that because we know the Gospel and have responded to it, therefore we know all the truth there is to know. We know just a whisper about the final fullness of God.


day_number: 20/12
chapter_number_to: 3
text:
Zech. 2:8 calls us the "apple of His eye"- the most sensitive spot on the human body. God is so sensitive to us His people; His love for us is so great that He will be highly sensitive to everything done bad to us, and every pain we experience.


day_number: 20/12
text:
Fire is used symbolically in Jude 23, as often in the Bible, for condemnation. People aren't literally on fire as we see them fall away from the faith; they are however effectively falling into condemnation and losing their hope of eternal life. We should urgently do all we can to pull them out of this rather than saying nothing or pretending not to notice.


day_number: 21/12
text:
Job 28 is a lengthy description of how wisdom cannot be found in any specific location or hidden part of the planet. The very length of the preamble is only to build up to the colossal significance of :28: that wisdom isn't located anywhere, it is experienced in the life of the person who fears God and departs from evil. Especially in the age of over information in which we live, the idea is strongly felt in us all that wisdom is a set of facts, theological propositions, pithy sayings, located with somebody, in the care of some group of people, in some book. But the point is that wisdom isn't theoretical nor abstract, but intensely practical. We would all far rather make an academic study of something 'spiritual' than in practice root out evil from our lives; in this lies the attraction of intellectualizing spirituality. But wisdom as defined here is in experience; hence Job realizes that before his sufferings, he had only heard of God in the ear, but through practical experience he had as it were seen Him (42:5).


day_number: 21/12
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
The prophets continually criticize human strength (Zech. 4:6). In our terms, this may translate into situations like what we do when we feel the first onset of an illness; when a car won't start... do we trust in human strength, on the pretensions of science, and only turn to God if all else fails? In prophetic terms, this is awful! That we don't first and totally turn to our God.


day_number: 21/12
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
In Semitic thought, a name refers to a personality or character. There will be something very intimate between Jesus and us throughout eternity, which only He and us can enter into; we will enjoy a personal relationship with Jesus for eternity. We will have a name which only the Lord knows and we know (2:17).


day_number: 22/12
chapter_number_to: 30
text:
False allegation leads us to self defence, and Job seems to fall into the trap of being so self-defensive, listing his good works in such detail, that he forgets his own sinfulness. False accusation, refusal to accept false guilt, not being understood and being rejected by others mustn't lead us to forget our real and actual sins. In the bigger picture, God used the false accusations to try to make Job take a serious inward look at his life in order to try to bring him to total repentance for what he actually had done wrong. But it seems Job didn't respond, he got caught up on the level of answering the false accusations and didn't allow the process of self-examination to go any further as God intended.


day_number: 22/12
chapter_number_to: 7
text:
In Zech. 6:15 and so often, God sets up very detailed potentials for His people- but they are only realized if we play our part. It must be so tragic for God, enthusiastically creating plans in such detail, which are then never operationalized because of human laziness and small minded selfishness.


day_number: 23/12
chapter_number_to: 32
text:
Job dismissed as monstrous the idea that he had committed adultery or even looked lustfully upon a woman- simply because God sees and knows all things (Job 31:4). We cannot passively accept that fact; it will mean that sexual sin, which for the most part is committed in 'secret', cannot be a serious option for us because nothing in our lives is secret before God.


day_number: 23/12
text:
God's enormous love for us His people explains why He is also so jealous over us, and why at times He has so much anger relating to us. Every thought or action of unfaithfulness or denial of Him is indescribably painful to Him (Zech. 8:2).


day_number: 23/12
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
Although the Bible teaches that the dead are unconscious, God remembers the dead and is in a sense outside of time as we know it; therefore "all live unto Him" (Lk. 20:38). So Rev. 6:9 speaks about the unconscious dead as if their blood, their lives, demand from God a response in judging their murderers. We too are not forgotten at death; our ultimate memorial is with God. As we get closer to death, and see others dying around us, this is of ultimate value.


day_number: 24/12
text:
All refusal to repent is a striving against God in that He is constantly working in our lives to bring us to repentance (Job 33:13).


day_number: 24/12
text:
Note the mutuality between God and His people- our eyes look to Him, and His eyes look to us (Zech. 9:1,8). And in that catching of the eye, that flash moment when the God who is in search of man meets the man who is in search of God, there is the energy of the Spirit.


day_number: 24/12
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
People from every language and ethnic grouping will be redeemed in Christ when He returns (7:9). This means that the Gospel must go to every ethnic group on earth before Christ returns. The internet has hastened this possibility; for since the time of Christ the majority of those groups were ignorant of Christianity. In this context we must understand the Lord's teaching that once the Gospel goes into all the world, then He will return (Mt. 24:14). In this sense our world-wide preaching can hasten His return. So go out on the internet today and spread the Gospel.


day_number: 25/12
text:
If God were selfish, He wouldn't have created nor maintain the world (Job 34:14). We therefore see God's unselfishness and outgiving grace every microsecond of our existence.


day_number: 25/12
text:
We shouldn't presume upon God's blessings; even in the time of rain, we are to ask for it (Zech. 10:1). Even if we have food in the fridge and in the cupboard, we are to ask God to give us the food of today (Mt. 6:11).


day_number: 25/12
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
God's word is indeed sweet, but it can have bitter consequences if we seriously accept His demands of carrying the cross of Christ and upholding His standards in this wicked world (10:10). It is no mere hobby or comfortable religious club.


day_number: 26/12
chapter_number_to: 36
text:
"He opens their ear in oppression" (Job 36:15). Our sensitivity to and understanding of God's word is heightened during times of trial. Sadly we are such empirical learners that we have to suffer many things to make us open our ear to His word; and we needn't suffer them if we accepted with full meaning the simple foundation truth that the Bible is indeed God's word speaking to us. The wonder of the very existence of God's inspired word ought to of itself make us open our ears in sensitivity to it. But because we fail to believe it as we ought to in practice, we are sent tribulation to make us sensitive to it.


day_number: 26/12
text:
Zech. 11:10,14 suggest that covenant relationship between people is broken [the horizontal level, as it were] when they break their covenant relationship with God [the vertical level]. Conversely, if we are in covenant with God then we must be in meaningful covenant relationship with all those others who are in covenant with God. In our times, baptism into Christ means that we are "in" the new covenant based around God's Gospel promises (Gal. 3:27-29). We therefore are in covenant fellowship with all others who are in the same covenant status with God.


day_number: 26/12
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
We either receive the mark of the beast and ultimately face torture and the wine of God's wrath; or we refuse it and face Babylon's wrath (Rev. 13:16,17; 14:9,10). Now is the time for self-examination and the firm decision for Jesus and against Babylon.


day_number: 27/12
text:
The natural creation isn't just ticking on clockwork, God is actively in control of it all. We are therefore never far from evidence of God's active, passionate awareness and power.


day_number: 27/12
text:
Zech. 12:10 says that the Jews will look upon Jesus, the one whom they pierced.  It's possible that the Lord Jesus still has marks in His hands and side where He was crucified- 13:6 may imply that the Jews of the last days will look upon them. He had them after His resurrection (Jn. 20:27), and marks of death were visible in the vision of Jesus which John saw (Rev. 5:6). Perhaps for absolute eternity He will carry these marks as a constant reminder to us all of the price paid for our redemption. And He has them now.


day_number: 27/12
text:
The true believers are engaged to be married to Christ; to unite ourselves with the world is to be unfaithful to Him and lose our virginity (14:4). But the believers, the church, are "found" unblemished (:5). The believers have of course been sinful and blemished. But they are seen by Jesus as perfect; for love imputes perfection to the beloved, and the love of Christ is the ultimate love.   We can rightly rejoice today in His love and how positively He sees us.


day_number: 28/12
text:
Job 38:16 GNB "Have you been to the springs in the depths of the sea? Have you walked on the floor of the ocean?". Job is reminded that he is ignorant of many things in creation, which remain inaccessible and remote. And so it is with insisting to know everything about Divine process with us. These things are purposefully hidden, and it is part of recognizing our humanity to realize that.


day_number: 28/12
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
The apparently strange ending (Zech. 14:21) reflects Zechariah's sadness that in his day, there had been unbelievers and even enemies allowed by God's people to have rooms right in the temple of Yahweh itself (Neh. 13:7,8). He looked forward, as all God's children do, to the time of God's Kingdom when the sheep and goats will finally be divided from each other for ever. This has to be our ultimate response to lamentation about the weakness of the body of believers today.


day_number: 28/12
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
Even the very final judgments of God upon sinners are intended to bring them to repentance. rather than simply express the wrath of an offended deity (16:9,11). God is so passionate for human repentance; including our own, today.


day_number: 29/12
text:
The ostrich may appear to behave strangely, but is not in fact without love or care for its young. No animal totally lacks parental instinct. The people of Job's time thought that the ostrich did lack it; just as Job and the exiles were questioning whether God really loved and cared for them. Her wings wave as she dashes around the desert in the day time; but the question is, does she really have love for her own? God likewise was and is active through the wings of the cherubim. But does He care for His little ones? She does; for no animal is without parental instinct. And likewise with God; He covers His little ones in the dust, and uses the darkness of night, the trials of life, to incubate them personally.


day_number: 29/12
text:
One doesn't give sub-standard service to their employer. One didn't bring him a defective animal as a gift. And yet Israel gave their God the lame and the blind animals, they only served Him as far as it didn't hurt them (Mal. 1:8). They gave Him what cost them nothing. And yet they should not only have served Him as they served their earthly masters; but, because He is the "great God", they should have given Him even more. And so we must ask: the time we give to our careers and development in them, the thought we give to our secular lives, the respect we pay it... how does this compare to our attitude to Divine things?


day_number: 29/12
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
To leave the system of the world in the last days (18:4) will be difficult and painful, just as it was for the Jews to respond to the initial historical call to leave Babylon and return to rebuild the ruins of Judah. Many of them were doing well in Babylon and preferred to remain there; the same temptation will occur for the believers in latter day, symbolic Babylon.


day_number: 30/12
text:
Job 40:8 is profound: "Will you condemn Me, that you may be justified?". God is as it were placed in the dock by our allegation that we have not sinned as He claims, and that our sufferings are unjustified.


day_number: 30/12
text:
The duty of the priests under the Old Covenant was to maintain true understanding of God's word, witness this to the world around them, and teach it to their brothers and sisters in Israel (Mal. 2:7). Although there was a special priesthood, it was clearly God's intention that all Israel should be like priests; they were to be a "Kingdom of priests" (Ex. 19:6), and we are to be likewise (1 Pet. 2:5,9), not assuming others will care for us spiritually, but each of us taking real responsibility.


day_number: 30/12
chapter_number_to: 20
text:
When Christ returns there will be organized mass opposition to Him (19:19)- because people simply prefer their lives and world to carry on as it is, for all their complaints about it and apparent desire for something better. The same mentality is at work today when people refuse the Lordship of Jesus in their lives.


day_number: 31/12
chapter_number_to: 42
text:
Job came to realize the massive practical extent of what he had previously known in theory, what he had heard "by the hearing of the ear" (Job 42:2,5). Now his eye saw / perceived that truly no plan of God can be thwarted, by any of the various 'Satan' monsters imagined by men. We too may say that we believe in the omnipotence of God; but such a belief requires us to throw out all beliefs in supernatural satan figures. And that's not a merely intellectual exercise; to see the tragedies and cruelties of our lives as being ultimately from God and under His control is something which shakes us to the core.


day_number: 31/12
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
We are so very valuable to God- His jewels, His "very own" (Mal. 3:17). We can take comfort that we are not alone in this world, He is so intensely with us. And we have huge value to Him.


day_number: 31/12
chapter_number_to: 22
text:
The coming of Christ will be "sudden" (22:14) and we must therefore remind ourselves throughout each day that Christ really might come any time- and be prepared for Him.


