Wednesday 13 August 2014

TFTD - 11 August 2014 - Thoughts from Today's Bible Readings

11 August 2014

1 Kings 6
Jeremiah 32
Mark 6

"HAVE TAUGHT THEM PERSISTENTLY"

Jerusalem is under siege, all the messages the LORD caused Jeremiah to prophecy about the city are now starting to happen. The prophet is surprised by being told to buy his uncle's field, "for the right of redemption by purchase is yours."  [Jeremiah 32:7] He does so and a "deed of purchase"  is signed.  He is told to "put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time. For thus says the LORD of hosts … Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land." [Jeremiah 32:14-15]

Jeremiah is a man of faith, he seeks to understand; we can conceive of him meditating, he writes, "prayed to the LORD saying, 'Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who has made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm!  Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands … O great and mighty God … great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.'" [Jeremiah 32:17-19]. We note and ponder the point the LORD is making, he is looking to see what "fruit" the ways of his people produce!  What "fruit" do our ways produce?

What does God see in Jeremiah's day? The Lord says, "And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction."  [Jeremiah 32:33] Today we can say, very few have diligently read God's word so as to receive instruction ­ and the world is full of "bad fruit" as a result.

How greatly was the Bible appreciated when it was first available for everyone to read ­ but there is little appreciation today! Our world faces God's anger and his acts of judgement, just as Jerusalem faced it in the days of Jeremiah. Let us read and listen, and then, as with the few who did listen in the prophet's days, God says, "I will rejoice in doing them good"  [Jeremiah 32:41] What a wonder the divine rejoicing will be! May we be there to share in it and know "the joy that knows no ending."
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- DC
1 Kings 6:7
"And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of IRON heard in the house, while it was in building."

As we read of no iron tool to be used at the temple site, we are reminded that no iron tool was to be used for the altar stones to leave its mark. (Deut 27:5, Josh 8:30-31).

This takes our mind forward and a similar warning for us, Iron bears the same defilement as the flesh it represents.

Christ warns that we are not not to bear the marks of iron - Rev 14:9-10
"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb"

What is this system that seeks to force the mark on peoples? The iron of Rome, developed into the Babylonian/Romish mother religious system and it's harlot daughters. 

Thought for the Day

11 August 2014

"In our confidence that we “stand” in Christ, it still behoves us to “take heed lest we fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). The one great certainty is that God will never forsake us; whether we may be tempted into forsaking Him is the point which evidently requires our vigilance."

- Fred Pearce
Exhortation and Warning (1979)

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