February 11, 2011 (I Samuel 12-15)

It's not about us. As much as we want to always make it about us, it's not. It's about God and the glory of His name.

^12:20 “Don’t be afraid,” Samuel reassured them. “You have certainly done wrong, but make sure now that you worship the Lord with all your heart, and don’t turn your back on him. ²¹ Don’t go back to worshiping worthless idols that cannot help or rescue you—they are totally useless! ²² The Lord will not abandon his people, because that would dishonor his great name. For it has pleased the Lord to make you his very own people.

And this verse always convicts me when I read it.

^12:23 “As for me, I will certainly not sin against the Lord by ending my prayers for you. And I will continue to teach you what is good and right.

And after Samuel tells the people he will pray for them, he reminds them of their responsibility:

^12:24 But be sure to fear the Lord and faithfully serve him. Think of all the wonderful things he has done for you. ²⁵But if you continue to sin, you and your king will be swept away.”

In this next section, Saul is preparing for war and Samuel hasn't arrived yet. So he offers the sacrifice himself, something strictly forbidden. When Samuel arrived and confronted him, here was his response:

^13:11 Saul replied, “I saw my men scattering from me, and you didn’t arrive when you said you would, and the Philistines are at Micmash ready for battle. ¹² So I said, ‘The Philistines are ready to march against us at Gilgal, and I haven’t even asked for the Lord’s help!’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering myself before you came.”

His first response was to justify his actions. He blamed his men and he blamed Samuel and he even tried to say he had good intentions, but the truth of the matter was that he directly disobeyed.

Samuel replied to him:

^13:13 “How foolish!” Samuel exclaimed. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. Had you kept it, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. ¹⁴ But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” ¹⁵ Samuel then left Gilgal and went on his way, but the rest of the troops went with Saul to meet the army. 

We never see where Saul confessed and repented. And Samuel's prophecy showed the true problem - he didn't have a heart that wanted to follow and honor God.

Chapter 15 is one of the 'saddest' chapters in the Bible. I'll just use some of the main verses to summarize what happened.

^15:1 One day Samuel said to Saul, .... ³ Now go and completely destroy the entire Amalekite nation—men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys.”


^15:7 Then Saul slaughtered the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, east of Egypt. ⁸ He captured Agag, the Amalekite king, but completely destroyed everyone else. ⁹ Saul and his men spared Agag’s life and kept the best of the sheep and goats, the cattle, the fat calves, and the lambs—everything, in fact, that appealed to them. They destroyed only what was worthless or of poor quality.


^15:10 Then the Lord said to Samuel, ¹¹ “I am sorry that I ever made Saul king, for he has not been loyal to me and has refused to obey my command.” Samuel was so deeply moved when he heard this that he cried out to the Lord all night.

^15:19 Why haven’t you obeyed the Lord? Why did you rush for the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord’s sight?”


^15:20 “But I did obey the Lord,” Saul insisted. “I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back King Agag, but I destroyed everyone else. ²¹ Then my troops brought in the best of the sheep, goats, cattle, and plunder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

^15:22 But Samuel replied,

   “What is more pleasing to the Lord:
      your burnt offerings and sacrifices
      or your obedience to his voice?
   Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice,
      and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.
 ²³ Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft,
      and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols.
   So because you have rejected the command of the Lord,
      he has rejected you as king.”

^15:34 Then Samuel went home to Ramah, and Saul returned to his house at Gibeah of Saul. ³⁵ Samuel never went to meet with Saul again, but he mourned constantly for him. And the Lord was sorry he had ever made Saul king of Israel.

I think Saul's pattern of "justified disobedience" led to his downfall. A warning for us all.

February 8, 2011 (I Samuel 1-8)

These first chapters describe Hannah, a barren woman who prayed to God for a son and He granted her request. She named her son Samuel. In turn, she gave him back to the Lord, to serve Him in the temple. Eli was the priest that Samuel served under and Eli's two sons were wicked. Eli knew about it, but never really disciplined them. 

^3:11 Then the Lord said to Samuel, “I am about to do a shocking thing in Israel. ¹² I am going to carry out all my threats against Eli and his family, from beginning to end. ¹³ I have warned him that judgment is coming upon his family forever, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn’t disciplined them. ¹⁴ So I have vowed that the sins of Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by sacrifices or offerings.”

And his sons were both killed in battle not too long after that. Fast forward to Samuel. He is now a father and I found it very interesting when I read this:

^8:1 As Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel. ² Joel and Abijah, his oldest sons, held court in Beersheba. ³ But they were not like their father, for they were greedy for money. They accepted bribes and perverted justice.

Although it doesn't say here that God was going to judge Samuel or his sons, I can't help but think that God was waiting on Samuel to do something about them. Take their positions of authority from them, or something. But it was because of them that the people demanded a king:

^8:4 Finally, all the elders of Israel met at Ramah to discuss the matter with Samuel. ⁵ “Look,” they told him, “you are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.”

I know our children don't like it when we discipline them, but God expects it of us. Ultimately they are responsible for their own actions and are accountable to God for them, but we are accountable to God to discipline them.

February 7, 2011 (Judges 19-21, Ruth)

We live in the Rockrimmon neighborhood. I just discovered today that our neighborhood name may have been so named from the Bible:

^{Judges 20:45} The survivors fled into the wilderness toward the rock of Rimmon, but Israel killed 5,000 of them along the road. They continued the chase until they had killed another 2,000 near Gidom.