# videos

christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGJBlAUHma8
sermon: https://youtu.be/ViIrbAbyttQ
commentary:
1:2 Moses wrote Genesis, presumably during the 40 years wandering. He therefore wrote it in a context- of explaining things to Israel as they stumbled through that wilderness, wondering who they were, where they came from, where they were headed. This explains why there are so many links within the Pentateuch- e.g. the Spirit “flutters” over the waters, just as God like an eagle [a symbol of the Spirit] “flutters” over Israel in bringing about their creation as a nation (Dt. 32:1). The point is, what God did at creation, He can do at any time in re-forming our lives into a new creation. Those baptized into Christ are “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). This process of making us new means that the creation of life, the huge expenditure of energy out of God which happened at the natural creation, is ongoing in our lives today. 
The earth being “without form and void” uses a phrase elsewhere used to describe the judgment that has come on an order of things (Jer. 4:23; Is. 24:10; 34:11). It may be, therefore, that there was a previous creation on earth which was destroyed in judgment. Hence the command to “replenish the earth” (:28).
1:12 God created matter. All that exists was made by Him; and by faith we believe that things which now exist were not made from what already existed apart from God. The Genesis record of creation, however, emphasises how God brought order out of chaos. He brought this present world of beauty and order out of a darkness that brooded upon a sea, and from an earth that was “without form and void”, the Hebrew images behind the words implying ‘a chaos’. The references to the earth and sea ‘bringing forth’ (here and :24) use a Hebrew word which means ‘to let something which is within to come out’. The present world was created by a re-organization of things which existed in some form before. This means that when our own lives, or the collective life of God’s people, appears to be in chaos- then we can in faith reflect that God has brought beautiful order out of chaos, and He can likewise powerfully bring order to what seems hopeless. 
1:26 Let us - The Hebrew construction here is a ‘communicative plural’, implying God conferring with His council. To assume that God is speaking to Jesus here is a desperate assumption. The Bible doesn't teach that Jesus literally existed before His birth. The Hebrew word elohim translated “God” here literally means 'mighty ones', and here refers to the Angels. The Angels were the agents of creation (Job 38:7). The word elohim is translated “Angels” by many translations in Ps. 8:5. The Hebrew construction used here has been described as a ‘plural of deliberation’, whereby an individual may use a plural to describe his or her decision. Take David’s words in 2 Sam. 24:14: “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord… but let not me fall into the hand of man”. Ezra 4:18 has a King saying: “The letter you sent unto us has been plainly read before me”. In Is. 6:8 we read the same of God Himself: “Whom shall I [singular] send, and who will go for us?”. This would enable us to better understand God’s decision making in 11:7: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their speech. So “Let us make man…” may refer to God’s personal self-deliberation in making human beings; to a Semitic reader of the original, it would emphasize the vast passion which God Almighty put into this decision. And it therefore follows that He passionately wishes to have a very definite purpose with us, that He so loves us, and wishes only our eternal good.
In our image, after our likeness-  We aren't in God's mental likeness, because His thoughts are so far above our thoughts (Is. 55:9). But the “our” refers to the Angels, and whenever they appear on earth, they have appeared in human form. God is a real, actual person, existing in Heaven but everywhere present by His Spirit. Thus man is made in the image and likeness of God, as manifested through the angels. James 3:9 speaks of “...men, which are made in the similitude of God”. Our creation in the image of God means that we can infer something about the real object of which we are but an image. Thus God, whom we reflect, is not something nebulous of which we cannot conceive. Ezekiel saw God enthroned above the cherubim, with the silhouette of “the likeness of a man” (Ez. 1:26; 10:20); it is God Himself who is located above the cherubim (2 Kings 19:15). All this has a practical import; because we are in the image of God, because it is imprinted on every part of our bodies, we must give that body to God, just as men were to give the penny which had Caesar’s image on it to Caesar (Lk. 20:25). The Hebrew word tselem, ‘image’  is in modern Hebrew ‘photograph’.  God is personal and He has a concrete, actual form and being.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl7-vk_ZNMY
sermon: https://youtu.be/opprKwh-0G8
commentary:
2:7 The ‘soul’ refers to the person, body or self. ‘Save Our Souls’ (S.O.S.) clearly means ‘Save us from death!’ The ‘soul’ is therefore ‘you’, or the summation of all the things that make up a person. It is understandable, therefore, that many modern versions of the Bible rarely use the word ‘soul’, translating it instead as ‘you’ or ‘the person’. The animals which God created are called “living creatures... every living thing that moves” (1:20,21). The Hebrew word translated “creatures” and “living thing” here is nephesh, which is also translated ‘being’; for example here: “...and man became a living being”. Thus man is a ‘soul’ or ‘living being’, just as the animals are ‘souls’ or ‘living beings’. The only difference between mankind and animals is that man is mentally superior to them; he is created in the image of God (1:26), and some men are called to know the Gospel through which the hope of immortality is opened up to them (2 Tim. 1:10). As regards our fundamental nature and the nature of our death, there is no difference between man and animals.
2:17 The serpent was a beast of the field which God had made (3:1). Yet out of the ground [Heb. adamah- earth, soil] God formed all the beasts of the field, including the serpent. So the serpent was likewise created by God out of the ground- it wasn't a pre-existing agent of evil. Note the snake, as one of the beasts of the field, was “very good” (1:31)- hardly how one would describe the serpent according to the orthodox reasoning.
2:21 Woman was created from the side of Adam, not from his head nor from his feet. 
2:24 Cleave- Mt. 19:5,6 interpret this as meaning that God “joins together” man and woman in marriage; not simply at the wedding, but throughout their life experience together. It’s therefore going against God’s work to break apart what He has tried to join together.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C5NjMlzVpg
sermon: https://youtu.be/mot409hRDRk
commentary:
3:1 The serpent was an animal, created by God. The words ‘satan’, ‘lucifer’ and ‘devil’ don’t occur in the entire book of Genesis. Adam, and not the serpent, was the means by which sin entered the world (Rom. 5:12). The Bible doesn’t teach that the satan exists as a personal being who sinned in Heaven and came to earth. 
3:3 Eve had been told by Adam that they must not even touch it, although this is not what God had told Adam (2:16,17 cp. 3:2,3). Adam turned to Eve and as it were wagged his finger at her and said 'Now you see that tree over there in the middle, don't you even touch it or else there'll be trouble, O.K.'. She didn't understand, he didn't explain that it was forbidden because it was the tree of knowledge, and so she was deceived into eating it- unlike Adam, who understood what he was doing (1 Tim. 2:14). Why didn't Adam tell her more clearly what God had said? Maybe he was disillusioned with the wife God gave him; he didn't have intercourse with her as he had been asked, he separated from her so that she was alone with the snake. 3:12 seems to reflect more than a hint of resentment against Eve and God's provision of her.  
3:15 The descendant of the woman was to be a specific individual- Jesus. He was literally “made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). He was the son of Mary, although God was His Father. Thus He was the descendant of the woman but not the descendant of a man, as He had no human father. This descendant of the woman was to be temporarily wounded by sin, the serpent - “you shall bruise his heel”. A snakebite on the heel is normally a temporary wound, compared to the permanence of hitting the snake / sin on the head, which Jesus did in His death.
3:21 Sin results in death (Rom. 6:23), i.e. a pouring out of the blood, which carries the life. For this reason the Israelites were expected to pour out blood each time they sinned, to remind them that sin resulted in death. ”... according to the law (of Moses) almost all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). Because of this, Adam and Eve's covering of themselves with fig leaves was unacceptable; instead, God killed a lamb (Rev.13:8) to provide skins to cover their sin (:7,21). Similarly, Abel's sacrifice of animals was accepted rather than Cain's offering of vegetables, because he appreciated this principle that without shedding blood there could be no forgiveness and acceptable approach to God (4:3-5). 
3:24 The cherubim have Angelic associations. They were to keep “the way” to the tree of life, whereas the keeping of the way is later said to be in the control of Angels- e. g. in 18:19 the Angels decide Abraham will keep “the way of the Lord”, implying they were the ones guarding it.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4esJLtqiMA
sermon: https://youtu.be/mcenD6-Buec
commentary:
4:10 In Rev. 6:9, the blood of the dead believers cries out from under the altar, demanding vengeance on this world: on the Catholic, Protestant, Babylonian, Roman, Nazi, Soviet systems that slew them for their faith. To God, their blood is a voice, just as real as the voice of Abel, which cried out (in a figure) for judgment against Cain. There is no immortal soul, we personally feel nothing in death. But there is an immortal spirit, in that who we essentially are, our personality, remains in the memory of a loving Father. 
4:16 “Went out” is the language of Judas going out (Jn. 13:30), Cain '“went out”, as did condemned Zedekiah in the judgment of Jerusalem (Jer. 39:4; 52:7). Esau went out from the land of Canaan into Edom, slinking away from the face of his brother Jacob, sensing his righteousness and his own carnality (36:2-8). Even in this life, those who leave the ecclesia 'go out' after the pattern of Judas, condemning themselves in advance of the judgment by their attitude to the ecclesia (1 Jn. 2:19 cp. Acts 15:24). The unrighteous flee from God now, as they will then (Hos. 7:13). The ungrateful servant “went out” and condemned his brother- thus condemning himself (Mt. 18:28).
4:26 The early chapters of Genesis highlight the fact that there were these two sorts of people; the descendants of Seth called themselves “by Yahweh’s name” and comprised the righteous “sons of God”, the seed of the woman. By contrast, the descendants of Cain are described as being associated with murder and instituting polygamy (:19,23), the art of weapon production (:22) and entertainment (:21). The names of these people imply that at this time they started an alternative , apostate, system of worship to replace the true worship of God, which angered God; e.g. Cain named a city after Enoch, whose name means “dedicated”; Irad means “eternal city”; Mehujael means “God combats”; Lamech means “Overthrower” (of the truth ?). The sons of God marrying the daughters of men in 6:2-4 would therefore describe the inter-marriage of these two lines, so that only Noah and his family were the “seed of the woman” at the time of the flood.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn03OOFyzxU
sermon: https://youtu.be/Km1JUlBCMRI
commentary:
28:1 Here and in :7 we see the repeated emphasis on the need to marry within the household of faith.
28:4 Isaac perhaps now realized that the fatherly blessing over which there had been so much grief was irrelevant compared to God's blessing.
28:12 Jacob's dreaming of a pagan ziggurat could indicate that subconsciously his mind was in pagan things rather than those of Yahweh. But God worked through that, and transformed the dream into a message from the true God. God with amazing patience works through our weaknesses, lack of faith and misunderstandings to bring us to Him as the one true God.
28:13 God made these unconditional promises to Jacob even though at that time Jacob had not accepted Yahweh as his God (:21), thus showing His grace. God in Christ has potentially forgiven every person their sins and promised them salvation- all they have to do is accept Him in faith. God takes the initiative in grace- He doesn't give us His promises as a 'Well done' for our showing faith in Him. He has taken the initiative and it is for us to respond. Jacob there in his unbelief, or agnosticism, with Angels ascending and descending upon him, was in fact a type of Christ (Jn. 1:51).
28:21,22 Jacob seems sceptical of God's promise- he says that if indeed God does what He promises, then Jacob will accept Yahweh as his God and give him a tithe. The offer of a tithe seems very mean- the God who has promised us so very much deserves our all, not just a tenth.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJl-nNjDdkU
sermon: https://youtu.be/GO7XR2kahnw
commentary:
3:7 God looked on the sorrows of His people through the sensitivity of Moses, He saw and knew their struggles, their sense of being trapped, their desire to revive spiritually but their being tied down by the painful business of life and living; and He sent Moses to deliver them from this. But these very words are quoted about our deliverance through the 'coming down' of the Lord Jesus (3:7; 4:31 = Lk. 1:68). 
3:11 Through Moses allowing himself to become part of God manifestation, he found a confidence to achieve that which felt impossible to him. He asks God: “Who am I...?” to do the great things God required... and the answer was “I am” (:11-13). Moses' sense of inadequacy was met by the principle of God's manifestation in him; and so will ours be, if we participate in it. We ‘are not’ as we would like to be, but God is. 
3:18 The concepts of being God manifest and also being representative of a sinful Israel come together in Moses in a wonderful way. The elders of Israel were to tell Pharaoh that “Yahweh has met with us”. Yet Yahweh had only met with Moses. But because he was representative of Israel and also because he himself manifested Yahweh, the elders had met Yahweh when they met Moses. In this we see a superb prefigurement of the Lord Jesus. He was the supreme, faultless manifestation of God, and yet also the total, empathetic representative of sinful man. 
3:20 Moses “supposed his brothers would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them” (Acts 7:25); but God told Moses: “I will reach out My hand”. Moses had yet to learn the meaning of God manifestation through men. We too must learn that our hand is to be replaced by God’s hand. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2HlHANNEwE
sermon: https://youtu.be/mAQejYOqLY0
commentary:
10:6 Turning around and storming out shows his anger and emotion; being easily provoked was one of Moses' characteristics (Num. 20:12; Ps. 106:32,33). And yet he was very humble (Num. 12:3). There’s nothing wrong with emotion and passion in itself, and it’s not irreconcilable with humility.
10:19 The wind casting the locusts into the Red Sea was similar to how God sent a wind to open and close the Red Sea, and the Egyptians were as it were cast into the Red Sea to their destruction. God was seeking to show Pharaoh what He was capable of, and how Pharaoh was just another locust. The Pharaohs had a locust crest on their crowns. God tries to give people warning of the judgment that will come upon them, in the hope they will repent.
10:22 The plague of darkness was clearly intended to imply the death of Ra, the Egyptian sun god. One by one, the major gods of Egypt were declared dead or powerless by the plagues. The Israelites should’ve learnt from this not to worship the Egyptian gods ever again; but they forgot the lesson.
10:23 Similar to how the Angel stood behind the Israelites as they crossed the Red Sea, giving them light and yet giving darkness to the pursuing Egyptians (14:20). Perhaps the Israelites had light but the Egyptians darkness because the Angel stood with them literally? God often gives notice of what He is planning to do, bringing about similar situations, in the hope that His people will repent.
10:25 God’s demands upon Pharaoh grew- now he had to give them animals too. The further a person goes away from God, the harder God makes it for them- because He confirms people in the hardness or softness to Him which they choose.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTeEEZ8SvQc
sermon: https://youtu.be/gzHKekvsJMc
commentary:
12:5 Without blemish- quoted about Christ, whom the Passover lamb represented (1 Cor. 5:7; 1 Pet. 1:19). The animal was to be ‘taken out’ from the flock- it wasn’t specially bred for the occasion. This prefigures how the Lord Jesus was to be of true human nature, one of us, identical by nature with the rest of the flock whom He died to save.
12:11 Belt on your waist- With their robes girded up. In a chapter full of Passover allusions, Peter quotes this phrase as painting a word picture of the intensity in which believers today should be living as they await the call to leave this present society [cp. Egypt] and go to be with the Lord (1 Pet. 1:13).
12:19 Searching their homes for yeast represents our searching of our lives for sin (1 Cor. 5:6-8). Sin is like yeast in that just a little bit of it leads to a huge influence in our lives and those of others- it spreads, unless it is thrown away.
12:22 Hyssop- We think of the use of hyssop in Christ’s crucifixion (Jn. 19:29).
12:23 ‘Pass over’ translates a Hebrew word meaning to hover over. One Angel would hover over the homes of the faithful Israelites to stop the ‘Destroyer’ Angel (1 Cor. 10:10) killing their firstborn.
12:29 Midnight- The second coming of Christ is figuratively said to be with a great cry at “midnight” (Mt. 25:6). A great cry went up at midnight on Passover night (:30). We who are awaiting the return of Christ are therefore in a similar position to Israel on Passover night, watching and waiting, under persecution of various types.
12:34 The Israelites also took with them the idols of Egypt (Ez. 20:7,8), even though the plagues had demonstrated those idols to be dead and powerless, and God had declared those idols condemned by the plagues (:12). The crossing of the Red Sea represents our baptism (1 Cor. 10:1,2), and we too mustn’t take any of this world’s idols with us when we spiritually leave this world.
12:37 If there were 600,000 men, excluding children, we can guess that there were around three million Israelites who left Egypt, in addition to the mixed multitude of :38. Jacob’s family numbered 70 people when they entered Egypt 430 years previously (:41; Gen. 46:27). This is a huge growth rate; the promises to Abraham that his descendants would become many clearly received a major initial fulfilment. Through baptism, those same promises are made to us (Gal. 3:27-29), and in some way we may also experience an initial fulfilment of the promised blessing even in this life.
12:38 Mixed multitude- Egyptians who had come to side with Yahweh? Or does this refer to the offspring of relations between the Israelites and Egyptians (e.g. Lev. 24:10)?
12:42 The Passover was a memorial feast, to commemorate how God had saved His people. The equivalent for believers today is the breaking of bread meeting, rightly called by some ‘the memorial meeting’. It’s a celebration of what has been done for us through the slain lamb, the Lord Jesus. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifhSm7qCawA
sermon: https://youtu.be/7JmkrnKMK84
commentary:
32:32 Moses loved the people so intensely, despite their rebellion. He was prepared to give his place in the Kingdom so that they might enter; he prayed God for 40 days to accept his offer. He knew that atonement could only be by sacrifice of blood (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22; cp. Num. 25:8,13); and yet he climbed the Mount with the intent of making atonement himself for Israel's sin (:30); he intended to give his life for them. And he didn't make such a promise in hot blood, as some men might. He made the statement, and then made the long climb to the top of the mount. And during that climb, it seems he came to an even higher spiritual level; he was prepared not only to offer his physical life, but also his place in the Kingdom; God’s “book” is His book of life, of those who will ultimately be saved (Ez. 13:9; Dan. 12:2; Lk. 10:20; Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5; 20:12). The love of Moses for Israel typifies the love of Christ towards us.  At the end of his life he recounts how God had threatened to destroy the people (Dt. 9:15), but he doesn’t record his 40 days of pleading with the Father, and how he turned down the offer of having himself made into a great nation. In this we see his humility.  Note how Moses argues with God against God’s stated intention, and persuades God otherwise. He is open to dialogue with us His people; hence the intensity we can experience in prayer, and the element of wrestling there is in it. To be blotted out of the book may have been understood by Moses as asking for him to be excluded from an inheritance in the promised land; for later, a ‘book’ was written describing the various portions (Josh. 18:9). The connection is made explicit in Ez. 13:9- to be blotted out of the book meant to not enter the land. God had just spoken of ‘blotting out’ Israel from before Him (Dt. 9:14), and making a nation of Moses; but now Moses is asking to share in their condemnation rather than experience salvation without them. This was the extent of his devotion. In Dt. 9:18 he says that his prayer of Ex. 32:32 was heard- in that he was not going to enter the land, but they would. Hence his urging of them to go ahead and enter the land- to experience what his self-sacrifice had enabled. In this we see the economy of God, and how He works even through sin. On account of Moses’ temporary rashness of speech, he was excluded; Moses didn't enter the land. And yet by this, his prayer was heard. But ultimately he did what he intended- he gave his place in the Kingdom / land so that they might enter [although of course he will be in the future Kingdom]. This is why Moses stresses at the end of his life that he wouldn’t enter the land for Israel’s sake (Dt. 1:37; 3:26; 4:21; Ps. 106:32). He saw that his sin had been worked through, and the essential reason for him not entering was because of the offer he had made. In all this, Moses was typifying the death of Jesus. Is. 53:8 describes His cross as being “cut off [Heb. ‘excluded’] from the land of the living” (s.w. ‘the congregation’- of Israel), for the transgression of His people. The Lord died the death of a sinner, He chose like Moses to suffer affliction with us, that we might be saved. 
32:33 God didn’t accept Moses’ offer to die as a substitute for Israel, for each must be judged for their own sins. But He did accept Moses as a representative of Israel and accepted his mediation for their salvation on this basis; just as He accepted the work of Christ on the same basis. Paul learnt the lesson when he says that he could wish himself condemned and Israel saved (Rom. 9:1-3); but he recognized God didn’t accept Moses’ offer of dying for them as a substitute. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbQ4wAiRcfE
sermon: https://youtu.be/QH_8LJtZQv8
commentary:
13:28 The people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified- Rahab informed the later spies that the cities were fortified from fear of Israel, and the Canaanites were weak and fearful before Israel at this time (Josh. 2:10,11). Those obstacles to our inheritance of the Kingdom which seem to us huge and too strong for us may actually be very weak and far easier to overcome than we imagine.
13:30 Let us go up at once- The Bible often records the immediacy of response in faithful people. Procrastination and endlessly weighing up the difficulties often leads to failure to act as we should.
13:32 A land that eats up its inhabitants- This was effectively calling God’s descriptions of the promised land untrue. If we don’t believe we can inherit the Kingdom prepared for us (Mt. 25:34), then we are effectively calling God a liar. Ps. 106:24 says that they didn’t believe God’s word of promise that they would possess the land (Gen. 15:18; 17:8; Ex. 23:30). These promises were clear and unambiguous; but the immediate and the visible seemed more true to them than the promises of God’s word. Perhaps they had forgotten those promises, not recited them to themselves, not bothered to attend Moses’ sessions of instruction, of which the Pentateuch is likely a transcript. Unless God’s words of promise are regularly in our consciousness, we will likewise fail to believe it when we come up against the human obstacles in our paths.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVhd_Ccjo_o
sermon: https://youtu.be/nNzpYxWnGis
commentary:
21:2 Then I will utterly destroy their cities- But it was in any case a command to “utterly destroy” the Canaanites (Dt. 7:2; 12:2; 20:17). We shouldn’t consider that which is our duty to do as some kind of special dedication to God which deserves His reward. But so eager is God for relationship with His people that He all the same agreed (:3).
21:4 By the way to the Red Sea- Their route took them back on themselves at this point, heading back towards Egypt. This may have been the psychological trigger for their desire to be back in Egypt (:5). We must try to avoid things and situations which may stimulate a desire to leave the way to the Kingdom and return to the world.
21:7 Moses prayed for the people- Previously in such situations, God had just accepted Moses’ prayer. But now He asked the people to additionally make some personal effort to demonstrate their faith. Quickly dashing off a request for Christ’s mediation in the case of sin may sometimes be met by God seeking to convict us more deeply of our sin and asking us to make some more concrete effort.
21:8 This is interpreted in Jn. 3:14-16 as a symbol of Christ lifted up on the pole at His death; looking toward the snake is seen as faith in Him; and healing from the snake bite as eternal life. This is another reason for thinking that the ‘cross’ of Christ wasn’t as traditionally understood; the Greek word stauros translated “cross” means a tree trunk or pole. The snake was a symbol of sin- but it was as it were dead in Christ. As He hung there, He was so deeply identified with our sins (despite never sinning personally) that a snake can legitimately be used as a symbol for Him there. We are in the position of the Israelites feeling the poisonous venom rising within them, knowing they had limited time left in this life, recognizing they had indeed sinned and deserved death and yet didn’t wish to die. In an encampment of over three million people living in single storey dwellings, i.e. tents, it would have taken some people several kilometres walk to get to the bronze snake. To walk when you have been bitten by a snake is dangerous; you shouldn’t let your heart work any more than necessary so that the venom isn’t spread. So they were commanded to do that which is counter-instinctive, what is totally against worldly wisdom and sense. Our faith in Christ is similar. But it could be that the people were told about the existence of the bronze snake, and had to look toward it in faith from where they were, believing it was there, although not seeing it. This would be similar to our faith in Christ’s death. We didn’t see it, there is no physical representation of it within our sight, but we look to it from far away in time, space and understanding, and believe it was there- and believe that really, 2000 years ago, on a day in April, on a Friday afternoon, on a hill outside Jerusalem, it really did happen. We can imagine the relief of the people as they felt the temperature subside, the fever go; and their gratitude afterwards, their eager vowing to give their saved lives to God and not rebel again. These should be our emotions as we reflect on our salvation in Christ.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggg8NBHCSFY
sermon: https://youtu.be/FzthsoUSJWg
commentary:
8:3 Man does not live by bread only- The passages quoted by Jesus in the desert to strengthen Himself against His human desires (“the devil”) are all from the same part of Deuteronomy, regarding Israel’s experience in the wilderness. Jesus clearly saw a parallel between His experiences and theirs. The description of Him as being in the wilderness with beasts and Angels (Mk. 1:13) is another connection with Israel’s experience in the wilderness- they were plagued there by “wild beasts” (32:19-24). Jesus was led up of the spirit for forty days in the wilderness, as Israel were led forty years by a Spirit-Angel. The mind of Jesus was likewise proved by the temptations. Jesus overcame by quoting the Scriptures that were in His heart (Ps. 119:11). Jesus also was allowed to hunger, to reinforce His understanding of the fact that we are to live not by physical food but by the word of God. The reference to Israel being ‘chastened’ (:5) in the desert recall how God chastened His Son, Jesus (2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89: 32). Thus Jesus showed us how to read and study the Word - He thought Himself into the position of Israel in the wilderness, and therefore took the lessons that can be learnt from their experiences to Himself in His wilderness trials.
8:4 God has likewise promised to provide us on our wilderness journey with basic clothing and food (Ps. 37:25). We should be content with this, and instead of giving our strength to earn money to tickle our taste buds and buy fine clothing, instead give our lives to serving God.
8:9 You may dig copper- But in Judges and 1 Samuel we read several times of how Israel hardly had any iron weapons and were dominated by the Philistines who did. So this was a potential for them- they could have had this blessing, but like us so often, they chose to be satisfied with the minimum and didn’t realize it for themselves.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhu_p_cLQcI
sermon: https://youtu.be/BniHim0WG28
commentary:
6:2 Following the Angel is the theme that lies behind God's statement that because He had already given Jericho to Israel, therefore they should arise and take it. So many victories have been prepared for us in prospect- against addictions, engrained weaknesses of character, habits, impossible situations. Israel had to follow the ark, where the Angelic presence of God was (:2 cp. :8). The people were to go up into Jericho ‘straight before them’ (:5,20), just as the Cherubim-Angels have "straight feet" (Ez. 1:7,9,12). They were to follow in the Angel's steps.
6:5 Shout- The command to "shout" was a reflection of the belief Israel were to have in the fact that God had already given them the city- for the Hebrew for "shout" usually refers to a shout of victory. The word is translated "triumph" in Ps. 60:8; 108:9. The same idea of shouting in victory over a city which has been given to God's people recurs in Jer. 50:15- "Shout against her round about [cp. compassing the walls of Jericho]...  her foundations are [present tense] fallen, her walls [cp. Jericho's] are thrown down" (AV). And this speaks of our latter day victory against Babylon- thus making this whole account of earnest relevance to us who live in the last days, and who will see Babylon fall by faith. Notice how literal Babylon fell by the water of the river being dried up, and the walls being opened- just the same sequence of events that occurred at Jericho. 
6:10 “Until the day I tell you, ‘Shout!’” implies that the people didn't know the battle plan- each day they would've walked around the city in silence, and nothing happened. The command to "Shout!" didn't come- for six days. The whole exercise was surely to develop their faith. Again, this was the most crazy of battle plans, in human terms. Heb. 11:30 associates the circling of the walls with faith: “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been circled seven days”. 2 Cor. 10:3-4 is an allusion to the way that Jericho was taken with such a humanly weak battle plan. The point of the allusion is for us to see ourselves as those nervous Israelites desperately clinging on to their faith in God's victory rather than human strength. And we each have our Jerichos- habits, life-dominating patterns of thinking, that seem so impossible to shift. The deliverance at the Red Sea had been intended to teach Israel these very lessons. The account of the fall of Jericho is recorded in similar language, in order to teach the same lesson. Rahab's house had to be identified by a scarlet cord- like the blood of the Passover lamb sprinkled on the two doorposts and lintel of the Israelites' homes in Egypt. The silence demanded of the people was surely to recall Ex. 14:14, there the people standing before the Red Sea were assured: “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent". Compare the command to keep silent whilst Yahweh fought, with the common practice of yelling war cries as an ancient army approached their enemy. All human convention, wisdom and strength, was placed in purposeful opposition to what seemed quite counter-instinctive- to be utterly silent whilst God did the fighting.
6:11 One wonders whether the comment that "So he caused the ark of Yahweh to go around the city" could imply that the entire fighting force of Israel didn't bother doing as commanded on the first circuit of the city- possibly they just sent the ark around it. Likewise the people were to shout when the trumpets sounded (:10). But in reality, like a Sunday School play gone wrong, the people shouted, the trumpets sounded, and then the people again shouted (:20). There's a distinct theme in the record that actually, God's people didn't do according to His ideal plan, and yet still He gave them the victory. According to Heb. 11:30, “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down”. Whose faith? What faith? Was Joshua-Jesus' faith counted to the people? Or was their very weak, hope-for-the-best faith all the same accepted as faith by God's grace?
6:18 The riches of Jericho are described with a Hebrew word which means both a curse, and something devoted (to God). This teaches a powerful lesson: such riches of this world as come into our possession will curse us, unless they are devoted to the Father. Mammon is an “abomination” (Lk. 16:13,15)- a word associated in the Old Testament with idol worship. We are to not only be free of such idolatry, but despise materialism.
6:24 1 Cor. 3:12-15 likens all the faithful to material which can pass through the fire of judgment- and this surely is a reference to the way that Jericho was burnt with fire, and only the metals along with Rahab and her family came through that fire to salvation. Thus according to the allusion, Rahab and her family represent all the faithful.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQgPMLCejAE
sermon: https://youtu.be/rb8gfRGBWWI
commentary:
1:5 The simple message is that marriage out of the faith and leaving God’s people- no matter how apostate they are- and going into the world, simply doesn’t bring blessing.
1:8,9 Naomi uses the term “Yahweh” freely to her Gentile relatives; she was quite open about her faith, even though the Moabites had their own gods.
1:16 In Jn. 20:18, the risen Jesus stresses to the disciples that their Father is His Father, and their God is His God. He appears to be alluding to Ruth 1:16 LXX where Ruth is urged to remain behind in Moab [cp. Mary urging Jesus?], but she says she will come with her mother in law, even though she is of a different people, and “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God”. This allusion would therefore be saying: ‘OK I am of a different nature / people to you now, but that doesn’t essentially affect our relationship; I so love you, I will always stick with you wherever, and my God is your God’.
1:17 To swear by a god meant that the swearer had accepted that god as theirs. The fact Ruth swears by Yahweh means that she had accepted Yahweh as her God; thanks to the quiet witness of her mother in law. Ruth came to really love the God of Israel. She willingly decided to forego re-marriage after her husband died for the wonder of the fact she had been allowed in to the commonwealth of Israel. As it happened, this is a story with a happy ending. But she was prepared for it not to be. Humanly speaking, Naomi’s life had been a disaster. If Ruth was looking for a God which gave His devotees present blessing, then it wasn’t Yahweh; for all she had seen of Him was in the life of Naomi and her family. That woman had lost all her men, and thus become a nobody in the eyes of society. Naomi wasn’t seeking any present benefit from her God; it must’ve been the relationship with God right now which Naomi had, His grace to her in spiritual terms, and the hope of the future Kingdom, which so attracted her. And the attraction must’ve been in the example of Naomi, rather than in the pages of a book.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR5MJW-JuYI
sermon: https://youtu.be/L9pNIEQ_-ig
commentary:
1:16 Your mouth has testified against you- From their own mouth and words men will be judged (Mt. 12:37; Lk. 19:22). And yet perhaps even now, men are justified by their words before the court of Heaven- for 'justify' means to pronounce righteous, and this pronouncement / justification is therefore given even now. As the judgment seat of God is in a sense ongoing, our words are as it were our testimony at our own court case before God. At the last day, it could even be that the Lord cites the condemnatory words of the rejected uttered during their lifetimes and leaves these as their condemnation (cp. 1 Kings 20:40).
1:17 We can all too easily pray for what we will later ask to be changed. David prayed for deliverance from "the evil man", Saul; he asked that Saul be slain and punished (Ps. 140:1,9,10). But when this prayer was answered, David wept with the amazing lamentation over Saul which we have here. It's a lesson to think carefully about what we're praying for, and imagine our response and situation if actually the prayer is answered. We need to pray as if every prayer will be answered, not just expressing our feelings and immediate desires, as it seems David did in his prayers against Saul.
1:18 David’s lament over Saul was taught to the children of Judah; and the early chapters of 2 Samuel are full of examples of David's expression of love for Saul in every way he knew how. David's love for Saul was truly amazing. Saul was his enemy, he drove David to absolute despair, his senseless persecution of David was articulated in every way he could. In all this we see the prototype of the hatred of the Jews for Jesus. Yet when Saul was slain for his sins, David's love for him was overflowing, to the point that his people saw that this was no political theatricism (3:36,37). But it was not only at Saul's death that David had these feelings; after all, it's a lot easier to love someone when they're dead. Psalm 35 is David's commentary on his feelings for Saul: "They laid to my charge things that I knew not. They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul (spiritually). But as for me, when they (Saul and his family, in the context) were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into my heart. I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother (i.e. Jonathan, 2 Sam. 1:26): I bowed down heavily, as one that mourns for his mother" (Ps. 35:11-15). Bowing down heavily as a man weeps at his mother's graveside is a powerful image. A man's grief for his mother must surely be the finest picture David could have chosen. That sense of infinite regret that he didn't appreciate her more. David realized that he had reached the point where he knew that he really did truly love his enemies. He wept for Saul as a man weeps at his dear mother's graveside. And he did this for a man who was utterly worthless. And this is a poor, poor shadow of the Christ’s love for Israel. And how much more does He love us, who at least try to make up for Israel's cruel indifference?


