Wednesday 13 August 2014

Re: TFTD - 12 August 2014 - Thoughts from Today's Bible Readings

12 August 2014

1 Kings 7
Jeremiah 33
Mark 7

"THEY SHALL FEAR AND TREMBLE" 
Who will "fear and tremble"? What will be the cause? We follow on from yesterday's thoughts and read and reflect on the remarkable latter day prophecy given to Jeremiah while he is "shut up in the court of the guard"  [Jeremiah 33:1] His situation was a real trial of his faith ­ and we should ponder what kind of desperate situations we might experience in the "time of trouble, such as there has never been … But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book." [Daniel 12:1]

How long before this time? God has not provided a calendar, but he has provided signs! Israel regathered and turmoil in and around the Holy land! The verses at the end of Daniel 11 are but one place where the signs are described. Jesus said, "for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short" [Matthew 24:22]

About his people, now in terrible trouble, Jeremiah is told, "I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security, I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel … and this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them. They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it."  [Jeremiah 33:6,7,9]

God then tells Jeremiah, "In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness … Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called, "The LORD is our righteousness." [Jeremiah 33:15-16] Imagine the feelings of the prophet as he, in his anxieties over all that is happening, and his personal situation, receives this divine message.

Now switch the perspective to the 21st Century and the potential, before Christ comes when "they shall fear and tremble…"  [Jeremiah 33:9] but while those who do not know God's word will do so out of great anxiety, those who do know ­ and most surely believe his word, shall, says the Lord to Jeremiah, "fear and tremble because of all the prosperity I provide … there shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride …"  [Jeremiah 33:11] Let us make sure we are part of the bride; meditate on Revelation 19:7-9.
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- DC


Thought for the Day

12 August 2014

"The practical outworkings of love, and the intimate self-questionings its consideration provokes, will occupy us all our lives ... a beautiful point from Peter’s second letter. Peter, who many years earlier, had realized that he could not yet lay claim to agape, writes this letter when he is old, and says in 2 Peter 1:3, that God "has granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness ... exceeding great and precious promises." We have to add to our faith "virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness" ...; but his list does not stop there; to our brotherly kindness we must add "charity," love, agape. Peter realizes, perhaps with a memory of his interview with Jesus, that the climax of all spiritual virtues is love. But not only so. He says that those things must be added. If we do add them, if we do supply in addition all this, then, he goes on in 2 Peter 1:11 and he uses exactly the same word, though it is veiled in both A.V. and R.V., there will be added, there will be supplied to us, a full enjoyment of love in all its completeness. "So an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

- H.A. Twelves
As Touching Brotherly Love (1942)

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