Sunday 3 August 2014

TFTD - 02 August 2014 - Thoughts from Today's Bible Readings

02 August 2014

2 Samuel 19
Jeremiah 23
Romans 10; 11

"IN THE LATTER DAYS YOU WILL ..."

We have a ‘feast’ of thought provoking passages in todays’ chapters!  First, David returns to Jerusalem and shows a spirit of mercy to those who followed Absalom, an example of the spirit all followers of Christ should develop.  Second, we have in today’s 23rd chapter In Jeremiah, a remarkable latter day prophecy.

God tells him, “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will  bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful …” [Jeremiah 23:3]   Then after expressing anger at their attitudes that existed then because “ungodliness has gone out into all the land” [Jeremiah 23:15],  God again extends the vision of his purpose far beyond the prophet’s day, the divine message to him is, “Behold, the storm of the LORD!... a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked.   The anger of the LORD will not turn back until he has accomplished the intents of his heart.  In the latter days you will understand it clearly.” [Jeremiah 23:19-20]

Do we understand it clearly?   The more we read God’s word the more clear is our understanding! Our chapter 11 in Romans is a great help, Romans 11:25 is a particular challenge!  “Lest you be wise in your own conceits,” writes Paul, “I want you to understand this mystery brothers, a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” The final ingathering among the Gentiles around the world appears have reached its “fullness”. And then, says Paul, quoting Isaiah 59:20-21 “The deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins”

One day, maybe very soon, God will renew his covenant with his nation, now miraculously re-established in ‘The Holy Land.’  We are fascinated by the wording David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, uses in his book, ‘Rebirth and Destiny of ISRAEL’ - he is clearly very familiar with the Old Testament.  “The book is our whole language.  No commentator unravelled the chapters of Joshua as did our Army’s epic deeds … sprout seeds which will be a living revelation of many words of Hosea, Micah and Isaiah …” [p.433]  “Our prophets inveigh passionately against violence … when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” [p.473]

In that day, the Jews will at last recognise their true Messiah, they will “look on … him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn …”  But says the LORD “I will pour out on the house of  David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace ..” [Zechariah 12:10] We most surely live “in the latter days” and “the storm of the LORD” is about “to burst on the head of the wicked.”  Let us look ever more earnestly for the coming of our Lord ­ and ‘Watch Israel.’
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- DC


Thought for the Day

02 August 2014

"You are my witnesses", said God of His people, and what more dramatic witness could the world have had of God’s hand than the remarkable manner in which God’s people have been restored to God’s Land? "If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Israel has indeed risen from the dead, God has opened their graves, to use Ezekiel’s metaphor; the "dry bones" now support a body which pulsates with vitality, but the world is not persuaded, and few indeed of the Jews themselves, even the subjects of this miracle, see in it the Hand of God."

- A. Winter Moore
The Hand of God (1952)

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