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itk7UztyY1I
sermon: https://youtu.be/aVnGjTO5H0M
commentary:
7:3 Do all that is in your heart- As in 1 Kings 22:14-17, the prophet was tempted to assume that he knew God’s word and therefore spoke too quickly, according to what they sensed a person wished to hear. We too should learn the lesson of needing to be sensitive to what is actually written in God’s word.
7:5 It was God's clearly expressed wish that He should not live in a physical house (see too Acts 7:48; 17:24). Yet He accommodated Himself to human weakness in wanting a physical house in which to worship Him; He came and lived (in a sense) in just such a house. He makes concessions to human weakness because He so thirsts for relationship with us; but by making free use of those concessions we in fact make relationship with Him more difficult.
7:12 I will set up your seed- "Set up" in the Septuagint is the same word as "resurrect", as if in some way the promise would be realized through Christ's resurrection.
7:14 The “seed” or descendant is ultimately Jesus, the Son of God (Rev. 22:16; Rom. 1:3; Acts 13:23; Lk. 1:32,33). Jesus, the descendant, was to be a literal, bodily descendant of David, and yet have God as his Father. This could only be achieved by the virgin birth as described in the New Testament; Jesus’ mother was Mary, a descendant of David (Lk. 1:32), but he had no human father. God acted miraculously upon Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit in order to make her conceive Jesus (Lk. 1:35). The “virgin birth” was the only way in which this promise to David could be properly fulfilled. The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 frames Him as the product of 42 generations, divided into three groups of 14. The numerical value of 'David' is 14 [D = 4; w = 6; d = 4]. The emphasis is therefore on the fact that Jesus was so very intrinsically a descendant of David- and not, therefore, a pre-existent being. 2 Sam.7:14 and Ps. 89:27 predicted that a literal descendant of David would become God’s firstborn. He was clearly not in existence at the time those passages were written, and therefore not at the time of the Genesis creation either. Jesus became “the Son of God with power” by His resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). The “house” He would build is the spiritual dwelling of God in people (Is. 66:1,2). He is the foundation stone of God’s temple (1 Pet. 2:4-8), believers are like the temple stones (1 Pet. 2:5).
If he commits iniquity- This speaks of Christ’s possibility of sinning. This had to be true if His temptations were to be of any real meaning (Heb. 2:14-18; 4:15,16); and clearly therefore Jesus is not God Himself (James 1:13-15). Punishment with rod and stripes was to be given if Messiah sinned; yet Christ was chastened with the rod of men "and with the stripes of the children of men", i.e. Israel (Is. 53:5; 1 Pet. 2:24; Mic. 5:1), in His death on the cross. Although He didn’t sin, Christ received this punishment because of His deep and willing association with us there. We must confirm that connection He made between Him and us by confessing our sins and being baptized into His death (Rom. 6:3-5) so that He becomes our representative before God.
7:16 “I will establish the throne of his (Christ’s) kingdom forever... your (David’s) house and your kingdom... your throne shall be established forever” (:13,16 cf. Is. 9:6,7) shows that Christ’s kingdom will therefore be based on David’s kingdom of Israel; this means that the coming kingdom of God will be a re-establishment of the kingdom of Israel (Ez. 21:25-27; Acts 1:11). To fulfil this promise, Christ must reign on David’s “throne”, or place of rulership. This was literally in Jerusalem. Thus the kingdom must be established here on earth at Christ’s return in order to fulfil these promises.
Established for ever before you- “Before you” suggests that David would witness the establishment of Christ’s eternal kingdom. This was therefore an indirect promise that he would be resurrected at Christ’s return so that he could see with his own eyes the kingdom being set up world-wide, with Jesus reigning from Jerusalem.
7:18 David was humbled when he received the promises, just as we should be by realizing that we too really are in covenant relationship with God. “Who am I…?” was his response (2 Sam. 7:18). Like Jacob, he felt himself unworthy of all the “mercy and truth” shown him in the promises (Gen. 32:10).
7:18-20 The promises to David are described as the mercy of God (Is. 55:3; Ps. 89:33,34). God having a son is the sign of His love for us, and this must elicit a response in us. David himself marvelled that such mercy had been shown to him. Soon afterwards, we read of how David made a renewed attempt to show mercy to the house of Saul. Mephibosheth says that he is "your servant… what is your servant, that you should look upon such… as I am?" (9:8). Mephibosheth is using the very words which David used to God; David is showing mercy to Mephibosheth in the very way in which the promises of God to him were the "mercies" shown to David. Appreciating that the promises concern us personally, and that they reveal such loving grace from the Father, can only lead to a similar response in showing love and grace through entering into the lives and destinies of others.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G25caykZfM8
sermon: https://youtu.be/QBekvjpGHl0
commentary:
9:1 Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do- See on 7:1. Solomon’s building work was what he naturally desired to do, he built for his personal “pleasure” (:19); he didn’t understand that true service of God requires us to go against the grain of our natural desires.
9:3 God didn’t ideally want to have a physical temple, in the same way as He didn’t want Israel to have a system of human kings. But He made concessions to human weakness, as He does today, so eager is He for fellowship with us.
9:4 Notice all the time God uses the word “if” in this communication. There are times in our lives when like Solomon we need to be reminded that whatever successes we have had in spiritual life, our eternal future is always conditional upon our enduring to the end (Mt. 10:22). The sense of the eternity we might miss should in some form be ever in our consciousness.
9:7 I cut off Israel- A whole nation would suffer as the result of Solomon’s disobedience; our sins really can affect third parties, and this is the very sinfulness of sin.
9:22 Of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants- But he did later, and the people complained bitterly about the harshness he showed them (12:4). He began by being inhumane to unbelievers, and then came to treat God’s people with the same hardness he showed people in the world; and we can take a lesson from this.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_we7oVsBek
sermon: https://youtu.be/90RohDlup8Q
commentary:
13:6 The prayer of the man of God caused Jeroboam’s hand to be healed. The prayers of someone else can affect the fortunes of another in a way which would not happen if they just prayed for themselves. What stronger motivation could we have to pray earnestly for each other?
13:18 These two prophets both loved God’s word and showed themselves faithful to Him at a time when God’s people had gone badly astray. But the point of the history is to show that this alone isn’t enough; we must not make assumptions about what God’s word is, nor must we assume that because we love His word therefore our gut feelings and natural desires are thereby justified and we can do as we wish.
13:21 When we read God’s word, we hear His voice from His very mouth. We hear "the mouth of God". Jeremiah spoke "from the mouth of the Lord" (2 Chron. 36:12). His word brings Him that near to us, if we will perceive it for what it is. Thus "Scripture" is put for "God" (Rom. 9:17; Gal. 3:8) and vice versa (Mt. 19;4,5). When we speak and preach God's word, we are relaying God's voice to men, and should make appropriate effort to deport ourselves as the ministers of His word and voice.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD3brH4y1A0
sermon: https://youtu.be/QGtXJK1J9sU
commentary:
1:1 God 'stirred up' the spirit of Cyrus and also of the Jews who returned (:1,5). Isaiah uses the same Hebrew term to describe how Israel's saviour would be "raised up" [s.w.]- Is. 41:2,25; 45:13. And yet Isaiah pleads with Zion, i.e. the faithful, to indeed be stirred up- Is. 51:17; 52:1 appeals to Zion to "Awake!"- the same word translated "stirred up". But Isaiah tragically concluded that there were so few who would 'stir up themselves' (Is. 64:7). God had given them the potential to be 'stirred up' in their hearts and minds to leave Babylon and return- but they wouldn't respond. And today, the same happens. God is willing to change hearts, to stir up materialistic and complacent spirits- but because we're not robots, we have to respond. And yet, God's grace still shines through. 1 Kings 8:47-50 had predicted that God would give the exiles compassion before their captors if they repented. They didn't repent, as passages like Ez. 18 make clear (they blamed everything on their fathers and protested their personal innocence)- and yet still God gave them compassion in the eyes of their captors, through the amazing decrees of Cyrus enabling them to return to their land and rebuild the temple at his expense.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE7IhY-lipg
sermon: https://youtu.be/7KRc7yk9l7o
commentary:
19:2 Crush me with words- We should never assume that words are harmless. One lesson from the book of Job, as we see his mental agony progressing throughout his responses to the friends, is that words do indeed crush and hurt; they are often remembered for years after they have been spoken or written. God’s law is unique amongst legal codes for criminalizing words and thoughts as much as actions.
19:4 My error remains with myself- A very true observation. It’s often the case that when someone sins against one individual, others, or indeed a whole congregation, consider that the sin has been against them and that they somehow are called to forgive the sin and to demand repentance towards them. By doing so they are making the same mistake as the friends. We are to forgive sin against ourselves, and not take upon ourselves other sins as if they were against us personally.
19:8 Num. 22:22 describes how an Angel of God stood in a narrow, walled path before Balaam, so that his donkey fell down beneath him. That Angel is described as a "satan", an adversary, to Balaam. Job comments how the sufferings which the 'satan' brought upon him were God 'walling up my way that I cannot pass'. The connection is clear- and may indicate that Job's satan was a satan-Angel, acting on God’s behalf as an adversary to Job just as such an Angel did to Balaam. Job and Balaam have certain similarities- both were prophets (in Job's case see 4:4; 23:12; 29:4 cp. 15:8; Amos 3:7; James 5:10,11); both had genuine difficulty in understanding God's ways, but they to varying degrees consciously rebelled against what they did understand; both thus became angry with God, and were reproved by God through being brought to consider the Angel-controlled natural creation. Job should’ve learnt from Balaam- or vice versa- that God’s walling us in is because He wants us to go His way, and we shouldn’t try to force our way past Him.
19:21 The hand of God has touched me- God put Job into the hand of the ‘satan’ (1:12). Job saw the satan as basically God in action, not as a cosmic being outside of God’s control and not performing His bidding.
19:26 In 2:4-6 we have the ‘Satan’ commenting that Job’s flesh and skin need to be harmed; but here we have Job stating his faith that even though God destroys his flesh and skin, yet God shall ultimately save him.
19:27 The light at the end of our tunnel is that we will personally see God, with our own eyes we will behold Him, and not through anyone else’s eyes (see too Is. 33:17). Job understood God as a personal being.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVqQ0pCYYQE
sermon: https://youtu.be/-R5x0ETuVJI
commentary:
14:1 Atheism was almost unheard of in early Israel. Yet the fool who quietly within his heart thinks as if there is no God is effectively as atheistic as the most hardened scientific atheist of our times.
There is none who does good- This is the result of atheism. And yet, frighteningly for those of us who would insist we are not atheists, this is quoted about each of us in Rom. 3:12. We are all atheists at times, in practice, and must throw ourselves upon God’s grace to save us.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QGdsP-GVRY
sermon: https://youtu.be/SIP2RJPqDss
commentary:
30:6 David seems to be reflecting upon some life threatening illness he suffered after his sin with Bathsheba (:2,3); the title of the Psalm shows he wrote this as he was preparing for his son Solomon to build the temple, towards the end of his life. He is reflecting how he had fallen into sin as a result of assuming that he could never fall from the spiritual place he felt he was at. Whilst we should be confident that if Christ returns today we shall be saved by grace, we cannot assume that we shall always be where we are now spiritually, and we should always maintain a keen sense of the eternity we may miss if we turn away.
30:7 Mountain- Used in Scripture to refer to a Kingdom or family; David’s ‘mountain’ in this sense was “troubled” as a result of his sin with Bathsheba.
30:9 This request indicates that David didn’t go to Heaven on death (Acts 2:34), but understood death as total unconsciousness until Christ’s return.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAWmi04J87E
sermon: https://youtu.be/G-49G6ZnTh8
commentary:
32:1,2 This is a soliloquy, David talking to himself as he meditated upon God’s forgiveness of his sin with Bathsheba. But it is quoted in Rom. 4:7 with a subtle change of pronoun; “blessed is he” (:1) is changed to “blessed are they”. Thus David’s sin with Bathsheba and in murdering Uriah her husband becomes representative of all our sins, and we have received the same amazing grace which David did, seeing that there was no legal way out of what he had done- he deserved only death. See on 38:4.
32:4 This refers to the period of time between the sin and the visit of Nathan which convicted David of his sin (2 Sam. 12).
32:6 Let each one who is Godly pray to You- David’s experience of sin and utter forgiveness should inspire each sinner to repent; but the repentant sinner is here described as “Godly”. Godliness doesn’t mean we are sinless, but rather that we believe in God’s forgiveness and are willing to repent.
32:8 David’s experience of forgiveness became the motive for his preaching of it to others. Isaiah, Peter, the disciples and many others were given preaching commissions immediately after having been convicted of their own sinfulness. For this is the attitude of mind which makes preaching powerful and usable by God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rim1WWg7nsk
sermon: https://youtu.be/nFV-UQ5iPIU
commentary:
37:4 He will give you the desires of your heart- This isn’t a blank cheque promise that we will get whatever we ask from God. If we delight in Him, then our greatest desires will be forgiveness from Him, to see His glory extended, and to have a place in His eternal Kingdom. And it is this latter desire which this Psalm speaks of frequently, comforting us in the hope of eternity in God’s Kingdom on earth; a hope which means that we will not be jealous of the wicked who are briefly prospering in this very short life (:1). See on 38:9.
37:21 The righteous give generously- The inspiration for generosity in this life is that we shall eternally inherit the Kingdom on earth (:22). If we really believe that we shall and do even now partake in this ultimate Divine generosity, we will naturally be generous in the few things God has entrusted to us in this life.
37:23 He delights in his way- God delights in our life path, even though that path includes stumbling (:24).
37:25,26 Just as Israel were provided with basic bread, water and clothing for their wilderness journey towards the promised land, so God has promised to provide us with such basic necessities. We can take colossal comfort from this, although it so easily becomes obscured by our materialistic society, bent as it is on acquisition. The fact that most of us are no longer agriculturally self-sufficient likewise tempts us to doubt this promise. Having this assurance, we can ‘afford’ to be generous (:26), not just rising to it occasionally, but as a characteristic of our lives, the very spirit by which we live (“all day long”).
37:29 This is a clear proof text that the hope of the righteous is eternal life on earth, not in Heaven. The allusion is clearly to the promises to Abraham of eternal inheritance of the land, and these promises are the basis of the Christian Gospel to which we stand related by baptism into Christ (Gal. 3:8, 27-29).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfAmHfaYw5Y
sermon: https://youtu.be/Q-rPcXq3z-E
commentary:
44:3 They didn’t get the land in possession by their own sword- This alludes to how Jacob’s final words were a claim that he had taken possession in the land by his own sword and bow (Gen. 48:22). Note how :4 says that it was God who gave Jacob his victories. Jacob was a faithful man who will be in the Kingdom, and yet he didn’t achieve perfection, and died with weakness and misunderstanding on his lips. Without encouraging complacency, we can take comfort that we will not of ourselves attain moral perfection and will die with some weaknesses and spiritual blind points; and yet still be saved by God’s grace if we abide faithful to Him in our hearts. But in this case it is for us to learn the lesson of Jacob’s failure- the Psalm goes on to teach us that our inheritance of the Kingdom will be by grace and not by our own sword and strength (:6).
 44:22 For Your sake we are killed all day long- Quoted in Rom. 8:36 in the context of teaching that even though we are killed all day long, this cannot separate us from the saving love of Christ. The context of Ps. 44:22 is speaking of how Israel suffered for their sins in being slaughtered by their enemies. So Paul in Romans is comforting us that although we may suffer for our sins, even those sufferings do not separate us from the saving love of Christ who quite simply so earnestly wants to save us in the end.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06mssSiEVjE
sermon: https://youtu.be/Ftke0qs7jzg
commentary:
96:6 Idols are characterized here as being ultimately unable to create anything. Whilst we may not be tempted to worship literal idols, we have many other potential idols in our lives which take us away from God- endless surfing the internet, involvement in social networking, following sport and celebrities, making money, absorbing hobbies. These are uncreative, ultimately; serving God is the only truly creative thing we can do with our lives.
96:10 Say among the nations- The Psalmist was intent on preaching to the Gentiles. See on 18:49.
96:13 Applied to Christ’s return in judgment in Acts 17:31.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-e9QlsI_P0
sermon: https://youtu.be/Be0JTZzfXSA
commentary:
136:8 In this hard and graceless world, we have only to look at the sun and moon, indeed at all of creation, to see God’s sensitive grace constantly active.
136:10 The death of the Egyptian firstborn and their army (:15) was a reflection of God’s grace to Israel. We may struggle with this but ultimately it is a challenge to our perceptions and understanding rather than any bad reflection against God (see 143:12). We are reminded of how the flood was brought to destroy the world of Noah’s day in order to save him (2 Pet. 2:5), so that he was as it were saved by that water just as the water of baptism saves us (1 Pet. 3:19-21).
136:23,24 Understood by Mary as having fulfilment in the birth of Christ as our ultimate deliverer (Lk. 1:48).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vARwndsuWRI
sermon: https://youtu.be/qX_1RO2Rq_4
commentary:
2:9 Solomon insists that throughout his life, his wisdom had remained with him. The theoretical wisdom which he had did not affect his life practically, and thus it was as if he lacked wisdom completely. Mere possession of truth leads to great temptations- for like Solomon, we can reason that this alone justifies us in any behaviour.
2:18,21 Solomon saw “wisdom” as something he had worked for [forgetting it was God’s gracious gift to him], and he treated it as a material possession. Because he saw that he couldn’t take it with him, he felt therefore it was useless- he didn’t, it seems, want to leave it to his son because he felt it was only for him. This was the spirit of the man who buried his talent of Divine Truth in the ground and thought that would be enough- he wouldn’t risk it with others or share it with them. And so Solomon ended up hating all his labour for wisdom because at the end of his life that mere knowledge and teaching of it to others hadn’t transformed his personal life. The rejected at the day of judgment may well, tragically, feel the same. But now is the time to personally apply God’s Truth to ourselves and to be humbled by the very possession of it.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41GikIH9yxQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/_hapY69X7eE
commentary:
6:1 In :1-4 we have a vision of “the Lord high and lifted up", enthroned in the temple, with an earthquake, the temple filled with smoke, the doorposts that held up the veil being shaken (with the implication that the veil falls, :4). Rev. 15:5-8, building on this passage, has the veil being removed, the Most Holy opened, and the temple filled with smoke. This sends the mind straight to the rending of the temple veil at the crucifixion and the earthquake (Mt. 27:51). The Lord “high and lifted up" is a phrase that occurs later in Isaiah (52:13), concerning the crucified Lord Jesus, lifted up and exalted “very high" by the cross. John 12:37-41 tells us that Isaiah 6 is a prophetic vision of the Lord Jesus in glory; and in this passage John quotes both Isaiah 6 and 53 together, reflecting their connection and application to the same event, namely the Lord’s crucifixion. When Isaiah saw this vision he was convicted of his sinfulness, as we should be before the cross: “Woe is me, for I am undone...". And yet the same vision comforted him with the reality of forgiveness, and inspired him to offer to go forth and witness to Israel of God’s grace. The vision of the cross convicts men of their sin, and yet inspires them to go forward in service. Rev. 4:9 alludes to the Isaiah 6 vision, and applies it to the future judgment. Yet silhouetted within the vision of the judgment throne is a slain lamb (Rev. 5:6), as if before the judgment, all will be aware of the Lord’s sacrifice. The accepted will utter praise immediately after realising the wonderful verdict pronounced for them- in terms of praising Jesus for his sacrifice, and recognising their eternal debt to the blood of His cross (Rev. 5:9). The cross, the judgment and reward are connected. In Jn. 12:31,32, in the same passage in which Isaiah 6 and 53 are connected and applied to the crucifixion, Jesus Himself foretold that His death would be “the judgment of this world". Whenever we come before the cross we come before our judgment, and therefore self-examination at the breaking of bread service is natural.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2DSQOPfmYk
sermon: https://youtu.be/DuawqmuchF4
commentary:
31:3 The implication is that God also has horses and chariots- His invisible Angelic cherubim. Although Judah preferred to believe in the visible horses of Egypt, yet in His amazing grace, God still used His Angelic cherubim to destroy the Assyrians (37:36). This is grace itself.
31:4 Yahweh of Armies- God uses this title of Himself in this context to remind Judah that He has armies of Angels at His disposal. Judah were running to Egypt to enlist the help of their human armies; and by doing so were disbelieving that Yahweh really is the Yahweh of Armies of Angels.
31:7 This means that at the time of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in Hezekiah’s time (which is the context of the chapter), the people were still worshipping idols. Yet Hezekiah had supposedly purged Judah of idols. This shows that true faith is sometimes only found in a minority of God’s people; they may go along with the guidance of faithful leadership externally, but even good leaders cannot reform the hearts of individuals. It also shows how the Angelic deliverance of Jerusalem was due to the prayers and faith of a very small remnant, centred around Isaiah and Hezekiah.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buI4iarkXMI
sermon: https://youtu.be/4Geq7e4thy8
commentary:
36:1 The Assyrian invasion was in the 14th year of Hezekiah’s reign. He reigned twenty nine years (2 Kings 14:2). His sickness unto death from which he was miraculously healed gave him another 15 years to live (38:5); his serious illness was therefore in the same year in which Judah was invaded. So often, several things go seriously wrong in our lives all at the same time. The chance of that happening is negligible; clearly such negative coincidences are all under God’s controlling hand [not that of any cosmic ‘Satan’ being]. The coincidences would be too great to write off as merely chance. Note also that Hezekiah had lived a good life and acted in faith despite being surrounded by many of weak or weaker faith- and then, double tragedy struck him. Good living is no guarantee of a charmed life now, indeed, given all the Biblical examples of good people like Hezekiah suffering bad things, we should be surprised if we don’t receive them.
36:10 The way Rabshakeh uses the term “Yahweh”, speaks Hebrew (:11) and is aware of Isaiah’s prophecies about Assyria being sent to punish Judah, and the fact that Judah had trusted on Egypt when Yahweh had told them not to (:6), would all suggest that Rabshakeh was an apostate Jew who had gone over to the Assyrian side.
36:16,17 This is a parody of Micah’s prophecy of what God’s future Kingdom on earth would be like (Mic. 4:4). The allusion is so strong that it would seem Rabshakeh knew that prophecy, confirming the suggestion made under :10 that he was an apostate Jew. The kingdoms of this world offer us a fake kingdom of God in this life- if we submit to them and reject the vision of God’s Kingdom. Going the way of the world may appear to give all that God’s Kingdom offers- but the kingdoms of men shall come to an end, all is not what it seems, they will not last eternally as God’s Kingdom will; and it is for us to have the wisdom to see that we face a choice between the Kingdom of God, and the kingdoms of men which are a poor imitation of it.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UivUNfE5jkA
sermon: https://youtu.be/gwWpTkOd8AI
commentary:
53:1 Who has believed our message? was fulfilled both in the final, friendless rejection of the crucifixion, and also in the failure of Israel to really believe as a result of the Lord’s miracles done during His life (Jn. 12:38). “He has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering” is how :4 described the cross; but these words are quoted in Mt. 8:16,17 about Christ’s healing of people. The miracles therefore were performed in the spirit of the cross- personally identifying with the sick and healing them through that identification. His whole life was a being acquainted with disease (Heb. “grief”) (:3); and yet we read in this same context that He was put to grief in His death (:10). The grief of His death was an extension of the grief of His life. “He bore the sin of many" (:12) is applied by Jn. 1:29 to how during His ministry, Jesus bore the sin of the world. All this shows that the cross wasn’t an unusual, one time act of supreme devotion; the spirit of it was lived out in Christ’s daily life. We who are to carry His cross must see it the same way.
53:2 As a root out of dry ground- There was nothing around Jesus in His environment which encouraged spirituality. He grew as we do, as a tender green plant in a desert.
53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray- We tend to sin as a result of group mentality; and yet this influences us individually to each turn to our own personal, unique way of sinning.
53:7 As a sheep that before its shearers is mute- A sheep is dumb in this situation from total fear. Jesus was human and in His time of dying went through all the usual human emotions in the face of death.
53:9 A detailed prophecy of how Jesus died with the wicked but was buried in the tomb of the rich Joseph of Arimathea.
53:10 He shall see his seed- Did Jesus have a vision of us the ones He would redeem, which inspired Him at the end, at the very time He was making an offering for sin?


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mW7sGENyD4
sermon: https://youtu.be/7tTqtMnlaYc
commentary:
58:2 Again we see that Judah weren’t atheists, nor did they formally reject Yahweh- rather the opposite. But they ignored His commandments in practice, and those they kept they used as a means for spiritual pride. In all this we have a highly relevant message to ourselves.
58:3 In the day of your fast you find pleasure- Sacrifice to God must be sacrifice, contrite repentance means just that, rather than using these concepts as a channel for our own self-fulfilment.
58:5 Bow down his head as a rush- To quickly spring back again to pride. Our talk of humility mustn’t be just a temporary, tokenistic acceptance of it as a nice idea.
58:6 Consider how Jesus brings together various passages from Isaiah in His opening declaration in Lk. 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the good tidings to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,   and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach [proclaim] [Heb. ‘call out to a man’] the acceptable year of the Lord”. This combines allusions to 61:1 (Lev. 25:10); 58:6 LXX and  61:2. Is. 58 has many Day of Atonement allusions- the year of Jubilee began on this feast. We are as the High Priest declaring the reality of forgiveness to the crowd. Hence Lk. 24:47 asks us to proclaim a Jubilee of atonement. The Greek for “preach” in Lk. 24:47 and for “preach / proclaim the acceptable year” in Lk. 4:19 are the same, and the word is used in the LXX for proclaiming the Jubilee. The LXX word used for ‘jubilee’ means remission, release, forgiveness, and it is the word used to describe our preaching / proclaiming forgiveness in Lk. 24:47. It could be that we are to see the cross as the day of atonement, and from then on the Jubilee should be proclaimed in the lives of those who accept it. It’s as if we are running round telling people that their mortgages have been cancelled, hire purchase payments written off... and yet we are treated as telling them something unreal, when it is in fact so real and pertinent to them.
58:6-13 This seems to be a reference to an insincerely kept day of atonement in Ezra or Nehemiah’s time. The Jewish nobles were oppressing the poor and thereby keeping the feast with no meaning. If they had properly kept the feast, then the promised Kingdom conditions would have burst forth to the world around them. But they were too caught up with their own self-benefit to be bothered to show true care for their brethren. If they had, then the glory of Yahweh would have entered the temple, just as Ezekiel 43 had prophesied would happen, if the Kingdom was rebuilt as commanded.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnCQO820Q8A
sermon: https://youtu.be/27CiWxoYnqs
commentary:
62:1 Although God may appear inactive, there is a restlessness in Him, willing all things towards their appointed end- the establishment of His Kingdom on earth based around Jerusalem. This restlessness of God is inspired by His people continually begging Him to intervene on earth, to reveal Himself and establish His Kingdom (:6,7).
62:6 I have set watchmen on your walls- These watchmen refer to us who pray continually to God to establish His Kingdom (:7), but God has as it were set us up to pray like this. There are times when we feel we have been moved by God to pray about things; in this phenomenon we perceive God’s grace, that it’s not all simply up to us, but God to some extent works in our spirituality and inspires us to pray as we should, as if He wants as it were an excuse to act.
62:11 Applied by Jesus to His second coming in Rev. 22:12.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnF7eQd3ulA
sermon: https://youtu.be/C10GbssxLOA
commentary:
5:1 All of Jerusalem would have been forgiven if there was even one that truly executed justice. This is the colossal significance to God of the individual. Abraham ceased at 10 people when interceding for Sodom, but if he had gone down to asking for the city to be spared for just one righteous person, likely he would’ve been heard. See on 26:13.
Who does justice- The Hebrew Bible very often demands “justice” from individuals within Israel and almost considers this to be the epitome of righteousness. We may consider that because we’re not judges nor part of the judicial apparatus of society, therefore this doesn’t apply to us. But daily if not hourly, we’re confronted with situations which demand our correct response, our fairness, our application of Divine principle when dealing with others, often to our own cost; and in our own minds, we do have to judge, not in the sense of condemning but in forming opinions. Thus “justice” is required from each of us, daily.
5:5 We see here Jeremiah’s naivety, assuming that the leaders of God’s people must surely be spiritual people. The disciples were the same, initially. We too easily tend to confuse status or seniority amongst God’s people with spirituality, and so often this assumption is wrong.
5:7 When I had fed them to the full- So often God’s kind material blessings to His people led them into unfaithfulness to Him (Dt. 32:15). It’s not surprising, therefore, that the requests of the new Israel for material blessing are so often unanswered; for God seeks relationship with us above all, and earnestly desires our eternal good.
How can I pardon you?- This opens a window on the self-questioning which is associated with God- e.g. "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?" (Hos. 6:4; 11:8; see too Jer. 9:7,9). These aren’t purely rhetorical questions- they reflect the actual and real self-questioning of Almighty God, reflective as it is of the turbulence of emotion which is part and parcel of being in a relationship which has gone painfully wrong. There even seems at times a difficulty on God's part to understand why the people He had loved could hate Him so much (2:14,31;8:5,19; 30:6; Is. 5:4; 50:2). "What more could I have done for my vineyard... why did it yield wild grapes?" (Is. 5:1-7). This is so much the anguished cry of bewildered middle age parents as they reflect upon a wayward child. This Divine struggle to understand reflects the extraordinary depth of His love for them; and it warns us in chilling terms as to the pain we can cause God if we spurn His amazing love. 8:4-7 records God reflecting that even the stork 'returns' predictably; but His people have inexplicably not returned to Him. This reveals a powerful thing- that our rejection of God's love is inexplicable even to God Himself. And yet humanity persists in this utter madness. For all our education, business sense, scientific knowledge- we are revealed as inexplicably foolish in rejecting God's love and not 'returning' [repenting] to Him.
5:11 It is not He- A denial of the meaning of ‘Yahweh’- I am that I am. Yet they weren’t atheists. But by denying the reality of judgment to come and the constant, insistent presence of God in our lives and His continual claim upon every part of our lives, they were denying the essence of God- He is, who He is, and shall be who He shall be in our lives.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq7UQupmubY
sermon: https://youtu.be/DVF5VmLolpI
commentary:
25:3 Rising up early and speaking- Just as God also did (:4). In our witness to the world, we are especially united with God. He is speaking through us; our feelings of disappointment, discouragement and rejection are in a sense His feelings; our joy at converting another is His joy. In this sense Jesus says He will be personally with us as we obey the commission to take His message to all the world (Mt. 28:20).
25:8 Because you have not heard My words- Time and again, ignoring God’s word is presented as the main reason for Judah’s condemnation. The people would’ve heard Jeremiah teaching and preaching, and simply shrugged. They may have accepted him as a prophet, but they were not prepared to have their lives disrupted by his message; they were fine as they were, too busy (as they thought). The fact they didn’t take seriously the emotional man from Anathoth was the basis of their condemnation. Yet they loyally went to the temple (26:2) and offered sacrifice. They weren’t atheists. They simply didn’t take God’s word seriously. People are just the same today. We likewise should be aware that our easy access to God’s word today makes us very much accountable. We ought to be reading it at least daily and seriously trying to conform our lives and thinking to it.
25:9 And against all these nations around- Judah’s sin lead to other nations suffering. People suffer the effects of others’ sin, as we see in the consequence of Adam’s sin. This isn’t because God punishes the righteous with the wicked, but because He allows people the freewill to sin; and the sinfulness of sin is in the harmful effect it has upon others.
25:15 Being given a cup of wine to drink from God is a double symbol- of condemnation, as here, or of blessing and salvation (1 Cor. 10:16). This is why our drinking of the cup of wine at the communion service is a step either to our eternal blessing or condemnation, and this is why we are powerfully helped by the symbol  to examine ourselves at that meeting especially, knowing that we have only one of two possible destinies- eternal death or the blessing of eternal life (1 Cor. 11:29). And there is no way out by simply refusing to drink it- for if we refuse, we shall be made to drink it to our condemnation (:28).
25:18-26 We seem to have here a chronological prediction of the nations which Babylon attacked and destroyed, beginning with Jerusalem (:29); and finally Sheshach, a code name for Babylon, drinks the cup of destruction herself.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejAiTANUqk
sermon: https://youtu.be/b9PO9YNfCi4
commentary:
32:8 Then I knew that this was the word of Yahweh- To buy property in a land terrorized by the Babylonians and about to be taken over by them (note the date given in :1), as God Himself had predicted, seemed pointless and foolish. There was only any point in doing this if it would result in Jeremiah’s family gaining the land at a future date, but it seems from 16:2 that Jeremiah had no children. But sometimes God asks us to do such counter-instinctive things that we know that this just has to be His hand. Likewise Peter tested whether it was really Jesus walking on the water by saying that if it was Jesus, then only He would ask him to come walking on the water; only the Lord would ask us to do such counter-instinctive things (Mt. 14:28).
32:15 The repeated emphasis upon witnessing the purchase and making it legal was because at the end of the 70 years captivity, land would again be valuable and be bought and sold; and this land which Jeremiah was buying would therefore be a valued part of his family’s inheritance. So God was asking Jeremiah to put his money where his mouth was for the sake of the hope of the restored Kingdom which he was preaching. Sometimes God asks us to do the same; to make a sacrifice, even a financial one, for the sake of the hope of the Kingdom which we profess to others.
32:23 Done nothing of all that You commanded- Yet they were partially obedient; even within Jeremiah we see evidence of them offering sacrifices. But giving only part of our hearts to God is effectively giving nothing; the lesson is the demand for wholeheartedness in devotion. Hence :30 says that Israel “have done only that which was evil in My sight from their youth”. Another window onto this is to understand that when someone believes, righteousness is imputed to them; but to the unbeliever, sin is imputed (Rom. 4:8). Hence all the blood of the prophets was counted upon those who slew Jesus (Mt. 23:35). We cannot therefore simply choose not to believe and claim some kind of neutrality before God; sin will be added to our existing sins (Ps. 69:27).
32:25 Although Jeremiah did what God commanded and openly justified it to others on the basis that one day, God’s promised restoration would happen- yet he evidently struggled within himself and with God about this issue. We may appear confident in faith and hope in the future Kingdom, and so may others, but who knows the internal struggles going on within us all.
32:37 Out of all the countries- The Babylonians scattered the Jews amongst all their empire. Hence the book of Esther describes how the Jews were to be found in all 127 provinces of the empire; the command to kill them and then to save them had to be written in all those different languages (Esther 8:9; 9:30).
32:40 I will put My fear in their hearts- Part of the new covenant involved God giving those included in it a new heart (:39), putting His word within their minds (31:33). Whilst we of our own freewill have to be prepared to enter that covenant with God, our salvation isn’t by our works nor by our steel willed mastery of our own minds; God works within the human heart, to some extent even giving us spirituality.
32:44 These were exactly the things which Jeremiah had been asked to do right then, before this promised time of restoration of the Kingdom. The command wasn’t simply so that his relatives’ descendants might be blessed by his obedience with some land to the family name (note the implication in 16:2 that he didn’t have his own children); rather was it an invitation to him to live out the Kingdom life in this life, even though the environment was very much not the time of God’s restored Kingdom, in fact the very opposite. We too are invited to experience the Kingdom life in some ways even now.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoOFY6zXkLc
sermon: https://youtu.be/X35iYeC4ylo
commentary:
7:9 According to your ways- Here God says that He will punish Israel at the hand of the Babylonians according to their sins, proportionate to them. But when Israel were punished by the Babylonians, Ezra (9:13) realized that they had not been punished proportionate to their sins. Yet in Is. 40:2, again in the context of Judah's punishment by the Babylonians, God says that their judgment had been double what it ought to have been; and yet Ezra says it was less than the promised proportionate recompense for their sins. Here we have the utter, humanly inconsistent grace of God; almost taking guilt for punishing them too much, then for not punishing them enough, and yet saying He will punish them in exact proportion to their sin (see too 5:11; 8:18,19; 9:10). All we can say is that God is passionate and emotional. He hates punishing His children for their sins, just as any loving parent does, even if He speaks at times in the fire of His wrath. And when He did punish Judah, it seems He almost rushes to take it back and say it was far too much. This isn’t to say that God is in any sense fickle; the paradox can perhaps only dimly be understood by the analogy to human parenting dilemmas. All we can say is that His love and passion for His wayward children is real and felt, and He will not hold Himself to His word of judgment in a legalistic, literalistic sense- quite simply because love, not least His love, is beyond such limitation.
7:12 The time has come- And yet God says elsewhere that it is still to come (:10). God is outside of time as we know it. The future is as if it’s happened. Because of this, God can speak of the dead as if they are alive, although they are not; and can speak of people as if they were alive before birth. He can speak of a day coming as if it has come (Is. 3:8). We need to bear this in mind in interpreting His word.
7:20 Therein- Amazingly, there were idols made in Yahweh’s temple…
7:23 The Hebrew word mishpat means [and is translated] both “crime” (7:23) and “judgment” (5:7,16,20). Every sin is its own judgment, and brings us immediately as it were before the judgment throne of God. And yet mishpat is also translated “ordinance”, in speaking about the commands of God (11:20). Acts of obedience are also acts of judgment; they too bring us positively before the judgment of God. The Greek and Hebrew words translated 'judge' mean both the process of discerning / summing up, and also the execution of judgment.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkpPGpFV7VM
sermon: https://youtu.be/FywcZn2zNd4
commentary:
3:1 The image of the Daniel 2 vision had described Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold, who would soon be replaced by other world empires. Nebuchadnezzar didn’t like the sound of this- and so he blasphemously made an entire image of gold, as if to imply that he would in fact never come to an end. Believing in the coming of God’s eternal Kingdom means we recognize our own frailty and mortality, and however small our ‘kingdom’ is in this world, it will quickly come to an end. Our focus will be on that Kingdom which is to come, rather than upon our ‘kingdom’ in this life, that very limited circle of things over which we have some power and control. Nebuchadnezzar didn’t want to accept this; he like many unbelievers tried to live within the assumption, and create the impression, that his life and ‘kingdom’ would continue for ever. See on 4:3.
3:6 Rev. 13:14,15 speaks of the beast creating an image in the last days before Christ returns, and persecuting all those who refuse to bow down to it. This is clearly alluding to what happened in Daniel’s time in historical Babylon. The essence of what we read here will therefore be seen in the last days before Christ’s return. A “herald” cried aloud to peoples of all nations and languages, and bid them worship the Babylonian image, on pain of being cast into a fiery furnace (:4). And yet in Rev. 14:9,10, an Angel herald cries to all nations and languages, warning them that if they do worship the image, they will be cast into the lake of fire. The Angels had observed Nebuchadnezzar’s arrogance and defiance, and many centuries later they will work out their way of parodying it in their future proclamation to the world.
3:8 Chaldeans- The very astrologers (4:7) whose lives Daniel had saved (2:12). When we do good to others, very often they aren’t merely ungrateful but positively resent us and seek to hurt us. This is a sad tendency of human nature, exemplified throughout history. If it happens to us, we must remember that it is in fact normal, and Biblical history is full of such examples, coming to their ultimate term in the Jewish hatred of their Saviour, Jesus.
3:18 Even if God didn't preserve them, they would still serve Him alone. Perhaps they had Job's words going round in their minds: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job 13:15). We cannot expect nor demand Divine deliverance from our crises; our love and trust of Him lead us to accept that He truly knows best and wishes us only our eternal good in our latter end.
3:28 Yielded their bodies- Alluded to in Rom. 6:13,19, where we are told that at baptism we yield our bodies in service to God as our true King and Master.
3:30 Where was Daniel at this time? Sick? Weak in faith? Away on business?


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBkpJG15sTg
sermon: https://youtu.be/WKgwZ_mU20k
commentary:
5:13 This incident is so similar to Joseph being suddenly summoned to come in to the mighty king and explain a dream which was worrying him, on the recommendation of another who remembered his previous ability in interpreting dreams; and they were both rewarded by the king in similar ways (Gen. 41:14,40-42). The fact circumstances repeat within the lives of God’s children and also between people, one believer experiencing strangely similar situations to what another one has experienced, is all a sign that our lives are under God’s control, and they develop according to patterns which He uses and has used with others. This means that we can feel great fellowship with Bible characters, and also with other believers of our own age. Daniel must have immediately thought of Joseph as he received the command to come before the king, and would’ve been strengthened by it. Likewise the scene here in Daniel 5 of Gentiles praising their gods, mocking Yahweh, and then suddenly being destroyed was a repeat of that in Jud. 16:24.
5:20 His spirit was hardened- The hardening was done by God. He confirmed Nebuchadnezzar in the mental position he chose to adopt. The language is similar to how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, after Pharaoh had hardened his own heart.
5:22 Though you knew all this- A classic example of how knowledge brings responsibility to God’s judgment (Lk. 12:48; Jn. 15:22).
You, his son, Belshazzar- Triple emphasis is given to the fact that God was watching and speaking so directly and personally to this man, whose name He knew.
5:26 Numbered- God allows things to happen and permits nations to prosper for specific periods of time. The number of our days is likewise numbered (Job 7:1; 14:5; 38:21). God isn’t absent from our world; everything is under amazingly tight observation and control.
5:27 Judgment is in a sense ongoing in this life; it’s not that God is indifferent now, and will weigh our case only at the last day. Right now, human lives are weighed before God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGfio4CbCt4
sermon: https://youtu.be/J5Lo1kN1_rY
commentary:
6:10 Daniel could have just prayed privately, in his heart. Many other Jews probably did this. But he chose to continue to openly pray. He was prepared to give his life for what was only a conscience issue. We too must establish and be prepared to live by our conscience, no matter what others think. Note that Daniel and other faithful believers like David (Ps. 55:17; 119:164) prayed regularly, just as the incense (cp. prayer) was offered regularly. Regular prayer is a good discipline in the life of the believer, rather than praying only when we have the mood or in emergencies. Daniel was willing to die in justification of his habit of open, unashamed, regular prayer.
6:20 You serve continually- Darius was referring to Daniel’s continual prayer. Prayer is a service to God; something we can do even if we incapable of doing any more physical, external service to Him.
6:22 The mouths of the lions were closed so that they did not “destroy” Daniel; and because of this, Darius praises God, saying that His Kingdom would never be 'destroyed' (:26, same original word). Daniel was not destroyed; and thus Darius came to believe that God's Kingdom would not be destroyed. Daniel was set up as a living part and foretaste of that Kingdom, just as we too are to exemplify the life of the future Kingdom in our lives today; in this sense we ‘have eternal life’ in that we live the kind of lives which we will eternally live in God’s future Kingdom. To a far greater extent, "the Kingdom of God" is a title given to the Lord Jesus- because He in His mortal life was the essence of that Kingdom, the embodiment of the life which shall then be lived.
6:25 Note how Daniel is presented as a type of Christ in this chapter. :14 The ruler labouring not to kill a righteous man, manipulated by his own underlings = Pilate; :17 Den of lions- den s.w. pit Is. 14:15, where it is paralleled with the grave. :17 Stone sealed and put on the mouth of the cave [den]= Mt. 27:66; :17 the purpose could not be changed regarding Daniel's death= Jesus died by the determinate counsel of God, Acts 2:23; :22 An Angel sent; :22 'resurrection' early in the morning; :22 Daniel not hurt because innocency found in him = Acts 2:24; :23 Daniel taken up out of the den = resurrection and ascension, s.w. Ps. 139:8 who shall ascend to Heaven; :23 no damage was found on Daniel implies they examined his body= Lk. 24:39; :25,26 decree = great commission to spread the knowledge of God's Kingdom which we must fulfil after the Lord's resurrection.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mOyGbSF02g
sermon: https://youtu.be/vexDVUzWJ5w
commentary:
12:1 Michael- The Angel that represents Israel, Daniel’s people.
12:2 Immortality is thus given when Christ returns, after the resurrection and at the judgment seat of Christ- not at the moment of death.
12:3,10 draw a parallel between those having wisdom and those who turn many to righteousness. Some translate “those who are wise” as “the teachers”, reflecting the play of ideas within the Hebrew sense of ‘wisdom’- to have wisdom is axiomatically to teach it. To possess God’s Truth therefore means that we will share it with others in some form; one cannot keep good news just to themselves.
12:4 Running is an idiom for responding to God’s word (Ps. 119:32,60; 147:15; Amos 8:11,12; Hab. 2:2; 2 Thess. 3:1). In the last days there will be some who understand the prophecies which Daniel so wanted to but couldn’t (:9), and they will respond to this knowledge powerfully. The purpose of prophecy isn’t to predict the future, but so that the generation who live at the time of its fulfilment will understand (as in Jn. 13:19; 14:29).
12:7 Time, times… See on 7:25.
12:10 In the last days, "the wise shall understand" (12:10). Wisdom and Daniel are clearly associated, at least eight times (Dan. 1:17; 2:13,14,18,24,27,48; Ez. 28:3); as are Daniel and a desire to understand. Yet Daniel did not fully understand his latter day prophecies; "the wise shall understand" in the last days, Daniel was comforted. In other words, there will be a 'Daniel' category in the last days who will share his wisdom, sharing the character of Daniel, and who will be given the understanding he so earnestly sought.
12:13 A promise to Daniel of personal resurrection and receiving a specific place or “lot” in God’s future Kingdom on earth.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-TUzqIp_fw
sermon: https://youtu.be/c3VRPzzpYNY
commentary:
1:4 Edom (Esau) was zealous to return and rebuild the ravaged land which God had once given him, whereas Israel wasn’t, for the most part, zealous to return from Babylon to rebuild the land God had given them. And yet God still loved Israel above Edom, by pure grace. So often those who aren’t God’s people are more zealous for their causes than God’s people are for His.
1:7 ‘The table of the Lord’ refers to the altar. At the breaking of bread service, we eat of “the table of the Lord” (1 Cor. 10:21), the same phrase used here in the Septuagint. By breaking bread we are therefore like the priests of Israel eating at the altar. His work hasn’t been delegated out to a group of specialists; we are all the priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5,9).
1:8 One doesn’t give sub-standard service to their employer. One didn’t bring him a defective animal as a gift. And yet Israel gave their God the lame and the blind animals, they only served Him as far as it didn’t hurt them. They gave Him what cost them nothing. And yet they should not only have served Him as they served their earthly masters; but, because He is the “great God”, they should have given Him even more. And so we must ask: the time we give to our careers and development in them, the thought we give to our secular lives, the respect we pay it… how does this compare to our attitude to Divine things?
1:10 There was nobody to even shut the doors of the temple; there was nobody willing to fulfil Ezekiel’s prophecy / command about the temple doors being shut (Ez. 44:1,2; 46:1,2,12), and so the potential situation prophesied by Ezekiel didn’t come true because God’s people in Malachi’s time just couldn’t be bothered. So much potential was wasted at the return of Judah from Babylon, and it is in our age too.
1:13 Weariness- The repetitive nature of priestly work led them to treat it as "a weariness". They got bored with the things of the Kingdom, as in 2:10,11. Familiarity can so easily lead to our not grasping the awe of being in relationship with God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WARiEjOj4Ek
sermon: https://youtu.be/WBKf9O8qfFo
commentary:
9:6 As James 3:9; the fact humans are made in God's image means we should perceive the value and meaning of persons, from not killing to holding the door open for people... Defacing God’s image earns death. In what ways can we destroy the image of God in others apart from by killing them? Any form of dehumanizing surely does the same. Because we are made in God's image, we should therefore not kill other humans. James says the same, in essence, in teaching that because we are in God's image, we shouldn't curse others. To curse a man is to kill him. That's the point of James' allusion to Genesis and to God as creator. Respect for the person of others is inculcated by sustained reflection on the way that they too are created in God's image.
9:25 Canaan- Noah thrice rails against Canaan (:26,27). Why, seeing that the shame had been done to him by Ham, Canaan's father? This seems a classic example of transference- people often focus their anger not against the one who has hurt them, but against that person's relative, family or cause. We should deal with persons directly, perceiving the value and meaning of the human person; and not deflect the relationship onto others as Noah appears to have done. The curses placed by Noah have no fulfillment [contrary to many racist and misguided attempts to force such a fulfillment]. The story ends with a huge spiritual anticlimax, although later reference to Noah shows that he was judged faithful overall.
 9:29 And he died- In the myth of Utnapishtim, the one who survives the flood  is turned into a hero and becomes a god. But Moses’ inspired record is different. The flood account ends with Noah dying- not becoming a god. And Noah not only remains human, but he remains very human- because he goes out and gets drunk after he comes out of the ark. Moses’ point is surely to show that real human lives really do intersect with Almighty God’s work, words and actions.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF2w77-lwz4
sermon: https://youtu.be/LtIDSUnpfVE
commentary:
8:3 In going and returning- this is the language of the surges of huge tidal waves, caused by the underwater eruptions of the “fountains of the deep” being broken up (7:11; 8:2). Being in the ark must've been a very rocky ride; the boat would've been tossed and thrown most of the time. And so it is with our ride in Christ.
8:4 Seventeenth day of the seventh month- Israel left Egypt on the 14th day of Abib, the seventh month which became the first month in their new calendar; they likely crossed the Red Sea on the 17th day of that month. So perhaps it was on the very same day that the ark rested. Israel's passage through the Red Sea typified baptism (1 Cor. 10:1,2), just as Noah's passing through the flood waters did (1 Pet. 3:19-21). Note that this was the same day that the Lord Jesus was resurrected- He died at Passover, 14th Abib, and resurrected three days later, 17th Abib.
8:20 Built an altar- This was on Noah’s initiative. There had been no altars stipulated previously. God had asked Noah to build an ark, and now Noah of his own volition builds an altar. As we mature in Christ, we no longer simply follow commands but take our own initiative in God’s service. Noah’s first reaction may have been to build a house for himself and his family; but he put God first and built an altar.
8:21 Said in His heart- We may never know in this life God’s feelings in response to our sacrifices. We can touch the heart of God, we tiny mortals on earth… 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zgRDxKStjE
sermon: https://youtu.be/Lks--voPb8k
commentary:
7:7  In the face of- Seems to imply that he waited until the very last minute. It seems this was not due to any lack of faith, but rather because of the urgency and desperation he felt in appealing to others to come into the ark with him. He truly was a remarkable “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5). Our knowledge of this world’s future means that as we walk the streets and mix with men and women, our heart should cry out for them, no matter how they behave towards us, and there should be a deep seated desire for at least some of them to come to repentance and thereby avoid the judgments to come.
7:23 Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him- Noah is the focus of salvation, but in him and with him his family were saved. Likewise our salvation is by being “in Christ”.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE7hPywJvYA
sermon: https://youtu.be/SMX9adkFDVE
commentary:
2:3 Hannah had reflected upon God’s omniscience; and on this basis she tells Peninnah not to be proud and use hard words against her, exactly because of this. That He sees and knows all things should humble us and affect our speech.
Yahweh is a God of knowledge, though actions be not weighed- Although actions are not judged immediately and publically (“weighed”), they surely will be- because, quite simply, God knows.
2:6 Clearly sheol refers to the grave and not any place of eternal condemnation in fire.
2:12 Men of Belial- The idea is ‘sinful men’. In the Old Testament, sin was personified as ‘Belial’, so we shouldn’t be surprised if it’s personified as ‘the enemy’  or ‘satan’ in the New Testament.
2:24 You make Yahweh’s people disobey- We can spiritually destroy our brother, for whom Christ died (Rom. 14:15); we can undo the work of the cross for a brother who would otherwise be saved by it. We can make others sin (Ex. 23:33; 1 Kings 16:19). There is an urgent imperative here, to really watch our behaviour; e.g. to not drink alcohol in the presence of a brother whose conscience is weak.
2:25 They didn’t listen to their father, because Yahweh intended to kill them- God has an ability to confirm men in the path to destruction they choose to tread. The very experience of sin confirms sinners in that way: “The way of the wicked seduces them” (Prov. 12:26). The spiritual effect of God upon men over and above their own strength is indicated by this example (cp. Josh. 11:20; Jud. 14:4; 2 Chron. 10:15).
2:30 God is unashamed about the fact that He can change His stated purposes about people in response to human behaviour; the fact God does this is simply an indication of the extent to which He is sensitive to our actions and decisions.
2:32 The wealth which I would have given Israel- Some prophecies simply won’t come true because they refer to what God had potentially prepared for His people, but they disallow Him from giving them what He had intended. This is an example. Knowing this, women like Hannah clearly hoped and prayed that their sons would be Messiah (2:10 = Ps. 89:24); for they perceived that God’s purpose was open to such a thing.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UYhjud88F0
sermon: https://youtu.be/7pmXJv0e84E
commentary:
33:11 Your breath is a fire that will devour you- This is a common theme, that the rejected are those who condemn and destroy themselves, often by their own words (“breath”).
33:15 Shuts his eyes from looking at evil- Very relevant to us in the age when all manner of evil can be viewed without others knowing. This verse teaches that our hands, eyes and ears really can come under our control. There is the impression given that human behaviour is somehow automatic; and yet we can take control of our senses and responses to them.
33:18 This refers to the Assyrian military personnel outside Jerusalem, wisely analyzing the situation as they besieged the city. But Paul alludes to the LXX of this verse in 1 Cor. 1:20, where he says that we too are surrounded by the wise and powerful of this world, but ‘Where are they...?’ compared to the power of the Gospel of Christ, which declares their wisdom and human strength as nothing. Paul therefore understands each of us as being as it were in essence in the same position as the Jews of Isaiah’s time, tempted to rely upon Egypt rather than God, and likely to be awed by the human strength of those things which are against us. And yet we are to see them in the perspective of faith as nothing, as foolish and weak.
33:24 There is a connection between sin and sickness, as made also by Jesus (Mt. 9:5). It doesn’t mean that sickness always comes as a result of sin, but rather that because of our fallen state as a result of sin we are generally prone to sickness and death. The ultimate answer to sickness, therefore, is the complete removal of our sin, being counted righteous by God, and therefore being related (by His grace) to eternal life. In our age this is possible through baptism into Christ.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiNcAe9e0sk
sermon: https://youtu.be/wsvBUs8Vrpo
commentary:
6:2 The Israelites who fled to the dens and caves at this time are described as heroes of faith because of what they did (Heb. 11:38). And yet their domination by the Philistines was a result of their idolatry. They were idolatrous, and yet some had faith; and it was this faith which was perceived by God. God is so eager to perceive spirituality and faith amongst His people, despite their weakness in other areas; we should have the same positive attitude to each other.
6:12 You mighty man of valour- Gideon’s constant need for Divine reassurance indicates he wasn’t so brave; but God addressed him according to his spiritual potential. He does the same with us, hence the challenges He sometimes gives us which appear far beyond what we feel capable of.
6:12,13 We need to realize that God deals with us as individuals. No matter how functional and holy, or dysfunctional and evil, is our church, we are still treated by the Father as His individual children. So many have struggled with this, tending to see themselves rather as inevitably part of a community, faceless cogs in a machine. And this is actually quite attractive to humanity- hence the popularity of Roman Catholicism. God told Gideon: “Yahweh is with you” [you singular], and yet Gideon responds: “Oh, my Lord, if Yahweh is with us…” (:13). Gideon had to be taught that God saw him as a separate, unique individual, and didn’t deal with him automatically merely as part of a community as a whole. But it was a slow process. When Gideon saw in a dream a man saying that God had delivered Midian into his [singular] hand, Gideon then tells Israel that God had delivered Midian into their hands (7:14,15). He still found it so hard to believe that God treated him as so important to Him. It could be that Gideon intentionally misunderstood the offer of personal strengthening by arguing back that if Yahweh is really with us, then why are they suffering so much (6:13). He flinched at the personal call of his Angel to action- just as we can, seeking instead to take refuge behind the community. Yet God Himself turns to Gideon and bids him "go in the strength of this One"- the Hebrew grammar referring to the Angel. And this is the same call to us- to go in the strength of the Angel which goes before us, and seek to replicate Him, Heaven's plan for us, on this earth. And God backed up this call to Gideon to follow the Angel by saying he should go out in faith, because “I will be with you” (:16)- a direct quotation from the Angelic manifestation to Moses in Ex. 3:12. It's an interesting exercise to follow the parallels between the Angelic commander of Yahweh's armies, and Joshua as the human commander of them on earth. And one doesn't have to be a military leader in iron-age Israel to feel that same call to follow the Angel.
6:13 Gideon knew that God forsaking Israel was a punishment for their sin (as in 2 Kings 21:14; Is. 2:6; Jer. 23:33). God would forsake Israel only if they forsook Him (Dt. 31:16,17; 2 Chron. 15:2). This opens up our understanding of Christ’s cry from the cross “Why have You forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46). It seems He was so identified with us that He genuinely felt He was bearing the punishment for sin as a sinner; thus although He never sinned, He genuinely felt as a sinner, so that not even our sin means that Christ can’t empathize with us.
6:31 Joash told the Baal worshippers to let Baal plead for himself, rather than them pleading for him. He was saying that they were assuming that they had to ‘play God’ for Baal; they had to manifest the god they thought existed. Joash says that if Baal really exists, he himself will act for himself, openly. And this of course is where the One True God excels; He does act for Himself, and doesn’t rely solely upon manifesting Himself through men in order to achieve anything. He doesn’t need us to as it were apologize for Him through ‘apologetics’; He Himself is witness unto Himself regardless of us.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKb1f_xLtXg
sermon: https://youtu.be/M9pew38R8js
commentary:
40:3 Quoted about John the Baptist preaching the Gospel of Christ (Mt. 3:3). Before the final coming of the Lord, there will be a proclamation of this by His people: “Prepare you [plural] the way”. As the King’s servants went ahead of him to make the path he had to travel smooth and plain [remember there were no motorways then!], so we go ahead of the returning Lord of all the earth, to prepare the way / road for Him. The fulfilment of this commission by John the Baptist in the first century is therefore a great pattern for our fulfilment of it before the Lord's second coming in our age. And yet God prepares His own way (43:19; 49:11). The element of unreality here, the ‘new thing’, is that the King Himself prepares His own way or road. The connection with :3 is that in the work of preparing the Lord’s way, in the last great preaching appeal of all time in the lead up to the second coming, the Lord Himself will work with us to make that way plain and clear. We are to “cry” unto Zion that “her iniquity is pardoned” (:2), but we are also to ‘cry’ for her to repent, to be “made straight” (:2-4; 58:1). It’s exactly because we have in prospect been forgiven that we are called to repent. The forgiveness has already been granted; iniquity has been pardoned. We are to ‘cry’ out this fact; and also to ‘cry out’ for repentance. But we have to respond to that. The world’s redemption was achieved through the cross; but we have to appeal to the world to accept it. The same Hebrew word translated ‘cry’ occurs in the same context in 40:26; 43:1; 45:3,4; 48:12; 54:6, where we read that it is God Himself who calls every one of Israel back to Him, just as He calls every star by its own personal name. And so in our personal calling of men and women, in our crying out to them in these last days to be prepared for the Lord’s coming, we are workers together with God. He is crying out to them, through our feeble, shy, embarrassed, uncertain words of witness. Likewise it is God Himself who makes the crooked places straight in 42:16 and 45:2- whereas here in :3, it is we the preachers who are to do this.
40:4 In the prospect of Christ’s coming and our meeting with Him, those with a too low self esteem are lifted up, and the proud brought down to their level; so that between them, the prepared people of God are the road over which God’s glory in Christ shall advance. “Made low” uses the same word as in 2:11, which predicts that in the day of judgment, the proud looks of man shall be humbled [s.w. ‘made low’]”.
40:8 The word of our God- Interpreted in 1 Pet. 1:24,25 as the Gospel of Christ.
40:10 Applied by Christ to His second coming in Rev. 22:12. The reward is brought to us from Heaven to earth at His return; we don’t go to Heaven after death to receive it. Statements about God are fulfilled in Christ, as His Son who has been given by God all authority to act in His Name; but this doesn’t make Jesus God Himself in person.
40:15 The nations are like a drop in a bucket- This was said in the context of Judah being tempted to trust in the nations around them rather than in God. Reflection on the extent of His power as seen in the natural creation (:12-14) is intended to inspire faith in practice.
40:17 Regarded by Him as less than nothing- This is not to say that God considers human beings as irrelevant; the significance of the human person is ever before us in the Bible. The context of these statements about the smallness of man is the appeal not to trust in human strength but in God, compared to whose strength humanity is nothing.
40:22 The circle of the earth- Although people at the time generally believed the earth was flat, God’s word doesn’t contradict true scientific fact, even though at times He speaks to people in the unscientific language which they can cope with.
40:27 The justice due me- The pain of injustice afflicts people in so many ways; but the answer given here is to look to the future day of God’s Kingdom, whilst meanwhile remembering God’s amazing knowledge and sensitivity to the nuances of every human situation, better than we ourselves know them. His present knowledge and future revelation of judgment is the answer presented to our search for justice today.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yhFkOOZUK0
sermon: https://youtu.be/y9Ls0Uhz41A
commentary:
18:2 Again we see the quasi spirituality of the people at this time; this sending out of spies was framed in the language of Joshua sending out spies and then taking the land. They likewise say that the land is “good” (:9) just as the faithful spies said; and their description of the land as lacking nothing good (:10) is quoting Moses’ words about the land in Dt. 8:9. But these Danites hadn’t taken the land assigned to them by Joshua (:1). Mixing the flesh and the spirit is the way to total destruction; unless we are completely devoted to God’s ways we will fail.
18:6 The men ask him to enquire of “God” but he immediately replies that “Yahweh” is blessing their plans. He didn’t know the true God in practice but he used all the right language. There are other examples of men assuming all too quickly that they are speaking on God’s behalf (2 Sam. 7:3; 1 Kings 22:15-17). We aren’t to assume that we instinctively, intuitively know what God’s will is, but to base our view upon His revealed word.
18:19- see on 17:10,11.
18:24 What else do I have- This man’s false religion meant everything to him; he was very religious, but didn’t know the true God. Sincerity of devotion won’t save us if we are devoted to the wrong understanding of God; those like Cornelius who sincerely seek the true God will find Him, but religious devotion of itself isn’t serving God in spirit and truth as He requires (Jn. 4:24).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hMVRjU7Yrs
sermon: https://youtu.be/y9Ls0Uhz41A
commentary:
17:3 We see here the continued theme of Judges- that the people confused serving the true God with serving idols. The man repents, he has a conscience; and his mother isn’t an atheist, she’s not rejected Yahweh; but their morality has become so confused. We see the same all around us today both doctrinally and practically, and we can easily be sucked into the same nexus of confusion unless we base our conscience, faith and understanding upon God’s revealed word. The fault for the situation is also put upon the fact there was no leadership, and people did what they felt was right rather than what God had declared in His word (:6). There is no ‘light within’, as the Proverbs frequently declare, the way that seems right to man is often not (Prov. 14:12; 16:25; 21:2).
17:10,11 Micah asked the young Levite, who was “unto him as one of his sons”, to “be unto me a father and a priest” (note the paradox- the son is as a father), resulting in others likewise asking him to “be unto us a father and a priest” (18:19). The point is, no matter how unqualified a person may be for the job, they may be pressed into being leaders because that’s what nominally religious people so desperately need. There’s a desire in most people for religious leadership rather than forging a direct relationship with God through personal response to His word and accepting His system of mediation between Him and us, which in our day is through His Son.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDQJ_k51bhY
sermon: https://youtu.be/4Geq7e4thy8
commentary:
29:2 We wonder how it could be that such an evil man as Ahaz had such a righteous son as Hezekiah. Perhaps the extreme sinfulness of Ahaz made Hezekiah reflect upon the wrongness of sin; perhaps Hezekiah was angry with his father for killing his brothers and sisters in sacrifice to stupid idols (28:3) and so he went the other way, as it were. Whatever, we learn that bad background doesn’t force people into sin; Hezekiah had an awful spiritual background but he was righteous. We can’t blame our sin on anything, including bad background.
In the eyes of Yahweh- These “eyes of Yahweh” refer to the Angels (16:9). If we ask how, mechanically, as it were, God sees and knows all things, the answer is perhaps ‘Through His Angels’. Their activity is amazing; because their work is invisible to us, we may get the impression at times that God is somehow silent and unobservant. But His “eyes” are constantly informing Him of our situations and forming an opinion about them.
29:3 There is a frequent cycle in the record of the kings of mass apostasy by the people, reformation by a faithful king and then quick descent into apostasy again. This mirrors the cycle of sin, repentance, devotion and sin which is seen in so many personal lives. One of the greatest joys we can look forward to in the Kingdom of God is not just the eternity of the life, but the spiritual quality of it, never able to sin again. The cycle of the kings suggests, however, that much of the reformation was as a result of the personal leadership of the king; people go back to the easier way of the flesh very easily, and good leadership can only go so far in personal reformation; because our relationship with God is ultimately so very personal.
29:11 My sons- Hezekiah was only 25 years old when he said this (:1), but when others are spiritually weak and someone takes spiritual leadership, they become the elder- regardless of their age.
29:23 It would seem from :21 that the male goats were the sin offering. Jesus understood goats to represent those who would be rejected at the final judgment (Mt. 25:33). We are to put our hand as it were on the head of such goats, recognizing that we should come to judgment day and be condemned, treated as goats. We need to imagine how it would feel to be at the judgment and be sent to the left hand side. This is what we deserve, and we recognize that by placing our hand on the head of the goat, as it were. But we are saved by the blood of the lamb; we are identified with Him and will therefore be treated as Him, and moved to the right hand side where the sheep are. All these principles are brought together in baptism into Christ, whereby through that immersion in water we die the death of a sinner and yet rise again with Christ; and we are to continue living out the essence of baptism in an ongoing sense throughout our lives.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWBIdhJ4eUw
sermon: https://youtu.be/RV1XQeNGTnI
commentary:
30:1 By doing so, Hezekiah was seeking to bring together the spiritually minded of both Israel and Judah (see too :5). Technical divisions between God’s people are always ended ‘on the ground’ when like minded believers find they have so much in common, and the official divides between them only exist from a human viewpoint; God sees His people as one, whatever divisions between them there may be from human perspectives.
30:2 The second month- Passover was to be kept in the first month; but Hezekiah perceived the urgency which there is in serving God, and he rightly perceived it was better to technically infringe the Law in order to keep the spirit of it.
30:9 Note that if they turned to Yahweh, then their spiritually weak brethren currently in captivity would be blessed; to some extent, our spirituality can affect third parties.
30:12 God is capable of working directly on the human heart to make us obedient to His word; given the tragic weakness of our will, we should also ask Him to be with us in this way, as David often does in Ps. 119.
30:18 They ate the Passover otherwise than it is written- This needs to be ever remembered by those who fear they aren’t worthy to participate in the breaking of bread service, which is the Christian equivalent of the Passover feast. Our desire for God and His thirst for relationship with us are between them more than enough to make our weaknesses no barrier to remembering the great salvation He achieved for us in Christ. However, the reference in :20 to God’s healing of the people at this time suggests that although He agreed with their keeping of Passover in an unclean state (:12 “by the word of Yahweh”), He also made them recognize their sinfulness at this time.
30:23 If we truly love God, we will not be minimalists, doing the minimum required by His word; we will joyfully go beyond. For His commandments are but a springboard to more total dedication by us on our own initiative. We need to ask, when was the last time we decided to do something for God as it were “extra”, on our own initiative?


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7KpLozXiEQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/4Geq7e4thy8
commentary:
31:3 The king’s portion of his substance- Hezekiah led this reformation by his personal example- absolutely vital in any leadership role within God’s people.
31:7 There are many ‘small’ details in the Biblical record which indicate that we are reading real history, inspired by God and infallible. The third month was at the end of the grain harvest, the time of the feast of Pentecost. The seventh month was at the end of the fruit and wine harvest, the time of the feast of tabernacles.
31:8 The Hebrew idea of ‘blessing’ carries more weight than a casual ‘Bless you!’ or ‘Well done!’. It was loaded with the solemn belief that something actual would happen as a result of the blessing being pronounced (the same is true of the idea of ‘cursing’). Passages like Ez. 44:30; Hag. 2:19 and Mal. 3:10,11 state that there would be material blessing in the homes of those who gave the tithe, and Hezekiah surely had this in mind. Our giving to God is responded to by Him; maybe not in cash terms (otherwise the concepts of giving and generosity lose their significance), but we can be assured that there will be a real blessing in response.
31:10 Several times in the record of Israel’s history we have this feature- of response to a call for donations far over what was required (e.g. 24:10). And yet the prophets emphasize that Israel never really quit idol worship and were constantly rebellious against Yahweh. We observe from this that there was a conscience toward God amongst them, and people love and need to be given some concrete way of serving God; generally, people lack initiative and need to have a structure given to them within which they can serve God. But we also see that it’s far easier to give material things at one point in time than to give our hearts to God for a lifetime.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q68saUIKxWs
sermon: https://youtu.be/4Geq7e4thy8
commentary:
32:1 After these things, and this faithfulness- This is clear enough evidence that devotion to God doesn’t save us from trial, nor guarantee us an easy life in the flesh. Hezekiah’s devotion was extraordinary- and now calamity came. Although it could be that his dedication wasn’t matched by Israel’s, and the Assyrian crisis came as a result of their unfaithfulness.
32:12 His high places and His altars- We see in this comment the nature of Israel’s apostasy. They hadn’t rejected Yahweh totally, become atheists; rather they had proclaimed the pagan high places and altars as actually being Yahweh’s, thus justifying pagan idol worship as if it were a form of Yahweh worship. Something similar happened when the pagan feast of December 25th and the worship of the evergreen tree was declared a Christian festival, and the pagan tree turned into the “Christmas tree”. But we make the same mistake countless times, in justifying fleshly behaviour (e.g. anger, judgmentalism, gossip, pride, exclusivity, character destruction etc.) as a form of serving Yahweh.
32:13 All this was true; but to the faithful mind, it was actually an encouragement, although a discouragement to the weak in faith. Truly the pagan gods had been powerless, and so too would be the Assyrian gods.
32:21 Those who came forth from his own bowels- The reference is to his sons. But children come forth from the “bowels” or inner parts of a woman, not a man. But husband and wife are seen as one in the production of children; ‘they’ become pregnant and jointly bring forth children. This was a radical perspective in a society where women existed basically to bear children and the fathers carried little responsibility for their children.
32:24 In those days Hezekiah was sick even to death- 2 Kings 14:2 shows that Hezekiah reigned for 29 years, and the Assyrian invasion came in the 14th year of his reign. At the time of his sickness, God gave him another 15 years of life; hence his sickness and the invasion were at the same time. When circumstances come together in such an awful way, we know this is the hand of God trying to develop us; not coincidence, nor any personal Satan being, of whom the Bible knows nothing.
32:25 We have all received grace; and the intended response to it is humility. It is because God so hugely values humility that He has arranged the whole concept of grace as the basis of our salvation. Those who deny grace and rather trust in works will therefore tend towards pride and away from humility.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9yN18WhlHQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/OqqISZSfmnE
commentary:
17:13-18 Sinfulness is sometimes attached to people apart from the things which they currently do wrong. Sin is serious. The last generation of Israel were judged for their sins not because they had sinned more than any other generation, but because the collective, unforgiven sin of Israel had accumulated with God to such an extent that His judgments fell (:2,13-18; Ez. 9:9). God is not passive and overlooking of unrepented sin, even though His patience and the high threshold level He sets before releasing judgment may make it look like this. The Amorites were likewise only judged once the cup of their iniquities reached a certain level (Gen. 15:16). The passage of time doesn’t work some kind of atonement for our sins.
17:15 They followed vanity, and became vain- The idols are referred to as ‘vanities’; those who served them became like them (Ps. 115:8; 135:18). Whilst we may not worship pieces of wood and stone, modern society is full of vain things such as never before. The internet has encouraged this to a huge extent, so that by the end of many modern lives all a person has done is to click a mouse and hit some keys millions of times in vain entertainment and frivolous social commentary, and watched thousands of hours of movies flickering on a screen. Yet the service of the true God provides us with opportunities to use our lives with ultimate, eternal significance and purpose. If we serve Him, the God of ultimate purpose, the antithesis of vanity, we shall become like Him.
17:33,34 They feared Yahweh... they don’t fear Yahweh- To serve God and also other gods isn’t serving God at all- because we simply can’t serve two masters (Mt. 6:24). There is no third way- devotion to God must be total, for anything less than that is effectively not serving Him at all. This explains the apparently exaggerated language of :15,16- that Israel rejected all God’s laws and broke every one of His commandments. It’s clear they didn’t become atheists, they didn’t formally reject Yahweh, they kept some of His laws. But because their obedience was so incomplete, God counted them as effectively not being obedient at all. Clearly enough, our relationship with God can’t be a mere hobby, an intellectual assent, an occasional fascination, a Sundays only affair. It has to be of the heart.
17:37 The commandment which He wrote for you- God’s word is personally written to each generation; the words of the Bible aren’t of merely historical interest. God’s word is a living word, speaking to and written for each generation in a way which human words and documents can never be. Because the Bible is literature, we can too easily assume it is only literature. As a genre of communication, it is unique; such is the wonder of the inspired Bible.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLICm4icVKs
sermon: https://youtu.be/xxtsf5wX0Go
commentary:
18:4 The bronze serpent had become a totem and idol, it was worshipped for what it physically was rather than there being any perception of the salvation in Christ which it had prefigured. The cross has been likewise abused in many Christian traditions.
18:6 He joined with Yahweh- This is what God seeks- that we should intertwine our life and spirit with His. The Hebrew idea of ‘joining’ suggests marriage (Mt. 19:6), and by entering covenant relationship with God through joining to Christ in baptism, this is effectively what we have done. This is an amazing concept- that the God of the universe would join in such intimate relationship with tiny people on this earth. The difference between us is huge beyond words; no wonder we have such difficulty in understanding and responding to His love.
18:13 This stands in intended contrast to the chapter so far, which has described Hezekiah’s obedience in such stellar language. The point simply is that bad things happen to good people; commitment to God doesn’t shield us from disaster.
In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah- Hezekiah was mortally sick but then healed by God and given an extra 15 years to live (2 Kings 20:6). He reigned 29 years (:2); therefore this sickness was also in the fourteenth year of his reign. The invasion and his sickness were at the same time. Sometimes the coincidence of serious trials in our lives is such that we are left with no other conclusion but that this has to be God’s hand; of itself this destroys any possibility that God gives only the good and there is some cosmic ‘Satan’ being bringing the evil. Hezekiah’s sickness may explain his uncharacteristic lack of faith displayed in :14-16 and :21; or it could be that those decisions were taken in his name by others due to his sickness.
18:20 In the face of overwhelming human odds against him, Hezekiah trusted in the more abstract things of faith in God’s word; to the eyes of the world, this is simply laughable. But in life after life, situation after situation, such faith is justified- not only in Biblical history but in examples of faithful believers all around us.
18:26 The fact Rabshakeh spoke Hebrew suggests he was a Jew who had turned traitor. Hence he was aware of the prophet Micah’s words (see on :31).
18:31 Eating from one’s own vine and fig tree is the very language which the contemporary prophet Micah had used to describe God’s Kingdom on earth (Mic. 4:4). Rabshakeh was presenting the kingdom of Assyria as being the promised Kingdom of God on earth.  The kingdoms of this world stand as an imitation Kingdom of God; the subliminal message of advertising and much human reasoning is that if we go the way of the world, we can have our promised Kingdom here and now. This was the very temptation with which Jesus struggled and overcame in the wilderness (Mt. 4:8).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YButjXW9GI
sermon: https://youtu.be/QTIcRBpq4eY
commentary:
19:1,2 Our response to crisis should be like Hezekiah’s- to turn to God in prayer, and to His word and His people, rather than to desperate worldly alternatives.
19:3 A day of trouble- The phrase in the Greek Septuagint version is that also used in Dan. 12:1 and Mt. 24:21 about the latter day “time of trouble” for Israel. There will therefore be an equivalent of the Assyrian invader in the last days, and Jerusalem’s deliverance will be by means of God’s dramatic intervention in the return of Christ to earth to save Israel from their Middle Eastern invaders. The whole incident can be read as a detailed type of the latter day invasion of Israel before Christ returns.
19:4 The words which Yahweh your God has heard- God hears every word and is fully aware of the detail of every situation which we face. Isaiah picks up this sentence and rephrases it by telling Hezekiah to not “be afraid of the words that you have heard” (:6). The words we hear which so frighten us are in fact heard by God.
19:7 I will put a spirit in him- The Hebrew word translated “spirit” in the Old Testament has a wide range of meaning, but here it refers to the mind. God can give people an attitude of mind; He can give us a holy spirit or mindset if we seek it. And He can just as easily give people a spirit of fear, making them turn away from doing what is the humanly obvious thing to do, as He did here with Rabshakeh.
19:14 Whilst God sees and knows all things, it can be psychologically good for us to place the documents which are causing us grief ‘before the Lord’ and pray over them. God hears and reads those words just as much as we do (see on :4).
19:16 Hear the words of Sennacherib- On one level, Hezekiah knew that Yahweh had heard those words (:4), but he still asks God to hear them and respond to them. And God patiently assures him, that He has indeed heard (:20). Our faith is rarely if ever total; we know of God’s possibilities on one level, and yet doubt them in practice. When the disciples prayed “Look upon their threatenings…” (Acts 4:29), they were surely inspired by the praying of Hezekiah here, and used the same words. Daniel seems to also have paraphrased Hezekiah’s prayer in his prayer of Dan. 9:18. And these examples ought to specifically fire our prayer life, too, quoting words of Biblical prayers as part of our prayers. And yet Hezekiah’s prayer had been inspired by the prayers of those who had in turn gone before him- he is alluding to the prayers of repentant Israel (1 Kings 18:39), Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:6) and Solomon (2 Chron. 6:40).
19:19 That all the kingdoms of the earth may know- The motivation for our prayer requests should always be the ultimate glory of God.
19:21 The “daughter of Zion” refers to the faithful remnant within Jerusalem, centred around Hezekiah. But they hardly appeared to be confidently ridiculing the Assyrians; they were scared and doubting whether God really could save them (see on :16). But because they did have some faith, God counted this as total faith, in the same way as He imputes righteousness to those in Christ. Their weak faith was counted by God as utter confidence.
19:22 That attitudes are read as prayers is reflected in the way that Rabshakeh’s arrogance against Yahweh is described as him lifting up his eyes against God. By contrast, Hezekiah prayed at the same time: “Unto you do I lift up my eyes” (Ps. 123:1). ‘Lifting up eyes’ is therefore an idiom for prayer. Rabshakeh didn’t consciously pray blasphemous words to God, but his attitude was counted as a prayer.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8hAEi79jmo
sermon: https://youtu.be/4Geq7e4thy8
commentary:
20:1-3 Here we see how God can state an intended purpose of His in very definite terms, as if there is no changing it- and yet such is His sensitivity to human prayer and love for Him, that He is willing to change it. He did the same when Moses persuaded Him not to destroy Israel as He planned (Ex. 32). There is often a gap between God’s statement of His purpose and the fulfilment of it, and during that gap period we can reason with Him to act otherwise. His purpose is perhaps structured this way so that we can learn to pray more intensely and connect with Him more intimately than would otherwise be the case. It also inspires us to be spiritually ambitious enough to think of changing God’s intended plan of action.
20:5 Prayer isn’t always specific words; God understands situations as prayers. Thus here we see Hezekiah's tears paralleled with his words. God interpreted his tears as a prayer. Hezekiah had earlier requested for God to both hear and see the words of Sennacherib (19:26), as if these too were to be read as a prayer for Divine intervention.
20:8 Like Gideon wanting a sign, Hezekiah’s faith wasn’t total; and yet God still counted it as faith.
20:19 This seems a very selfish and short termist thing to say. It seems Hezekiah overcame so much- bad parental background, apostasy in his nation, terminal sickness, invasion- and yet failed to get through the hoop of materialism, acclaim, acceptance and the soft life. Many modern disciples are challenged likewise. We must realize the massive power of these temptations. See on 23:3.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01liRNjRK9M
sermon: https://youtu.be/ycl4H1kNLhw
commentary:
39:8 The Hezekiah story has a spiritually sad ending, with Hezekiah appearing selfishly content that he himself won’t suffer too much for his prideful friendship with the world and indeed, with those who were God’s especial enemies. We inevitably wonder whether in spiritual terms it wouldn’t have been better for him to die when God first offered him the chance to, as it were. We need to consider relatively ‘premature’ deaths in this light; maybe they are a case of ‘die young stay pretty’ in spiritual terms. For it is far better to die in youth and rise again to live eternally, than live a ‘long’ human life only to in middle or older age turn away from faith and the hope of the Kingdom.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnDRXxIJqnQ
sermon: https://youtu.be/77C6TbsGzy4
commentary:
38:1 In those days- His sickness was at the same time as the invasion. See on 36:1.
38:3 Hezekiah simply puts his situation before God, he doesn’t actually specifically ask for healing. But God saw the essence of his heart, and read this as a prayer requesting healing and the extension of life. At times, typically during illness, we find it hard to verbalize prayer; and yet God sees to the core of our hearts, and understands what are really our heart’s desires, and understands these as requests to Him.
38:5 I have heard your prayer, I have seen- Hezekiah had just been begging God to hear and see the behaviour of the Assyrians (37:17). God teaches us how to pray through some desperate experience, and then gives us another crisis in which we can as it were practice the style and intensity of prayer which we learnt in the previous experience.
38:19 Hezekiah didn’t want to die because he understood that after death he couldn’t praise God. His understanding of death was as a state of total unconsciousness, where he would meet with neither God nor man (:11). There was no ‘immortal soul’ or conscious survival of death in his theology, these were pagan ideas of the time which he clearly rejected- as should we. The devotional point is that life is for praising God; and given the brevity of it, every minute must be harnessed into His praise, rather than frittered away.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWT3tH4RFis
sermon: https://youtu.be/usc8yyz0MaA
commentary:
37:1 In times of crisis, our response should be the same- to turn to God, to His house (the ecclesia), to His word and to His faithful people, asking them to pray for us. Maybe there are times when we can literally place a letter or hospital report on a table and pray to God over it, bringing it as it were in a special sense before Him (:14).
37:7 A spirit- Can refer to an attitude of mind. God is quite capable of giving people mindsets, over and above their own thinking. There are many situations in life where we realize that we simply cannot change another’s mind. But God can.
37:16 Yahweh of Armies- Hezekiah uses that title for God in recognition of the fact that God has armies of invisible Angels far mightier than the armies of the Assyrians which surrounded him.
You have made heaven and earth- The Psalms record many other prayers where believers in extremity have been inspired in their faith by the fact that God is creator. As He has created all things that are, it follows that to change one small thing within that creation on the face of one of the smallest planets of the cosmos... is in fact nothing at all difficult for Him. Such inspiration to faith is not present for those who believe the myth that all things evolved without God’s creative input.
37:20 That all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are Yahweh- A common reason given by faithful believers when begging God to hear their prayer. It should be most important to us to see His glory worked out through the answer to our requests, rather than merely personal benefit to us. This approach will also influence what we pray for, as well as how we pray for it.
37:22 The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you- This “daughter” refers to the faithful remnant in Jerusalem. But God speaks of them as being far more confident and full of faith than they really were; they feared the Assyrians and didn’t exactly laugh at them. But we see here one of many examples of how God is so thrilled with the faith of His children that He counts what faith and spirituality they have as far more than it actually is, so thrilled by it is He.
37:23 Against whom have you exalted your voice?- Rabshakeh spoke with an exalted, loud voice to all the Jews guarding Jerusalem (36:13). But God says that effectively, he had been shouting against the most holy God. God in all His holiness was manifest in those spiritually weak members of His people who were then in Jerusalem. His identity with His people is amazing; and it doesn’t end when they become weak or are in double mind about Him, just as it doesn’t in a natural family.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUAkmWfgcqk
sermon: https://youtu.be/OTZyNDyODyI
commentary:
15:4 He who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and doesn’t change- This is very much the language the Bible often uses about how God keeps His covenant promises of grace to us. When we are tempted to go back on our word, we must remember how God doesn’t do that to us.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6udcwspyq8
sermon: https://youtu.be/lDxVS9wvjZs
commentary:
33:2 Manasseh’s father Hezekiah was a righteous man; his grandfather Ahaz a very wicked man. This just shows that spirituality isn’t totally the result of our upbringing and background. We each stand as individuals before God and can overcome the influence of where we came from; and on the other hand, faithful parents are no guarantee of personal spirituality. It could be that Hezekiah in the last 15 years of his life was somewhat switched off from devotion to God, resting on his laurels and enjoying the good life in retirement. Whilst he didn’t himself turn to other gods, this laid back attitude to the true God meant that his son turned away from Him.
33:12 Yahweh his God- God was still his God even in those years of revolt against Him; God never gives up with us so long as we live on this earth. Although Yahweh was his God, only on repentance years later did “Manasseh [know] that Yahweh was God” (:13), and we read of Yahweh as “his God” (:18). Thus in repentance, a man makes Yahweh’s knowledge of him mutual; and in that meeting of God and man in repentance there is a huge synergy. All the Angels of God rejoice when one person repents (Lk. 15:10). Hence the huge, cosmic joy at each repentant baptism into Christ.
Humbled himself- This shows that no matter how wicked a person is, there is always a way back to God; but the supreme requirement is of humility. We should therefore never give up on people as too far gone. Self humbling is spoken of in :19 as the same as repentance; this is what repentance is all about, not a passing recognition on a mental level of a small slip, but a deep humbling of self.
33:22 The consequence of sin, even if we ourselves repent of it, is in the bad pattern it sets to others. Our examples are more powerful than we think; sin is largely sin because of the effect it has upon others.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIGS3S43kCM
sermon: https://youtu.be/JNCNTcxPZUA
commentary:
21:4,7 Because the Name was called upon the temple, therefore it should have been simply impossible that those who realized this could worship idols in it; whatever has God's Name called upon it, whatever bears His image, must be devoted to Him alone. We who are baptized into His Name, who have that Name called upon us, cannot have idols in our lives.
21:14 I will cast off - God has cast off His people (see too Zech. 10:6); and yet, because a minority of them will always accept Christ, it is not true that God has cast off His people in a total sense (Rom. 11:1). It was only because of this remnant that Israel have not become like Sodom (Rom. 9:29)- even though Old Testament passages such as Ezekiel 16 clearly liken Jerusalem to Sodom. Yet they are not as Sodom ultimately, for the sake of the remnant who will believe. In all this we see the very real tension within God, reflective of His extreme love for His wayward people.
21:16 2 Chron. 33:13,23 describe Manasseh’s repentance and humbling of himself; but that isn’t mentioned in the record here in 2 Kings. We learn from this the importance of comparing Scripture with Scripture in order to build up a more complete picture. Perhaps God wrote the Bible in this way in order to reveal things in truth to those who humbly and sensitively read all His word, and to confuse those who read partially without due reverence toward it.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTQCpuPoWIk
sermon: https://youtu.be/OqqISZSfmnE
commentary:
17:1 There shall not be dew- Elijah was motivated in this by the way Gideon asked that there should only be dew upon the ground (or perhaps even upon the whole land of Israel) according to his word of faithful prayer (Jud. 6:37-39). It is quite possible that we, too, may be given certain prompts in life by reason of particular experiences repeating those of a Biblical character.   David also prayed just the same things (2 Sam.1:21). When it comes to prayer, there is a positive pattern of influence and example both amongst us as believers and from our absorbing the spirit of Biblical examples.
But according to my word- His faith was based upon being attune to the will of God and His ways of working with His people, to the extent that he knew that because God’s word abided in him, he could ask what he wanted and it would be heard, because he asked according to God's will (Jn. 15:7). But when the time comes for rain, we read that "the word of Yahweh [not Elijah's word] came to Elijah... saying... I will send rain on the earth" (18:1). God’s word reveals His will, and therefore the more in touch we are with His will the more we will be able to confidently ask for things in prayer.
17:6 Ravens- These were unclean animals, and yet God made Elijah depend upon them and the unclean food. He was trying to teach Elijah not to trust in legalistic obedience.
17:9 God had sought to gently teach Elijah his need for others when He told Elijah to go to the widow woman in Zarephath who would “sustain you”; it worked out that Elijah sustained her. And he must have reflected upon this. God’s intention was that spiritually, his experience with that woman would sustain him. Our efforts to sustain others lead to our being sustained.
17:12 A handful of flour in a pitcher- The idea is of a handful of meal in a very large container; it’s a picture of her poverty, and how she was down to the last little bit of flour in a large container that was once full. And the Lord through Elijah demanded this of her, that He might save her. God can be demanding, but we don’t have the same right to be upon others. She had to first feed God’s representative, and after feed herself and her son (:13)- rather than give God the leftovers after she had firstly taken what she needed.
17:21 Three times-  Perhaps the way that the first six prayers of Elijah for rain went unanswered and his need to pray three times for the child to resurrect, were all part of God teaching Elijah that no matter how close we are to Him, we have no right to expect automatic answers to prayer, even if they are according to God’s will.
17:22 The woman’s son was resurrected because God heard Elijah’s faithful prayer; Heb. 11:35 alludes to this incident by saying that through faith- in this case, the faith of Elijah, a third party- women received their dead raised to life. Our prayers really can make a huge difference in the lives of others.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7qdL1UQ32M
sermon: https://youtu.be/Om7zJQ-IQJY
commentary:
11:1 But David stayed at Jerusalem- When it was the season for a king like himself to be out in battle. The lesson is that when we are doing nothing and not doing what we are intended to, then we are more prone to fall into sin. He appears to recognize his attitude problem in Ps. 30:6: "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be (spiritually) moved". In the lead up to the sin, God had given him victory after victory- leading him to think that he must therefore be spiritually OK because of his many physical blessings (1 Chron. 18:6). His conscience had been blunted by the easy life.

11:2 He saw a woman- Christ had His eye on this passage when He spoke about him that "looks on a woman to lust after her” has committed adultery with her already (Mt. 5:28). James 1:14,15 speaks of the process of temptation and sin, in any matter, as looking lustfully upon a woman, with the inevitable result of actually committing the sin. In this he may be interpreting David’s sin as an epitome of all failure. David is our example. Likewise the Lord’s list of the 12 evil things that come out of the heart (Mk 7:15-23): fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, evil thoughts… all seem to describe the completeness of David’s sin with Bathsheba. It incorporated all these things, and was not just a one time, lustful failure of the moment.

11:3 Daughter of Eliam- David and Uriah knew each other well; they had spent David's long wilderness years together, and lived next door to each other in Jerusalem (:13; 12:1). Bathsheba had been brought up by Uriah (12:3). She was the daughter of Eliam, who had been another of David’s mighty men (23:34). Presumably he had been killed and Uriah adopted her, bringing her up from babyhood, mothering her by feeding her from his bowl and letting her sleep in his bosom. This may imply that his own wife died early, and that he brought her and his own children up alone, and then married her when she was older. A very special spiritual and emotional bond must have been forged between those who stuck with David as a down and out, and who later on shared in the glory of his kingdom. That Uriah had such easy access to David would have been unthinkable for an ordinary soldier whom David hardly knew. Nathan criticizes David for having "no pity" on Uriah, implying that David well knew the relationship between Uriah and Bathsheba. Moreover, David would have been a larger than life figure for his followers, and Bathsheba would have grown up with this image of David as the saving hero.

11:4 David sent messengers- The use of messengers is emphasized throughout the account (3,4,5,6,19,23,27); what David had done would soon become very public knowledge, and it would seem that Uriah himself understood.

For she was purified from her uncleanness- Bathsheba's evening washing of herself which exposed her nakedness would have been in response to the principles of the Law. However, the Law didn’t actually state that the woman must wash herself after menstrual uncleanness; but the man who touched her must. So it could be that she had gone beyond the Law in washing herself; such was her spiritual perception, which was a factor in David’s attraction to her. Sexuality and spirituality are related, hence sexual temptation is especially strong for people who on one level respect spiritual principle.

11:21 Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth?- Joab warned the messenger to quickly explain to David why the soldiers approached so near the wall of Rabbah, because he knew that David would immediately quote an example from the history of Israel, to prove that such an approach was unwise. David's familiarity with the spiritual records of Israel's history and use of them to guide behaviour was therefore well known, and it presumably did not depart from him during the months between his sin and repentance of it; we can retain God’s word in our minds and act upon it whilst at the same time in other areas being deeply displeasing to God.

11:25 Don’t let this thing displease you- But those very Hebrew words are used again in :27: "But the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh". No matter how we or others may rationalize and cover up sin, God notices and judges in due time.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meyEgfsfDVM
sermon: https://youtu.be/qIXFC5OT3Lc
commentary:
13:3 Leprosy is symbolic of sin. But a person can appear to have leprosy when in fact it’s only a surface level appearance of it; but only the priest, representing Jesus, can declare this. We must of course be careful not to excuse our  failings as merely surface level sin; but when it comes to judging others, we must accept that someone can appear sinful to us but it’s only a surface appearance; we must not ultimately judge whether a person will be saved or not, quite simply because we cannot do so. Only the priest, the Lord Jesus, can do so.
13:6 Our life spent in Christ is represented by these periods of seven days; at the end, Christ as the true priest and judge will decide whether the sin which there is in our lives has remained at a surface, appearance level- or whether it has spread. Yeast likewise represents sin, in that it spreads its influence. Sin either spreads in our flesh or doesn’t...
13:8 The temptation must have been to try to cover up the appearance of sin / leprosy rather than revealing oneself to the priest; just as we are tempted today.
13:9,10 God’s people were to avoid trying to judge the appearance of leprosy / sin in others.
13:13 If a person has indulged in sin and recognizes it, although they carry in their lives the evidence of it, yet the sin has as it were died and they are clean. At baptism into Christ we became “dead to sin” (Rom. 6:2).
13:20 There may be here a distinction being drawn between sin on a surface level and that sin which is deeper, which leads to exclusion from God’s family.
13:23 People carry the scars of their sins, but these don’t mean we should treat them as sinful.
13:37 In his eyes- The opinion, analysis and judgment of the priest, representing Christ, is all important. Many people in primitive societies consider they have a legitimate medical opinion, based on the kind of traditions and folk wisdom which abound in relation to skin diseases. Israel were to resist these, and leave the diagnosis and judgment solely in the hands of the priest. We have a serious tendency to judge others’ sin, and we really must leave this to Christ.
13:46 Christ died for us “outside the camp” (Heb. 13:11,13); he was unashamed to associate with lepers and as it were died with them and for them.
13:51 Whatever use- No matter how valuable the garment, this didn’t somehow mean that the leprosy [cp. sin] was any less significant.
13:55 The tendency would’ve been to think that if the rot was only on the inside of the garment and not visible to anyone else, then this didn’t require attention or cleansing. Hence the emphasis- “whether the rot is inside or outside”. Sin is still sin, whether or not it is visible to others or not. Some peoples’ sins are more open to our view than others (1 Tim. 5:24).
13:56 Pluck it out- To stop the leprosy / sin spreading. Jesus uses the same phrase in teaching that we should ‘pluck out’ of our lives whatever is likely to lead us to stumble into sin (Mt. 5:29; 18:9). Repeatedly, the seriousness of the leprosy / sin is defined by whether it spreads, either in depth or distribution. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZxPu0zozYo
sermon: https://youtu.be/qIXFC5OT3Lc
commentary:
14:7 The two birds may foreshadow the death and resurrection of Jesus. The bird which flew away  in joyful, thankful freedom symbolized Christ’s resurrection and the freedom from sin which is enabled for us who were spiritual lepers; thanks to the death of Christ, represented by the death of the first bird.
14:8 The cleansed leper was to become as a baby, and be washed in water. This looked ahead to baptism by full immersion into Christ as the new birth (Jn. 3:3-5). 
14:14 The leper was to continually live under the impression of the fact he or she had been healed and cleansed, just as we should. The fact the blood of Christ was shed for us personally should affect how we hear (hence the blood was put on the ear), what we do with our hands (the right thumb) and where we go with our feet (the right big toe). The process was repeated with oil (:16), perhaps foreshadowing the sanctifying work of the Spirit in the lives of those in Christ.
14:30 Such as he can lay his hand on- Lepers had to live outside the camp of Israel and couldn’t work, so they would’ve typically been very poor. But the concept of sacrifice was important; they weren’t to assume ‘I’m a leper, of course I have nothing, I don’t have to sacrifice anything’. They had to lay their hand on at least some kind of animal- and the Hebrew could possibly carry the sense of ‘whatever he can lay his hand on’. It was important that they gave at least something in recognition of their need for cleansing, and their receipt of it by God’s grace. We shouldn’t consider our poverty, in whatever area, to mean that we don’t have to sacrifice anything to God.
14:34 Which I give to you for a possession- Constantly Israel were reminded that God would indeed give them the promised Kingdom, even though at that time as they wandered in the wilderness it must’ve seemed merely a nice idea. He encourages us likewise.
14:35 It would’ve been tempting for the owner to just cover up the signs of disease within his house, rather than ask the priest to inspect it. We are to be open before God, freely confessing our sins and possible sins or liabilities to sin, in open dialogue before Him in prayer. When David invites God to search his heart and see if there be any wicked way in him (Ps. 139:23), he was alluding to the language of the house owner inviting the priest to inspect his house for leprosy.
14:39 This looks forward to Christ as the ultimate priest coming again on the final [seventh] day and inspecting the degree to which sin has spread within us, or remained merely on the level of appearance. 1 Pet. 2:12 alludes here, by calling the day of Christ’s return “the day of inspection” (Gk.).
14:41 The removing and scraping of diseased stones is a figure alluded to later in the Bible. The stones of Tyre were to be removed and scraped (Ez. 26:4)- for it was a sinful city. Jesus makes the same allusion when He said that the stones of the temple were to be removed one by one, because the Jews refused to accept the day of Christ’s inspection (Lk. 19:44 Gk.). When He entered the temple, looked around it and then walked out, He was acting as a priest inspecting a leprous house (Mk. 11:11). But the Jews refused to accept Him as priest and insisted that their hypocrisy was in fact holiness. The new stones which were to be brought in (:42) refer to the Christian believers, who were to be built up into a new temple (1 Pet. 2:5). It was a radical thing indeed for Jesus to liken the temple, the very symbol of human piety and the very quintessence of the Jewish religion, to a leprous house which needed to be pulled down. Established religion today likely has the same judgment from Him.
14:47 There was greater culpability the more consciously a person did things which he or she knew were unclean. Thus to lie down in the unclean house required a washing of clothes, whereas just going into it merited a lesser requirement for cleansing.
14:51 Wood, hyssop and scarlet clothing all featured in the final suffering and crucifixion of Christ. This is the basis for our cleansing from the leprosy of sin.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHaZeutDmDc
sermon: https://youtu.be/Ye0zR8C0haQ
commentary:
15:5 According to Jewish midrash, Abram and his father Terah were leading diviners of the stars in Ur. 'Terah' can mean 'brother of the moon', and Ur and Haran were noted centers of moon worship. In this case, the invitation to Abram to count the stars and discern there his future seed was a calling to reject his entire former world-view, to admit his helplessness in counting the stars, to throw himself upon God's grace rather than the strength of his own former education, wisdom, and inherited ability to discern the stars.
15:10 The idea of the dead animals in this was to teach that 'So may I be dismembered and die if I fail to keep my promise'. Jer. 34:18 speaks of how Israelites must die, because they passed between the pieces of the dead animal sacrifices in making a covenant. But here in Gen. 15, it is none less than the God who cannot die who is offering to do this, subjecting Himself to this potential curse! And He showed Himself for real in the death of His Son. That was His way of confirming the utter certainty of the promises to Abraham which are the basis of the new covenant which He has cut with us (Rom. 15:8; Gal. 3:17). The “blood of the covenant” doesn't mean that the blood of Jesus is or was the covenant; the covenant is a set of promises to us, namely the promises to Abraham and his seed. The blood of Jesus is the token of that covenant, the sign that this is all so utterly and totally true for each one of us. The Lord died, in the way that He did, to get through to us how true this all is- that God Almighty cut a sober, unilateral covenant with us personally, to give us the Kingdom


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECy9IrUwSKE
sermon: https://youtu.be/a5IUNIG6Sqk
commentary:
26:6 Isaac chose to live in Gerar, right on the border of Egypt- as close as he could get to the world, without crossing the line. And he thought nothing of denying his marriage to Rebekah, just to save his own skin (:7). So it seems Isaac had some marriage problems; the record speaks of “Esau his son” and “Jacob (Rebekah's) son” (27:5,6). The way Jacob gave Isaac wine “and he drank” just before giving the blessings is another hint at some unspirituality (27:25). And yet Isaac is counted as one of the faithful fathers; he was made strong out of his weakness, just as we are. 
26:11 The Abimelech kings appear far more gracious and honourable than the Abraham family who wandered in and out of their territory; the way Abimelech threatens his own people with death if they touch Isaac or his wife, after Isaac had been deceitful to him, is an example. Yet it was not the nice people of the world, but this wandering, spiritually struggling family whom God loved and worked with.
26:12,13 God hugely blessed Isaac materially right after Isaac’s failure of faith and selfish disloyalty in his marriage. Material blessing isn’t therefore immediately given or withheld on the basis of our righteousness. 
26:29 You are now the blessed of Yahweh- As if the surrounding people knew about the promises of blessing which Yahweh had made to His people, and they recognized that those promises were starting to have some level of fulfilment even then in the lives of Isaac and his family. In our lives too, God’s promised future Kingdom blessings have a way of starting to come true even now (1 Tim. 4:8).
26:35 Isaac had waited a long time and his family had gone to great lengths so that he could marry a believer. He and Rebekah were understandably disappointed that their son chose to marry unbelieving women from the surrounding world. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1xsKibb64M
sermon: https://youtu.be/_ZJjGlq80mg
commentary:
2:12 See on 3:7.
A full reward- 2 Jn. 8 quotes this in saying that the hard mental effort to know Christ and believe in Him will be given a ‘full reward’. Here a ‘full reward’ is given to Ruth for working hard all day gleaning in the fields. It may be that this allusion was because “the elect lady” addressed by John was in fact a proselyte widow, like Ruth. But the point is, we have to labour, as much as one might work hard gleaning in the field all day, in order to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
2:14 Offering bread and wine was a sign of fellowship and acceptance. The fact we are invited to do this by the Lord Jesus is a sign that He eagerly accepts us and seeks fellowship with us.
2:20 Near kinsman- Yahweh is repeatedly described in Isaiah as Israel’s go’el, redeemer (Is. 41:14; 43:14; 44:6,24; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7,26; 54:5,8). The redeemer could redeem a close relative from slavery or repurchase property lost during hard times (Lev. 25:25,26,47-55). This is how close God becomes to us in Christ. Boaz was therefore manifesting God to Ruth by marrying her, in the same way as in Christian marriage the husband manifests Christ’s saving work to the wife (Eph. 5:23).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ7T3_-FQkM
sermon: https://youtu.be/-NZzE77LCWw
commentary:
3:7 Ruth is a wonderful example of a spiritually ambitious person. It was unheard of in those times for a woman to propose to a man; yet by coming to him, uncovering his feet and laying under his mantle, she was stating that she wished to see him as a manifestation of God to her (:7,9 = 2:12). She went after him, following him (:10); the poor, landless Gentile aspired to be a part of a wealthy Jewish family, in order to fulfil the spirit of the Law. And she attained this.
3:16-18 It is hard to find women-only scenes in contemporary literature written during Biblical times. The women are presented in terms of the men with whom they inter-relate. Yet Elizabeth and Mary are recorded as having a conversation with no male present (Lk. 1:39-45); and there are other such passages here in Ruth (1:6-2:2; 3:16-18; 4:14-17). In all these passages, the reader is invited to share the woman’s perspective. It can hardly be said that the Bible is somehow anti-women, in fact God’s acceptance of both male and female and deep recognition of the value of the human person, whether man or woman, marks it out as quite different from human literature of the time.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0qaf30OHNM
sermon: https://youtu.be/8qehd5evWr4
commentary:
4:5 A man had to redeem the property of a dead relative in some cases by marrying his late brother’s wife; but this would have resulted in polygamy (Boaz surely had other wives), thus creating a situation whereby one principle had to be broken (in this case, of one man : one woman as ordained in Eden), in order to keep another principle (to raise up children in love to your deceased brother). God has made spiritual life not always so black and white- in order that our personal ethical debates, our prayerfulness and reflection upon God’s word, will result in our taking whatever decisions we do from a good motivation, rather than out of mere submission to a law we have no understanding of.
4:6 Otherwise I will spoil my own inheritance- He was concerned that if he had children by another woman apart from those he already had, then his land which he would leave them as an inheritance would have to be split up between his existing children, and those children he would have by Ruth. It’s clear from 2:3 that the fields were split up into strips, each strip belonging to different people. The best thing was to have one large field, rather than strips here and there. This nameless relative didn’t want to spoil or break up his inheritance, he wanted to preserve it intact. He thought only of himself, not his brother. This man died and even his name wasn’t preserved; yet Boaz who did care for his brother and was prepared to spoil or split up his physical inheritance received as it were an eternal inheritance, in that through Ruth he became the ancestor of Jesus (4:21).
4:15 Hezekiah had lamented that he would die without a seed (Is. 38:12), and so did those who had also become (in their minds?) eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom (Is. 56:3-8). There was that human desire for a seed, a "house" to perpetuate their name. But they are promised a name in God's house (family) in the Kingdom, better than of sons and daughters in this life (Is. 56:5). This alludes here, where Ruth is described as being better than sons to Naomi. In other words, the Ruth: Naomi relationship, featuring as it did a willingness to deny marriage to unbelievers for the sake of the God of Israel, is a type of our relationship with God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL1Bi7ltQvo
sermon: https://youtu.be/UeHwuKL4Z2s?si=kXfiYwZzjAIi3ELx
commentary:
The set of dialogues we have in this Song indicate that here we have a romance which went too far too quickly between Solomon and an Egyptian girl. He ought to have married an Israelite, one of the “daughters of Jerusalem”. The Song is full of tension between the girl and these “daughters”, whom she fears as being more attractive to Solomon than herself; and they speak to her sarcastically. Solomon in the Proverbs warned the Israelites about being attracted by pretty Gentile women who would lead them astray; and yet he does the very opposite of what he had taught to be true. The Song ends not with a wedding, as the genre of love poems might suggest, but with the couple parting in acrimony. Not running relationships God’s way doesn’t lead to satisfaction.

1:2 The Song begins by the daughters of Jerusalem and the Egyptian girl being in some kind of competition for Solomon; they both state their desire for him, and both of them compare his love to wine (:2, 4). Note how the Song doesn't begin as a romance is supposed to- with the first meeting, a love at first sight scene. As early as 1:2 she comments that "your lovemaking is more delightful than wine". This is all a subversion of the whole genre of romance. It was all too far too fast. The Egyptian justifies her darker complexion to the Jerusalem girls, and praises her own beauty: "I am dark but lovely" (:5). She likewise yells at them not to sexually stimulate her lover, Solomon (2:7). "My beloved is mine" (2:16) is the same catty kind of defensiveness. The girl is jealous of how the daughters of Jerusalem admire Solomon, not least because of his fame in Israelite circles (:3,4). And the Jerusalem girls respond with sarcasm as in 6:1.
1:9 Solomon should have admired neither the horses nor the women of Egypt; yet he begins his Song with an unashamed breach of the command not to desire either of these things. The unashamedness of Solomon coupled with his spirituality indicates that at this time he was genuinely convinced that what he was doing was deeply spiritual; when in fact it was completely carnal. He totally ignored his own advice in Proverbs about choosing a spiritual Israelite woman as a wife.
1:11 The Song is shot through with allusion to the Law and tabernacle rituals; he speaks of making her borders on her clothes, alluding to the borders of blue to be worn  by  the  faithful  Israelite.  Solomon  wanted her to be a spiritual  woman,  and  he  was  going  to  make her one in his mind, to his eyes. He wanted to see her as a spiritual woman, and eventually he became persuaded that she was just this. This is often the psychology of marriage out of the faith.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwnlU30AerA
sermon: https://youtu.be/-nDkvlL_J68
commentary:
2:1 The girl says she is merely a common "rose of Sharon", but Solomon responds that in his eyes, she is like a lily among thorns, referring to the Jerusalem girls. Ironically enough, Num. 33:55 had warned that the Gentiles within the land promised to Abraham would be "thorns" to Israel if they married them. And yet Solomon sees the Israelite women as "thorns" and the Gentile as a lily amongst them. He likewise compares her to them in 6:8,9.
2:10-13 Solomon describes her in Jewish terms, likening her to many well-known places in Israel: the Heshbon  fishpools,  the tower of Lebanon etc. (see too 4:1,4). He wanted to  see  her  as an  Israelite girl, and so that was how she appeared to him. Such is the self-deception we are capable of when we seek to justify ourselves. Solomon takes her on a tour of Israel (4:8), enthusing about the sights, speaking of them as the things of  "our land”. See on 4:16.
2:13,14 It was because of the impossible tension between the Egyptian girl and the Jerusalem maidens that there's the constant theme of needing to hold meetings in secrecy, often in the countryside or mountains around Jerusalem, and to "go away" in order to be together. They appear to have slept together in the open air, beneath the trees (1:16,17; 7:11). 2:17 and 4:6 suggest they spent a night together in the hills, and then before dawn Solomon got back to Jerusalem. Illicit relationships are powerfully attractive at the time, but doomed to ultimate failure.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-AdoPr5y60
sermon: https://youtu.be/Yk4vnYjeOfw?si=035m39SZBWKTU1bg
commentary:
3:4 She walked the streets of Jerusalem whilst he was confined in the palace (:2). Her mother moved to Jerusalem from Egypt, but it wasn’t possible for Solomon and her to easily be together in that house (also 8:2). 3:4 is very similar to Solomon's own warnings against Gentile marriage in Prov. 7:13,27; 5:8. We have an amazing ability to do the very opposite of what we know is right.
3:4,11 This is her sarcastic comment to the Jerusalem girls, mocking the crown his mother Bathsheba had made for him, wishing instead that he would be under the influence of her mother.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zepTo2t84v0
sermon: https://youtu.be/Yk4vnYjeOfw?si=035m39SZBWKTU1bg
commentary:
4:1 Parts of the Song are very sexually explicit once the allusions are figured out. He's describing the vaginal lips of his girlfriend, his intended spouse (4:1,3,8 ); and he has seen "behind your veil", the symbol of her virginity. And yet he glorifies all this in his song. Quite clearly, Solomon was guilty of fornication with the one whom he wished to marry, although the ending of the Song seems to imply the relationship somehow broke up. And this was all right at the beginning of his reign.
4:4 She loves him because of his ointment, and he loves her because of her jewellery (:4). He says that deep kissing with her gives the same after effect as drinking enough wine that you talk in your sleep afterwards (7:9). It’s all very human and carnal; one lesson of the Song is that superficial attraction isn’t the basis for true love.
4:15,6 Solomon saw her as a “paradise”, a garden with rivers and exotic fruits, surrounded by a wall- the language of Eden. And she was a fount of “living waters”, the language of Messiah. He saw her as the Kingdom / Eden personified. And yet her response to being described in this way is almost inappropriate- for she invites him to come and eat the fruit of the garden (:16), exactly after the pattern of Eve destroying Adam. Yet Solomon didn’t want to see this connection; she was the Kingdom to him, just as so many have felt that having their new partner means that nothing, not even the Kingdom, is meaningful any more.  See on 2:10-13.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtqbTtVV8D0
sermon: https://youtu.be/Q04Um26sTck?si=dv0IzErE45U-D_1W
commentary:
5:1 Song 5 seems to give insight into the unworthy elements of the potential bride of Christ. Notice the sequence: While she sleeps at night, the bridegroom comes and knocks [unworthy virgins sleeping instead of being awake; the Lord Jesus comes; Lk. 12:36 uses the same figure, of the Lord's return being like a knock]. She replies that she's not dressed properly, makes excuses about her feet, she can't come and open [the unworthy don't respond immediately]. He tries to open the door from the outside, putting his hand through the latch-hole [by grace, after the pattern of Lot being encouraged to leave Sodom when he hesitated, the Lord will be patient even with sleepy virgins in His desire for their salvation]. Her heart is moved with desire for him [the rejected still call Jesus 'Lord, Lord'; they love Him emotionally]. She starts dressing herself up, and then is overtaken by desire and rushes to the door, her hands dripping all kinds of perfume and make up over the lock as she opens it [cp. the virgins going to buy oil, the unworthy trying to prepare themselves all too late, not trusting that their Lord loves them as they are at the moment of His coming]. But he's gone , he withdraws himself [all too late, the door is shut, He never knew them]. Her soul fails [the shock of rejection]. She seeks him but doesn't find him, calls but he doesn't answer [Prov. 1:28; Hos. 5:6; the rejected call, but aren't answered; they seek the Lord early, but don't find Him]. She feels tired of her relationship with him ("sick of love"). She is persecuted by the world around her ["condemned with the world"]. If we don't immediately respond to the Lord's knock, we show ourselves to not love Him enough. If we don't open immediately, it's as if we didn't open at all. The Lord wants us as we are, bleary eyed and without our cosmetics, but with a basic overriding love of Him, and faith in the depth of His love, which will lead us to immediately go out to meet Him. This will be the ultimate and crucial divide- between those who believe in the Lord's love for us; and those who think they need to make themselves good enough for Him. Solomon called to the girl through the keyhole: "...my undefiled...". But she doesn't want to immediately come to Him because she doesn't want to meet him with 'defiled' feet (:2,3). She couldn't believe his words, that in his eyes, she was undefiled. And the enormity of the passion of Christ for us is likewise so hard for us to accept. In 3:1 we find the girl again at night, dreaming of having Solomon with her. But when one night he does actually come, she doesn't go to meet him immediately. And there's a warning for us. Like Israel we may 'desire the day of the Lord', study prophecy about it, write about it, enthuse about it. But when He comes, to what end will it be to us? Will we in a moment drop everything and go to Him, believing that He loves us just as we are? Or will we run off to buy oil, slap makeup on...? She finally realized that he had loved her for who she was, how she was. But it was tragically too late. He'd gone. We need to learn that lesson now, to know the love of Christ... so that in that moment when we know for sure 'He's back!', we will without hesitation go to Him with that perfect / mature love, that casts out fear.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuf_SBaCrJA
sermon: https://youtu.be/Q04Um26sTck?si=dv0IzErE45U-D_1W
commentary:
6:13 Solomon boasts that he has many Jewish queens and concubines, but there is only one woman, the Egyptian, that he truly loves (6:8,9); he even calls her his “sister”, associating himself thereby with Egypt. Perhaps this tension between the two groups- the Jerusalem women and the Egyptian girl and her family- is behind the enigmatic reference to “the company of two armies” or “the dance of the two camps” or lines. She suspects there may be two camps in Solomon's mind.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_RGjhBH40U
sermon: https://youtu.be/M-WDpo3qO2Q?si=c_nr11XMpFfX9nZO
commentary:
8:5 The daughters of Jerusalem mock her by saying this. We expect a romantic song to end with the wedding; but it doesn't. It ends with the couple parting; and this dream wedding is no more than the Egyptian girl fantasizing. The fact the wedding 'scene', in the form of a dream about it, comes in the middle of the song rather than at the end is again a subversion of the whole genre of romance. The climax is in the wrong place. And this just indicates how unfulfilling are relationships which flout Divine principles.
8:12 She utters the final warning to the daughters of Jerusalem not to stimulate Solomon, and then breaks down with the lament that jealousy is cruel as death (:6) and unrequited love is impossible; Solomon's true love cannot be bought by her. The daughters of Jerusalem then speak of how they have a younger sister whose breasts aren't yet developed, but they will care for her until she is ready for Solomon (:8,9). The Egyptian girl then reminisces in the past tense: "I was a wall, and my breasts were like fortress towers; then I found acceptance in his eyes" (8:10). Solomon throughout the Songs has commented positively upon her breasts; and now she is left to lament that that is all just how it was, it's all over now. She then makes the enigmatic comment about how Solomon has a vineyard which he leases out, and yet she is a vineyard which belongs to her alone. The Songs have likened her to a vineyard (2:13,15), but Solomon's vineyard, she says, was associated with Baal-Hamon, Lord / husband of a multitude. She finally realized that he was a womanizer, who would go on to have over 1000 women in his life... Lord [or husband] of a multitude. Perhaps his 1000 wives and concubines lay behind her reference to the 1000 shekels that Solomon can have for his vineyard (:12). But now she was splitting up with him, her vineyard was hers alone, her grapes were now solely at her disposal and were not his any more. The final couplet of the Song is one of bitter sarcasm, typical of the worst order of romantic breakup. Solomon says that his "companions"- the daughters of Jerusalem whom she had so hated- are listening carefully to her, as he is. And she responds by telling him to run away, whilst still calling him her "beloved"- for although jealousy is cruel as the grave, her love for him was unquenchable by many waters. So the Song ends with Solomon in rather a bad light- off to his next women, whilst the Egyptian girl walks off the scene bitterly protesting her love for him and how she's a victim of circumstance and jealousy. Yet Solomon, presumably, authored the Song. We read it therefore in the same way as we do Ecclesiastes- his jaded statement of how life has been for him, how he sought fulfilment of his human lusts but it never worked out, leaving him with a tragic sense of unfulfilment because he had not gone God's way.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJRwbOLAUVU
sermon: https://youtu.be/oX8A6BTi8qI
commentary:
1:8 There was nothing in the Law of Moses which specifically forbad eating or drinking these things. But Daniel would’ve been defiled in his conscience. We too should go to great lengths to always have a good conscience, even if in the eyes of the world and of other members of God’s people we appear strange.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKlCy-vQWcY
sermon: https://youtu.be/iqKWP9l-JhE
commentary:
23:2 We go astray “like sheep” (Is. 53:6)- we tend to sin because of others’ influence, because we’re not as strongly individualistic and independent as we like to think we are.
23:4,5 These are further examples of how God’s law differs from human laws in that it criminalizes internal attitudes. It was impossible to prove the sin of omitting to help your enemy’s animal, nor enforce the law against it- because it would’ve been invisible to others. Yet the God who sees all stands in judgment upon our innermost thoughts and desires. Note too that sins of omission are just as bad as sins of commission; the man who refused to help the animal could’ve returned to his home that day feeling he hadn’t actually committed anything wrong. But his sin of omission would’ve been noticed by God.
23:12 God’s sensitivity to animals shines through the Law- the fact even animals are living beings and not mere machines should be felt by us too. God’s intention was to inculcate an all round spirit of sensitivity to others in human life, and that included animals.
23:13 They were not to even mention the names of idols- a principle alluded to in Eph. 5:3, where we are told that we shouldn’t even name or talk about immorality and evil. For these are the idols of our age. We aren’t to sin vicariously, by watching, reading and speaking about sinful things whilst not physically doing them ourselves.
23:21 God’s Name being carried by the Angel explains how Moses later is recorded as talking with Yahweh face to face, even though we are also told that He cannot ever be seen by humans. Moses spoke with the Angel who carried the Yahweh Name, and who was therefore functionally as God to men. The same principle explains how men, and especially Christ, can be spoken of as God because they carried His Name, without this making them God Himself in person.
23:23 This happened invisibly, with the Angel working through circumstances to weaken those tribes. But the Israelites failed to believe this verse, feeling that those tribes were far too strong for them (Num. 13:30-33).
23:28 The sending of hornets ahead of Israel parallels the sending of the Angel ahead of them (:23). The reference may be to literal hornets devastating and weakening the Canaanites; or it could refer instead to Egyptian tribes or the Philistines, some of whom had hornets on their armour, attacking and weakening the Canaanite tribes just before the Israelites arrived. This situation was providentially arranged by the Angel who went before Israel. The obstacles to our possessing the Kingdom seem huge and strong, but in fact they have been significantly weakened by God’s providence. Invisible to us, the Angels likewise are potentially preparing our way to enter the Kingdom.
23:29 The God who is so far away from this earth foresees the situations we will face in life, and like a true Father, arranges things so that they will not be too great for us to overcome. His sensitivity to us is amazing.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ_c4F5XdwE
sermon: https://youtu.be/UPlmzqjeWAQ
commentary:
6:2 “Sons of God” is used concerning men, especially those who know the true God (Dt. 14:1; Hos. 1:10; Lk. 3:38; Jn. 1:12; 1 Jn. 3:1). Lk. 20:35-36 says that the angels do not marry. See on 4:26.
6:3 120 years- Knowing the destruction that would come on all except Noah, God waited in the hope that more would be saved. He as it were hoped against His own foreknowledge that more would be saved (1 Pet. 3:20). Peter says in 1 Pet. 3:19 that Christ through His Spirit preached to the people of Noah’s day. In 2 Pet. 2:5 he says that Noah was a preacher of, or [Gk.] ‘by’ righteousness to the people around him. Yet in 1 Pet. 3:19 Peter says that Christ preached to those same people through His Spirit. The resolution surely is that although Noah had never met the Lord Jesus, he lived according to the same Godly spirit as did Jesus; and this was his witness to his world. In this sense the spirit or disposition of Christ was found in all the Old Testament prophets (1 Pet. 1:11).
6:4 The Hebrew word for “aggressive men” or “giants” is also used to describe the sons of a man called Anak in Numbers 13:33. Freak human beings of unusual size or strength are sometimes born today, but it does not mean that their parents were angels. We are not specifically told that these men were the children of the “sons of God”. “There were aggressive men… and also after that… the sons of God came in to the daughters of men”. 
6:5 The days of Noah are a type of the last days of AD70, and of the last days before Christ’s return: “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the son of man be” (Mt. 24:37).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebp6s7l2f0g
sermon: https://youtu.be/CDwBFf8an3Y
commentary:
5:32 500 years old- The flood came when Noah was 600 (7:11), yet he spent 120 years preparing it (6:3). So it's possible that he wasn't married when the call came to build the ark; he'd have explained his life mission to his wife, and she'd have been his first convert. Alternatively, if he were already married at 480, they had many years of barrenness in their marriage. Given the long lifespans in those days, this would've been very hard to take. Yet he didn't take another wife. He was “moved with fear”, 'reverently apprehensive' at what God told him, and prepared the ark in order to save his family (Heb. 11:7). Yet he began doing this before he had any children, and perhaps before he was married. He had faith that he would one day have a family, in accordance with God's invitation to make an ark in which to save his family.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydUNjFN3Sq4
commentary:
10:2 This chapter lists 70 Gentile nations as being the descendants of Noah. The Hebrew word eretz translated “land” is the same word translated “earth”. The flood was likely a flood of the land promised to Abraham rather than of the whole planet. These 70 descendants of Noah all lived within the Middle East rather than throughout the entire world. The original purpose of Genesis was to explain to the Israelites in the wilderness where they had come from and the context of the nations amongst whom they found themselves. 
10:9 The Hebrew could mean “the mighty hunter against the Lord”. The Hebrew for 'Nimrod' is related to 'Gibbor', the title of Christ used in Is. 9:6. Nimrod appears to be a prototype anti-God and anti-Christ, and for this he was well known even then. 10:10,11 shows his characteristic of building cities in the Babylon/Assyria area.   Seeing that “the beginning of his kingdom was Babel” (Gen. 10:10), it is not unreasonable to assume that when “a man said to his neighbour, Come, let’s make bricks” to build the tower of Babel, this man was Nimrod (11:3).
10:25 Earth divided- Probably a reference to the division of the peoples recorded in 10:32 and then in chapter 11, rather than to plate tectonics.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNTe-yN2MgY
sermon: https://youtu.be/LzlchDT5oqQ
commentary:
11:15 The genealogies of Genesis 11 reveal how some human lives repeat according to the same outline schema. Thus both Arpachshad and Shelah each lived 403 years after the births of the eldest sons; Shelah, Peleg and Serug were each 30 when their first sons were born. Abraham and Shem both had sons at 100 years old (:10). And it is the very nature of Christian fellowship that God has arranged that our human lives likewise have elements of amazing similarity of pattern.
11:31 Terah and his family departed “to go into the land of Canaan”. These are the same Hebrew words as in the command to Abram: “Get you out of your country” (12:1). We can therefore conclude that Abram received this call to quit his country, but didn't obey it, until some unrecorded situation led his father to announce the family's emigration to Canaan. Abram was therefore very slow to obey the call. Note too that the command to Abram had been to leave his land and also his “relatives and... father's house”. This he didn't do- for he left Ur with his father and brothers, i.e. his kindred. His brother Haran died, and his father then died in Haran, where they temporarily lived on the way to Canaan. We see here how God seeks to almost make us obedient. And 15:7 records that it was God who brought Abram out of Ur- even though Abraham failed to rise up and be obedient in his own strength, God manipulated family circumstances to make him obedient to the call; and in essence He does this for us too.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rKUI7cltfM
sermon: https://youtu.be/FprBK7Lb2SA
commentary:
12:3 Grammatically, this can be read as passive (“be blessed”) or reflexive “bless themselves” (as RSV), implying those blessed have to do something to appropriate the blessing. In this we see how God will play His part, but we must play our part. And yet the covenant in Gen. 15 was one way, unconditional, from God to us. It's as if His part in our salvation is so much greater than our response. Yet there is still an obvious element of choice which we have to make. The way 12:1-3 is structured implies that Abraham receives an unconditional blessing, yet he therefore is to go forth and “be a blessing”. And it's the same for us- and note how the “blessing” is interpreted as forgiveness in Acts 3:27-29. We are to forgive and generally bless others, in all forms of gracious generosity, as God has blessed us.
12:5 Abram had “gathered” much in the years of staying in Haran. According to Jewish tradition, Abraham stayed 23 years in Haran. All he had to go on was a word from the Lord which he'd received some years ago whilst living in Ur. There's no reason to think that Angels regularly appeared to him and kept urging him to leave, or that he could read the Lord's word in written form as we can. Presumably that one word which he received worked in his conscience, until he said to the family ‘Right, we're quitting this nice life for a wilderness journey to some place I don't know’. We can underestimate the power of ‘just’ one word from the Lord. We're so familiar with possessing His entire word in written form that we can forget the need to be obedient to just one of those words, to the extent of losing all we once held dear.
12:6 God's promise to Abraham was made more specifically at “the oak of Moreh”- a Canaanite shrine; and it's emphasized that “the Canaanite was then in the land”. It's as if God's invitation to Abraham [as to us] to have a unique relationship with Him was made amidst the calls and presence of many other gods, and in the thick of the Gentile world.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3FBeHwfClw
sermon: https://youtu.be/8rKUI7cltfM
commentary:
13:9 Here Abraham gives Lot the choice as to what land he would like to live in. Lot was the orphaned nephew of Abraham- such magnanimity would've been unheard of in those societies, for the elder to give the junior dependent such a choice. The elder in the relationship would've chosen the best for himself, and that was that. Abraham's unusual attitude in this matter was a direct outcome of his faith in the promise that the whole land really would one day be given to him. If we have the faith of Abraham... we won't fight for our corner in this world. It'll be so much easier to 'let go' as Abraham did, and take an attitude to material wealth and possessions which is radically counter-cultural in our societies. The way that Lot lifted up his eyes and looked around the land is matched by the way in which God then bids Abraham to likewise lift up his eyes and view the very same territory which Lot had just chosen (:10,14)- and was told that the land which Lot had chosen, along with all other land, would be Abraham's eternally. When God told Abraham at this point “all the land which you see, I will give to you, and to your offspring forever” (:15), He was alluding to what He had initially told Abram back in Ur: “Get you out of… to the land that I will show (s.w. “see” in :15) you” (12:1). It was as if God was saying: 'Well Abraham, this is it. This is the land I told you about'- and yet the best of it has now been given to Lot! The whole thing could have seemed some kind of cruel, just as many of our life experiences do. Abraham had given up all, made a long and dangerous journey, to receive a land from God- and when he arrives there, the best of it is given to his younger relative. But God's purpose was to focus Abraham's faith upon the fact that he would eternally inherit this land. And so it is with many of the twists and turns of our lives which can appear nothing but cruel fate to the unbelieving observer.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=511PpqRq554
sermon: https://youtu.be/1ylQGUNBPqk
commentary:
14:13 God never let go of Abraham, even when Abraham didn't readily obey what God required of him. He was told to “walk through the land in its length and in its breadth; for [because] I will give it unto you” (13:17). But Abraham didn't willingly do this- because perhaps he doubted that he would be given it. It's like saying to a child: 'Come and look at this! I am going to give it to you!', and the child doesn't even want to look. In this context we read of how Abraham “lived by the oaks of Mamre”- that's stressed twice (13:18; 14:13). Instead of travelling around in his land to see it, he tried to settle down. But God brought circumstances into his life which made him travel around the length and breadth of Canaan- thus Abraham had to pursue Lot's captors “unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus” before he recovered Lot (:15). Hobah is in the far north east of Canaan- Abraham had to go all the way there from Mamre in the centre of Canaan. For unknown reasons, Abraham also lived in Beersheba for a while (22:19); he had a meeting with the local rulers at Shaveh, near Jerusalem (:17); and at the time of 16:14 Abraham was near Kadesh Barnea, in the very South of Canaan on the Egyptian border. One wonders whether the attraction of Egypt had led him there once more- in which case it was his own weakness which was used by God to ensure that he travelled to the very south of Canaan. Maybe the record includes all these geographical markers in order to demonstrate how Abraham did indeed travel around Canaan through providentially arranged circumstances, although not it seems as an act of direct obedience to the Divine command to do so. 
14:22 Abraham's belief in God's blessing of him is reflected in the way he is insistent to the King of Sodom that he will not take any of the spoil, lest anyone should think that man rather than God had blessed Abraham. It could be pointed out that this rather contrasts with his not returning to Pharaoh the things he gave him in return for Sarah becoming his wife (12:16). Perhaps Abraham later reflected upon his failure in this incident, realizing he'd not displayed faith in God's blessing of him... and learnt his lesson when the same temptation occurred in Gen. 14 to be made rich by the men of this world. Our stumbling response to the same Abrahamic promises often develops in the same way. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ozUIDqm4s
sermon: https://youtu.be/v9lIENWNkVg
commentary:
16:2 “Abram listened to the voice of Sarai” is framed in the language of Adam hearkening to Eve's voice. We can only take this incident- and the less than honourable treatment of Hagar afterwards- to be another trough in Abraham's faith graph. All historical and cultural evidence from the time points to Abraham's action as being most unusual. In the case of a barren wife, the man chose himself a second wife. It's almost unheard of in contemporary records for a man to have his wife choose him a woman to have a child by- let alone for it to be one of her slavegirls. This historical background provides a window into Abraham's faithful commitment to Sarah- for it's significant that he's not recorded as taking another wife. Instead, his fine faith and character slips up in a moment of weakness by giving in to Sarah for a moment.
16:13 The common Hebrew word for 'to see', especially when used about God's 'seeing', means also 'to provide'. When Hagar said “You God see me”, she was expressing her gratitude for His provision for her. The fact God sees and knows all things means that He can and will therefore and thereby provide for us in the circumstances of life; for He sees and knows all things. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQxcVw2FH_s
sermon: https://youtu.be/hETXmzcier8
commentary:
17:5 Abram means 'high / exalted father', and can mean “he is of exalted ancestry”. Yet Abram's name was changed. He was to be the father of a new family, as 'Abraham' implied, and to sever all connection with his human ancestry and family.  The way ‘Abram’ was changed to ‘AbraHAm’ and ‘Sarah’ to ‘SarAH’ shows how God wishes to mix syllables of His Name with that of men. Jacob was changed to Isra-el, mixing God’s name with that of his father. This is indeed mutuality between God and man- and it demands so much. By baptism into the Name the same process happens to us.
17:5-11. Blessings of many children, a specific seed / son who would bring glory and blessing, and a name change... are all frequently found in records of wedding blessings. In making those promises to Abraham, in mixing the letters of His Name with that of Abram... Yahweh was entering a marriage covenant with Abraham the impotent, the childless, the humanly hopeless. And He does the very same for each of us who are baptized into that same Name and become recipients of the very same promises (Gal. 3:27-29). What was weird and so counter-instinctive was the token of the marriage covenant. Abraham was to mutilate his male generative organ as a sign that God would generate him a great seed and family. Our response to what God has promised us requires us to likewise respond in a counter-cultural and counter-instinctive way. 
17:7 The Abrahamic covenant is made personally with every member of the seed in “their generations”. The records of the renewing of the covenant to Isaac and Jacob are but indicators that this is the experience of each one of the seed. This means that the covenant love of God and the promise of personal inheritance of the land is made personally, and confirmed by the shedding of Christ's blood, to each of us. God promised Abraham that through Christ, his seed, blessing would come on people from all nations, with the result that God would be the God of Abraham's multitudinous seed: “To be a God to... your seed...I will be their God”. The seed is Christ, and the “God” is Yahweh. In Rev. 21:3 this fundamental promise is alluded to; God Himself will be our God then; we will see Him and have a personal relationship with Him. This idea of personally being with God is a fundamental part of the Gospel preached to Abraham.
17:8 The idea of eternal life is in the Old Testament as well as the new. The promise of eternal life on earth was given to Abraham and his seed, the Lord Jesus (Gal. 3:8), but applies to all of us who are baptized into Him (Gal. 3:27-29).
17:17 Abraham’s exaltation here is referred to in Jn. 8:56 as Abraham rejoicing to see the day of Christ.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5cWUPVHtmg
sermon: https://youtu.be/CXDG0ylY5g0
commentary:
18:2 Three men- Three Angels, who bore the Name of Yahweh (as in Ex. 23:21).
18:12 Sarah murmured that it was impossible for her to have “pleasure” in childbearing. She uses the word ednah, related to the word Eden. Yet in the events of Gen. 19, she sees how the land around Sodom that was once “like the garden of Eden” (13:10) is made barren and sowed with salt so that nothing could grow there (19:25; Dt. 29:23). She was being taught that God can give and take away fertility on a huge scale. God uses circumstances and experiences to teach us what is possible for us in His strength.
Sarah is commended for calling Abraham her “Lord” (1 Pet. 3:6). But she said it “within herself” whilst laughing at the improbability of God fulfilling His promise; yet in doing so, when she came to think of Abraham, in her heart she called him “my lord”. So in the midst of her lack of faith in one respect, she also had a commendable attitude to Abraham.  God searched her thoughts, He saw her wrong attitudes there deep in her heart, and He saw what was commendable there too; and through Peter He drags this out and reveals it to us all as an inspiration. We should have a similar positive attitude to others, discerning what’s good in them even if it’s surrounded by weakness.
18:23 God is open to dialogue; but a telling example of the limitation of God's potential by men is in Abraham's request that God would spare Sodom for the sake of 50 righteous there. He then lowers the number to 40, and then finally to ten, assuming that surely Lot's family were righteous and would comprise ten righteous. If Abraham had left off praying at, say, forty... then this would have been the limit God set. But Abraham set the limit at ten. But what would have happened if he had gone further and asked God to save Sodom for the sake of one righteous man, i.e. Lot? My sense is that the Father would have agreed. But the city wasn't saved for the sake of the one man Lot, because Abraham limited God's desire to save by the smallness of his vision.  His mercy will be upon us according as we hope in Him (Ps. 33:22). 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxsK5v7KgAc
sermon: https://youtu.be/1PK9hCpp03Q
commentary:
19:14 Lot’s sons in law “were to marry” his daughters. Christ perceived that they were marrying and giving in marriage the very day the flood came, and He pointed out the similarities with the Sodom situation (Lk. 17:27-29). Perhaps the very day of the double wedding, they had to leave? With all the build up to the wedding, Lot and his wife would so wanted to have stayed just another day to see the wedding of their two daughters. It is to the girls credit that they both left. But Lot’s wife had invested so much in it emotionally that she just had to look back.
19:26 This suggests the picture of the wife following behind Lot, filled with remorse at the loss of all she had held dear. Lk. 17:29-33 comments concerning not desiring our “stuff which is in the house” in the day of Christ’s coming: “Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever (like her) shall seek (Greek: 'plot') to save his life shall lose it”. We can infer from this that she plotted and schemed how to save her possessions- i.e. her 'life', seeing that for her, her life did consist of the abundance of the things which she possessed (Lk.12:15). These feelings grew so strong that she paused to take a loving, wistful look at the city. The fire only fell after Lot was in Zoar; therefore the city was looking as it normally did. She was walking “behind him”, so Lot would not have actually seen her turn into a pillar of salt. As he ceased to hear her footsteps behind him he must have guessed what had happened- but now the Angel's words seemed more vital to him: “Don’t look behind you”. Sodom was turned into an area of salt (Dt.29:23; Zeph.2:9); as Sodom was turned into salt by fire, so Lot's wife suffered the same punishment through a bolt of fire striking her and turning her too into salt. The unworthy of the last day will suffer the same punishment as the surrounding world which they failed to truly leave.
19:29 The prayers and loving spiritual concern of the faithful really can have an effect on the salvation of our weaker brethren. Abraham's prayer that Sodom would be saved if ten righteous were found there was unanswered; but God knew the real spirit of his prayer, that Lot should be saved, and that God's justice should be upheld in not destroying the righteous with the wicked. It was this which God recognized and answered, even though Abraham had not specifically verbalized those thoughts in prayer. Our true spiritual love for our brethren will likewise be heard in these last days.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhrR8Wh0M-k
sermon: https://youtu.be/HocGKWMwdyU
commentary:
20:3 Throughout the records of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his children there is continual repetition indicating how they tended to commit the same sins- e.g. going into Egypt and lying concerning their wives: 12:13; 20:3,13; 26:7. The sinfulness of sin is that our failures encourage our children to commit the same, and worse. 
20:16 Sarah was “reproved” by King Abimelech for going along with Abraham’s lie about her not being his wife. And yet kings were reproved for her sake, and were not allowed to do anything harmful to her (Ps. 105:14)! And Abraham reproves Abimelech later- for something Abimelech claimed he had not done (21:25). The repetition of the word “reprove” is surely meant to indicate that here is an example of Abraham and Sarah being counted righteous because of their faith- when clearly they were not wholly righteous. Abraham, the man who had to be reproved, was used by God to reprove the man who had reproved him… it would have sounded very hypocritical to Abraham’s neighbours. Yet the point was, that God saw him as being righteous.
20:18 This shows that we can suffer the effect of others’ sins, whilst being personally innocent of the specific sin they committed- as has happened with the effect of Adam’s sin.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBZ_pEHkhoY
sermon: https://youtu.be/InVBS4tvyYA
commentary:
21:34 Lived as a foreigner- Alluded to in Heb. 11:9, which says that Abraham lived in the promised land as a foreigner. He is our example and spiritual father. His characteristics are to be seen in those who have been baptized into Christ and thus become Abraham’s seed (Gal. 3:27-29). Although this earth where we live has been promised to us, it’s our eternal inheritance which we will receive at Christ’s return, yet we now live in our own land as if we’re foreigners. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfNkjCoti6Y
sermon: https://youtu.be/OJIlOa3OBHM
commentary:
22:3 Arose and went-  Abraham was progressively set up by God so that his spiritual growth would be an upward spiral. Initially, he was told to walk / go to a land which God would shew him (12:1); when he got there, he was told to “arise”, and “walk” through that land of Canaan (13:17). Abraham, albeit in a faltering kind of way, did just this. But this was to prepare him for this test in the command to offer Isaac. His obedience this time isn't at all faltering. He “arises” and 'goes' [s.w. “walk”] “unto the place of which God had told him” to offer Isaac. This is exactly what he had been called to do in Ur- to arise and walk / go to a land / place which God would show him (12:1). Our obedience in one challenge of God leads us to obedience in others. Circumstances tend to repeat both within and between the lives of God's faithful. One experience is designed to lead us to another. Nothing in our lives is senseless chance. All is part of a higher plan for our spiritual good, in our latter end.
22:18 The blessing is defined as forgiveness of sins and salvation (Acts 3:26,26). We become “in” the seed by baptism into Christ, who is Abraham’s seed (Gal. 3:8, 27-29). All that is true of Christ becomes true of us, if we are in Him. We all wish to be a blessing to others- we see people suffering from their sins, physically damaged by earthquakes, war, famine, and we wish to get out there and help them; yet we are limited by our life situation. By being in Christ, we can be a blessing for others by bringing them to the blessing of salvation and a place in God’s Kingdom on earth.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpZvhBGqykU
sermon: https://youtu.be/cyrULQZ_uKc
commentary:
23:3 Abraham was promised eternal inheritance of the land (17:8)- but he didn’t receive any of it in this life, he even had to buy a plot of land to bury his wife. This point is emphasized in the New Testament because it implies a future resurrection and eternal inheritance for Abraham (Acts 7:5; Heb. 11:13,39,40). Hence we have this laboured account of the purchase of the cave of Machpelah. Not only is the presence of the children  of Heth highlighted (23:3,5,7,10,11,12,13,16,18), but the record of Abraham's words demonstrates his appreciation that he was only passing through: “Entreat  for me to Ephron...  the cave…  which he has...  for the full price… me for a possession... amongst you... Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land... and the field... in all of its borders” (23:9-17 AVmg.). The mention of the borders really rubs it in. Not only was the land promised to Abraham, but he was politically more powerful than the children of Heth; he could have annexed it for himself at ease. The children of Heth were willing to giver it to him for free anyway (23:11). Yet the realization by Abraham of his present position, the humility created by faith, shines through the narrative. This earth is ours, eternally. But we like Abraham live in it as foreigners- for the moment. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1xvyXnMWs
sermon: https://youtu.be/-5lEXPlloaA
commentary:
24:4 It must be significant that Abraham told his servant to take Isaac a wife from “my country... my relatives” and not from the people “among whom I live”. There were none of Abraham's country or kindred, which he had been commanded to leave, living anywhere near him. He had truly and fully obeyed the command to separate from them! As with many Christian youngsters today, the avoidance of marrying those in the surrounding world just seemed too much to ask. But Abraham knew that a way would be made. As God had taken Abram from Ur and Haran and Lot, so God would take a woman from there, suitable for Isaac. Faithful parents should do all they can to ensure their children marry within the family of faith.
24:7,8 Abraham told his servant that God would use His Angel  so that his mission to find a suitable wife for Isaac would surely succeed. He speaks as if success is certain, and yet he recognizes the possibility that the woman may not be “willing to follow you”. We should have the same positive, hopeful attitude in our enterprises for God, expecting success rather than failure. The Angel prepared in prospect for the success of the mission; but it still depended upon the woman’s freewill. The whole incident can be read as typical of the search, through the preaching of the Gospel, for the bride of Christ. The preacher of the Gospel, represented by Abraham’s servant, must go ahead believing that he will succeed (:40,41), just as the shepherd searches for the sheep until he finds it.
24:14 To water even a few camels was a few hours work. It was impossible that a traveller requesting a cup of water would then be offered to have his camels watered. This would have to be from God.
Your servant… my master- The servant was aware that his master was also a servant, of God. We shouldn’t think of those ‘above us’ as being too far above us- for as we are to them, so should they be to God. And it’s our standing before Him which is all important.
24:15 He spoke his prayer out loud. In the private, online worlds in which we live, it’s no bad practice to say our prayers out loud, however quietly. This verse is surely alluded to by Jesus when He taught that we should pray knowing that God knows our needs before we ask Him (Mt. 6:8)- before we’ve finished our prayer, the answer has sometimes come along. See on :63.
24:21 The servant had asked for this to happen, and it did. And he can’t believe the prayer has been answered- rather like the believers praying for Peter’s release, who disbelieved it could be him knocking at the door (Acts 12:15). We are so similar. It is in those moments that we realize just what a momentous thing it is, to ask something of God, to be performed on this earth. And to realize it actually happened. He did it, for me, a little ant crawling on the surface of a small planet that is hurtling through space, in a remote part of His universe…
24:56 Abraham’s servant said that he walked ‘before Yahweh’ (:40), reflecting how he felt that he was following an Angel. He therefore urges Bethuel: “Don’t hinder me, since Yahweh has blessed my way”. He felt he was on a roll, being led onwards by the Angel- and he didn’t want anything to interrupt that. The sensitive believer will perceive similar situations, time and again, as we seek to follow the leading of the Angel / cherubim before whom we walk. If we walk in step with the Angel, success is assured.
24:58 Rebekah immediately says “I will go” (Heb. elek)- just as Abraham had been called to “go” from Ur (lek, 12:1); “and he went” (wayyelek, 12:4). This would seem to suggest an undesigned similarity of character between the family members. Our response to the call of God should be immediate, like the disciples immediately leaving their nets.
24:63 The same thing happened as in :15- a man was walking alone, grieving for his mother and praying- presumably for a wife to fill that gap. And the answer to that prayer had already been prepared for quite some time before he had made that request.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avnxLaJwluw
sermon: https://youtu.be/jj_vnXZSW58
commentary:
25:8 As the reward will only be given at the judgment on Christ’s return, it follows that the righteous and wicked go to the same place when they die, i.e. the grave. There is no differentiation made between them in their deaths. Righteous Abraham was “gathered to his people” (or ancestors) on death; they were unbelieving idolaters (Josh. 24:2).
25:23 God loves to work through the weak, the despised, the last, or in this case, the younger.
25:26 Isaac is presented as delaying parenthood until he could have children by a believing woman.
25:27 By grace, righteousness has to be imputed to us.  This happened to Jacob; he didn't make it to the spiritually perfect / mature status with which he is credited right at the beginning. Job is an identical case; he is labelled “perfect” at the beginning, but at the end of his spiritual growth, he confessed his imperfection.  Jacob  is described as “perfect” at a time when he had not even accepted Yahweh as his God (28:21). God counts His beloved children as being far more righteous than they are. The mechanism by which He now does this is through our baptism into Christ, whereby we are counted as if we are Him. Being counted perfect is therefore not simply the bias and ridiculous favoritism of a doting, unrealistic, Divine parent.
25:30 Jacob’s behaviour here was wrong. It’s alluded to in a negative way by Paul when he says that we should eagerly feed even our enemy (Rom. 12:20). Jacob should have believed God’s promise, that he as the younger would be the more blessed (:23), rather than trying to obtain the birthright in his own strength.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAKwijW2yY0
sermon: https://youtu.be/jl3HMgHtLZc
commentary:
27:12 Deceiver- The rare Hebrew word used here is found elsewhere in Jer. 10:15,16, where it refers to a maker of idols. Again the record is forging the link between Jacob and paganism.
27:13 There are clear allusions here to Eve in Eden; the curse came about because of a hearkening to a woman’s voice. Jacob ought to have perceived the similarities of the situation; but he failed to. All human sin is in some way a living out of the Adam and Eve scenario; hence Paul in Romans presents Adam as everyman, and in so many Biblical records of sin (and in our own sins too) we can see similarities with what happened in Eden. We can therefore safely say that if we had been in Eden, we would’ve sinned likewise. The fact we suffer the effect of that sin is therefore not unjust.
27:24 As Jacob deceived his blind father, so he was himself deceived by Laban. “Deceiving and being deceived” may allude to Jacob (2 Tim. 3:13). What goes around comes around.
27:29 Lord over your brothers- Isaac had apparently forgotten the Divine promise that the firstborn was to serve the younger. However, the blessing which Isaac was giving wasn’t the same as the Divine blessing of Abraham’s seed. All of the family seem to have forgotten the prime importance of God’s blessing, and rated human blessing far higher. This can so easily happen to us. The Gospel is contained in the promises to Abraham (Gal. 3:8), and we need to continually remind ourselves of their paramount significance in our lives. There was no Divine inspiration in Isaac’s blessings, he was not speaking from God’s mouth to his sons, although the recording of them is inspired. 
27:38 The way Esau lifted up his voice and wept is picked up in Heb. 12:17 as a warning to all those who would fritter away their spirituality for sensuality- for they will weep in the same way at the day of judgment, aching from the pain of what might have been. Esau was a type of those who will be rejected at the final judgment- they will beg with tears for a change of mind, but it will be too late. None of us will stand before Christ indifferent- we will all desperately wish for His blessing, and therefore our commitment to Him in this life should likewise be total.
27:46 Rebekah’s apparent zeal against marriage out of the faith was really a cover for her desire to save her son from problems which he had only her to blame for. We really have to search our motives- for we do externally the right thing from quite wrong motives.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2UcTVLFebw
sermon: https://youtu.be/jCpGL0arZi8
commentary:
29:2 Meeting a future wife by a well at watering time is what happened to Moses and to Isaac (by proxy). Situations repeat between the lives of God's children and even within our own lives, because the same God is working through His Angels to some kind of pattern and formula in the lives of His children, even if the complete algorithm is currently hid from our understanding.
29:17 As life worked out, it's apparent that Leah was the more faithful to Yahweh and her beauty queen sister wasn't so spiritually minded. But Jacob in his spiritual immaturity was attracted to Rachel after the flesh. 
29:25 Why did Jacob only realize whom he had slept with the next morning? One is tempted to assume Jacob was drunk on his wedding night.
What is this- Very similar words and situation to Esau's cry of pain and disappointment at how Jacob had deceived him. It's not simply that what goes around comes around in a kind of measure for measure dynamic, but rather that God was seeking to educate Jacob as to how Esau must have felt at his behaviour, and to lead Jacob thereby to repentance. 
29:33 Has heard- Yahweh noticed she was hated (:31) and read the situation as a prayer to Him. Sometimes we don't verbalize things in prayer, but God all the same perceives our situation as a prayer to Him.
29:34 Jacob was married to Leah but not “joined” to her, even though God's intention is to 'join' a married couple together (Mt. 19:6). It would seem Jacob like many people today resisted God's attempts to join a couple together. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9kAqL5Sp_Y
sermon: https://youtu.be/8OteKG47RcA
commentary:
30:4 Jacob's sleeping with his wives' maids was contrary to the one man: one woman ideal of Genesis. But God tolerated it and used the children conceived as the founding pillars of His people Israel; He worked through the weakness of people rather than turning away in disgust and disappointment at their failures. God does the same with us, and we ought to have a similar hopeful patience in dealing with people who fail.
30:6 It seems that this was a case of Rachel trying to force God's hand rather than Him blessing her. Yet she eagerly interpreted events as meaning God was blessing her, just as we can- we too easily attach positive meaning to our poor behaviour.
30:8 Leah didn't fight back nor have any personal part in wrestling with Rachel; the wrestling was all in Rachel's mind. We can assume others are actively against us and even fighting against us when actually they are just innocent people in the situation they are in, and our wrestling is in fact against God and not them as persons. Jacob learnt the same lesson when he wrestled with the Angel in chapter 32.
30:11 Gad was the name of an idol, the god of luck or fortune. In this name choice we see the pagan influences in the family which God was trying to transform into His people.
30:16 Mandrakes were supposed to be aphrodisiacs. The record is framed to show how meaningless were these pagan beliefs- for if they had really worked, she would have had no need to order Jacob to sleep with her. God's patient working through their misunderstandings is seen later in how He worked through Jacob's belief in the myth of cattle bearing spotted offspring if they conceived in front of spotted rods (:37).
30:37-39 This was a pagan belief with no biological truth in it, but God still worked through it in order to bless Jacob; see on :16. The Lord Jesus did the same regarding the common belief that demons caused illness. His language went along with the idea, although the Bible is clear that demons don't exist and sickness is ultimately under God's control, in order to bring healing and blessing to those sick people. By doing so, He demonstrated that God's power is so far greater than that of demons that effectively, demons have no power and don't actually exist. God worked in the same way through the wrong ideas held by Jacob and his family.
 30:43 The man- Stressing how Jacob humanly, in a fleshly sense, was blessed by God. Later on he must have reflected how this blessing was by Divine grace rather than because of any truth in the pagan beliefs of themselves, for afterwards he talks of how it was God who graciously gave him the extra cattle (31:9; 32:10).


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwdB1l4m07Q
sermon: https://youtu.be/UomsS_heH-Q
commentary:
31:9 See on 30:43.
31:19 Teraphim were household gods- Rachel clearly believed in them passionately.
31:36 Jacob must have later reflected how this incident reflected God's pure grace to him, and how self-righteous he had been. All the time in this record we are seeing God continuing to work with people through their weaknesses, to bring them to perceive and believe in Him as the God of all grace.
31:42 Rebuked you- There's no evidence God actually did. Again we see a man attaching unwarranted meaning to events, assuming God was more pleased with him than He actually was. His wives made the same mistake in the obtaining and naming of their children.
31:45 Raising up a pillar or standing stone was a pagan ritual which God later forbad for His people (Lev. 26:1 uses the same Hebrew word). Constantly we are being reminded how paganic were Jacob's beliefs at this time.
31:53 The god of Nahor was a pagan deity (Josh. 24:2); Jacob instead swore by the One his father Isaac feared, Yahweh. Even though Jacob hadn't yet accepted Yahweh as his personal God, he recognized theoretically the truth of Yahweh as opposed to any other god; Yahweh was working to transform this theoretical knowledge into a practical, personal reality for Jacob.
31:54 Eating bread together was a sign of agreeing to a covenant. It is behind the idea of the breaking of bread service, whereby God and His children state their mutual belief in each other and acceptance of God's covenant with us- which is quite simply to save us from our sins and give us eternal life in His Kingdom because we are in Christ.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHjhtJuiiko
sermon: https://youtu.be/NHTaZYjd9FY
commentary:
32:4 Wrestled- The Angel came to Jacob with the desire to kill him, as Esau (whom the Angel represented) approached him in the same spirit. It was by Jacob's desperate clinging on to God, his pleading, his intense prayer (Hos. 12:4) that he changed God's intention, as did Moses later. We know from Hos. 12 that Jacob became aware that he was wrestling with an Angel, not just a man. His wrestling is therefore to be understood as prayer and pleading, although doubtless it started as a physical struggle with an unknown stranger, who he later recognized as an Angel. Jacob wrestled / struggled in prayer with the Angel. Jacob's night of wrestling is a cameo of the experience of all who would be counted among the Israel of God- for “there He spoke with us” (Hos. 12:4). The Bible presents prayer as a struggle, not something we do half asleep in the comfort of our beds (Job 33:13; Heb. 12:4; Rom. 15:30; Col. 4:12). Through this, Jacob learnt the real import of the promises. He realized that all his life, he had been wrestling with God, his Angel, and he now came to beg his God for the blessing of forgiveness, implying he had repented. The Hebrew for “wrestle” can mean both to wrestle and also to cling on to. He started wrestling, and ended up clinging on to the Angel, desperately begging for salvation and forgiveness. His great physical strength (remember how he moved the huge stone from the well, 29:2) was redirected into a spiritual clinging on to the promises of forgiveness and salvation. And this will be our pattern of growth too.  
32:10 Staff- The Hebrew word for “staff” here suggests a magical, pagan stick associated with fertility, coming from a root meaning 'to germinate'. The same word occurs when we read that Jacob put the animals before the “rods”; it seems this is an intensive plural for 'the great rod', i.e. his staff. Yet, fascinatingly enough, at the very point when Jacob leaves home to start his wilderness journey with only (in his eyes) his pagan staff to bring him good luck, God as it were takes a snapshot of him, and asks Israel to leave Egypt with a staff in their hands- a strange request, surely, unless it was intended to drive their minds back to Jacob, asking them to emulate his example. Jacob and idolatry go together. But now Jacob begins to realize that all he had in life was from God, and not from his staff.
32:31 Jacob’s limping would’ve reminded him for the rest of his life of his brokenness and dependence upon God’s grace to walk life’s journey.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F_7jbe-1m0
sermon: https://youtu.be/KD3gatcnP9U
commentary:
33:11 The Hebrew words translated “take (away)” and “blessing” are exactly the same as in 27:35,36, where Isaac laments that Jacob had taken away Esau’s blessing, and Esau repeats those same words. Now Jacob is saying: 'I have experienced the true grace of God, I stand forgiven before Him, I saw His face in His representative Angel , I therefore have all things, so I don't want that physical, material, temporal blessing I swindled you out of'. This is why Jacob pointedly calls Esau his “Lord” in the record. He was accepting Esau as the firstborn. Because God had dealt graciously with him, he felt that he had “all things”. All he needed was God’s grace, and he had that. Rev. 21:7 appears to allude to Jacob by saying that he who overcomes [by wrestling?] shall inherit “all things”. We are all to pass through Jacob’s lesson; that material advantage is nothing, and God’s grace is everything. Truly could Jacob later say, after another gracious salvation, that there God had been revealed to him [RV] in the experience of grace (35:7). See on 33:3.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL6Qu72aluA
sermon: https://youtu.be/ggtVChfCn5Q
commentary:
34:2 The story clearly shows the danger of young people from believing families mixing with unbelievers in an uncontrolled environment- what begins as curiosity can very quickly descend into serious failure with lifelong consequences.
34:16 Marriage out of the Faith reflects a lack of appreciation of covenant relationship. If Dinah had married Hamor, this would have been a covenant relationship which would have resulted in the people of God and the surrounding world becoming “one people” (:16,22). Through baptism, we are the seed of Abraham, we are the people of God, we have been selected to undergo a few years preparation now, so that when the Lord comes we may enter His Kingdom.
34:30 So true to our experience, even after the night of wrestling Jacob slipped back at times into the old way of thinking. His pathetic bleating here is a case of this: “I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house”. Just note all those personal pronouns. God had promised to go with him, and the whole tenor of all the promises was that there would come a singular seed from the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who would become a great house, or nation. But in the heat of the moment, all this went out of the window. Our faith in the implications of God’s promises to us- we who through baptism have the same Abrahamic promises made to us- can likewise easily become obscured by the immediate pressures of this world.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDSfrBr-jU
sermon: https://youtu.be/ikztAbuUcrY
commentary:
35:2 These household teraphim would have been the property deeds to Laban’s property, but because of what God had promised him, Jacob was willing to resign all that hope of worldly advantage (:3). ”Foreign gods” would’ve sounded strange to Jacob’s family- the gods they worshipped would’ve been local Canaanite gods, yet Jacob speaks as if the local world around them was actually a foreign country. He thus shows how we who are in the family of faith should live even in our own land as if we are visitors from abroad in a foreign land (Heb. 11:13).
35:4 Jacob was outnumbered and surrounded by angry enemies, whom his sons had foolishly provoked. He turns to God and throws away all his human wealth, which he might have used to placate his angry enemies. And somehow, it all worked out for him- because there’s no record that his enemies did in fact take revenge against the small and vulnerable Jacob family.
35:7 See on 33:11.
35:10 The record continues to sometimes refer to Jacob as “Jacob” rather than as “Israel”. This reflects how Jacob didn’t fully believe in nor accept that new name which God had given him. We are baptized into God’s Name, and yet we too can doubt or forget the wonder of this, and likewise fail to identify ourselves as God identifies us.
35:11 Seeking to imitate God isn't always a recipe for an easy life now for us as humans. The Hebrew word translated “Almighty”, Shaddai,  is rooted in the word shad, meaning breast, and has the sense of fruitfulness. Thus “God said unto [Jacob], I am God Almighty [shaddai]: be fruitful [like me] and multiply”. It seems Jacob sought to obey this by invitation to be like God by having a child in his old age by Rachel- and yet, perhaps due to her age, she died in that childbirth, in that seeking to imitate the Father.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1__npsN1Lc8
commentary:
36:2 It is again emphasized that Esau married outside of the family of faith. One reason for the extended genealogy of Esau in this chapter is perhaps to prove that, and to demonstrate that his children and descendants were also not in the family of faith (e.g. Edom, Amalek)- for some of the names here we encounter in later Scripture in a negative context.
36:6 The situation is similar to the division between Abraham and Lot for the same reasons (13:6). Esau should’ve learnt from that example, just as we should learn from Biblical precedent; for situations in our lives are so often a repetition of a situation which in essence has been recorded in the Bible.
36:31 The fact there were kings in neighbouring Edom before there were kings in Israel shows the accuracy of the later record that the Israelites wanted to have a human king so as to be like the nations around them (1 Sam. 8:5,20). Genesis 36 often mentions the various kings of the tribes surrounding the Israelites; it must’ve been unusual for a nation like Israel to have no king. The reason was that God was their true King. We too have no visible human leadership, the Lord Jesus is the head of the church and our God, the King of His people, is in Heaven and not on earth. But like the world around us, we can like Israel wish for a human, visible leadership. Yet this is a rejection of God as our true King.
36:33 Jobab is identified with the Job of the book of Job according to Jewish tradition. Several of the names we find here in Genesis 36 also occur in the book of Job. The books of the Bible aren’t always in chronological order; it would seem that the book of Job is set in the times of the patriarchs. If the identification of Jobab with Job is correct, we can learn that even someone from an unspiritual background, a descendant of Esau, can still rise above it and become a believer, pleasing to God.


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX5u47Ezm-U
sermon: https://youtu.be/xMgLPO6kBrA
commentary:
37:3 There seems to have been something unusual about the Lord’s outer garment. The same Greek word chiton used in Jn. 19:23,24 is that used in the LXX here to describe Joseph’s coat of many pieces. Josephus uses the word for the tunic of the High Priest, which was likewise not to be rent (Lev. 21:10). 
37:9 It must have taken Joseph quite some courage to explain the dreams to his brothers; hence we read: “He dreamed… and told it”. Jesus at age 30 must’ve had the same courage when He began His ministry. This is our struggle, to tell forth the things revealed to us. 
37:18 “When the husbandmen saw  the son [=Jesus], they said among themselves (i.e. conspired), This is the heir; come, let us kill him” (Mt. 21:38). Mt. 21:38 is quoting the LXX here. Joseph is a type of Jesus in so many ways.
37:22 At least two of his ten persecutors were unhappy about what they were doing, and said so (:22,26; 42:22). Perhaps the whole group egged each other on to adopt an attitude none were totally happy with in their conscience; this is how group dynamics work once sinful, jealous behaviour becomes acceptable to the group in principle. 
37:28 So similar to Christ’s betrayal for pieces of silver.
37:30 What do you think Reuben said to Jacob at the time of :35, to comfort him over his ‘dead’ son whom Reuben knew not to be dead? Do we always have to tell the truth to people in grief, or are we justified in simply seeing things from their perspective in order to comfort them?
37:32 As Jacob in his youth had deceived his father, so now his sons do to him.
37:34 Jacob tore his clothes to connect with how Joseph, as he thought, had been torn (:33). This is a fine prefigurement of the (easily overlooked) pain of God the Father at the cross.
37:35 The Hebrew word sheol is translated in some Bibles as “hell”, in others as “the grave”. Sheol isn’t a place where only bad people go after death- for Jacob and Joseph were believers, and are spoken of as being in sheol, simply meaning ‘in the grave’. 


christian_basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gVaWCUE-fY
sermon: https://youtu.be/IsVPeDLzrow
commentary:
38:1 Judah fell into sin whilst separate from his brothers. Keeping together with others in the family of faith is part of our armoury against sin.
38:10 Sins of omission are as bad as sins of commission. 
38:15 Tamar is listed in the New Testament genealogy of Jesus as one of His descendants. Yet like many in His genealogy, she was somewhat non-standard- she had acted as a prostitute. The Lord Jesus had so many strange people in His gene bank, yet He never sinned. We can’t therefore blame our sins on our ancestry or background situation.
38:19 Was Tamar right to have done this…?
38:24 Condemning others for sin when ourselves guilty is exactly what happened with David (2 Sam. 12:6). This phenomenon is because we realize on some level that we have sinned, and that sin must be punished. But if we don’t admit our sin, we earnestly wish to punish that sin whenever it occurs in others. This explains the huge hypocrisy often observed in religious people. We can only guard against it by seriously confessing our sins, regularly, daily; and living a continually self-examined life.
38:25 Judah and his brothers sent Joseph's blood stained coat to Jacob. It's recorded that they invited their father to “Examine it, please, whether it is your son’s coat or not. He recognized it…” (37:32,33). The very same Hebrew words are used in :25,26 in describing how Tamar sent to Judah saying “Examine, please, whose these are… And Judah recognized them and said...'. The point of the similarities is to show how God sought to teach Judah how his father Jacob had felt. Note the parallels between the he-goat in 37:31 and the “kid of the goats” of :17-20; “and he refused to be comforted” of 37:35 is a designed contrast with how “Judah was comforted” (:12).
38:30 This is part of a theme in Genesis of the firstborn not enjoying the full status of being firstborn- all part of God’s preference to work with the underling and the weak.