 ⁴⁶ So that day the tribe of Benjamin lost 25,000 strong warriors armed with swords, ⁴⁷ leaving only 600 men who escaped to the rock of Rimmon, where they lived for four months. 

I found that interesting.

I love the book of Ruth - All throughout it I see the hand of God and His gracious provision for Ruth, from leading her to Boaz's land, to allowing Boaz to 'redeem' her, to her becoming the great grandmother of David. She was from Moab - and yet God still used her in the lineage of David. It's just another example of God's grace. 

February 6, 2011 (Judges 17-18)

I couldn't read today's chapters without going to a printout of the sermon by Paris Reidhead on these chapters. One of the most compelling, convicting messages I have ever heard entitled "Ten Shekels and a Shirt". It is based upon the story of Micah, who set up in his home a little altar with an idol, and when a Levite passed through the neighborhood hired him to be his personal priest for 'ten shekels, a change of clothes and his food'. But later, this priest had an opportunity to be a priest for a tribe of people and stole the idol and altar from Micah and went on his way with the tribe. This is the background for Dr. Reidhead's message. I'm going to try to summarize the high points of the sermon:

What can we call this and how will it apply to our days generation? Would I be out of line in order if I were to talk to you for a little while about utilitarian religion and expedient Christianity? And a useful God? I would like to call attention to the fact that our day is a day which the ruling philosophy is pragmatism. Pragmatism means if it works it's true. If it succeeds it's good.

The question then comes to this - what is the standard of success and by what are we going to judge our lives and our ministry? And the question that you are going to ask yourself, "Is God an end or is He a means?"  And so we've got to ask ourselves at the very outset of our ministry, and our pilgrimage, and our walk, "Are we going to be Levites who serve God for ten shekels and a shirt? Serve men in the name of God, rather than God?

The philosophy of the day has become humanism. And you could define humanism this way - humanism is a philosophical statement that declares the end of all being is the happiness of man. The reason for existence is man's happiness. Now according to humanism, salvation is simply a matter of getting all the happiness you can out of life.

John Dewey, then an American philosopher influencing education, was able to  persuade the educators that there were no absolute standards. Children shouldn't be brought to any particular standard, that the end of education was simply to allow the child to express himself and expand on what he is and find his happiness in being what he wants to be. So we had cultural lawlessness, when every man could do as seemed right in his own eyes and we had no God to rule over us. The Bible had been discounted and disallowed and disproved. God had been dethroned, He didn't exist, He had no personal relationship to individuals. Jesus Christ was either a myth or just a man, so they taught, and therefore the whole end of being was happiness. The individual would establish the standards of his happiness and interpret it.

The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he's alive; and the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies.

And then the fundamentalists, along the line, are now tuning in on this same wavelength of humanism until we find something like this: "Accept Jesus so you can go to heaven! You don't want to go to that old, filthy, nasty, burning hell when there is a beautiful heaven up there! Now come to Jesus so you can go to heaven!"

Humanism is, I believe, the most deadly and disastrous of all the philosophical stenches that's crept up through the grating pit of Hell. It has penetrated so much of our religion and it is in utter and total contrast with Christianity. And here we find Micha, who wants to have a little chapel, and he wants to have a priest, and he wants to have prayer, and he wants to have devotion, because "I know the Lord will do me good." And THIS is SELFISHNESS! And THIS is SIN!

I'm afraid that it's become so subtle that it goes everywhere. What is it? In essence it's this - that this philosophical postulate that the end of all being is the happiness of man has been sort of covered over with evangelical terms and Biblical doctrine until God reigns in heaven for the happiness of man; Jesus Christ was incarnate for the happiness of man; all the angels exist for the happiness of man; Everything is for the happiness of man! And I submit to you that this is UNCHRISTIAN! Isn't man happy? Didn't God intend to make man happy? Yes - but as a by product and not a prime-product!



My eyes were opened. I was no longer working for Micah and ten shekels and a shirt. But I was serving a living God. Let me summarize - Humanism says, 'the end of all being is the happiness of man.' Christianity says, 'the end of all being is the glory of God'.

And that's only half the message summarized. I'll stop there. But it's well worth it to actually listen to the message online - a google search will pull it up.

February 5, 2011 (Judges 6-16)

Turmoil in the middle east - it's all over the news right now. It's been that way since God took His people to give them "the Promised Land" and it will be that way until Jesus comes back to rule and reign forever. Here's what prompted that thought today:

^11:12 Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of Ammon, asking, “Why have you come out to fight against my land?”

 ¹³ The king of Ammon answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they stole my land from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River and all the way to the Jordan. Now then, give back the land peaceably.”

And the answer that Jephthah gave didn't satisfy them then, and doesn't satisfy them now.

¹⁴ Jephthah sent this message back to the Ammonite king:

 ¹⁵ “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not steal any land from Moab or Ammon.... ²¹ But the Lord, the God of Israel, gave his people victory over King Sihon. So Israel took control of all the land of the Amorites, who lived in that region, ²² from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River, and from the eastern wilderness to the Jordan.
 ²³ “So you see, it was the Lord, the God of Israel, who took away the land from the Amorites and gave it to Israel. Why, then, should we give it back to you? ²⁴ You keep whatever your god Chemosh gives you, and we will keep whatever the Lord our God gives us.
 ²⁶ “Israel has been living here for 300 years, inhabiting Heshbon and its surrounding settlements, all the way to Aroer and its settlements, and in all the towns along the Arnon River. Why have you made no effort to recover it before now?²⁷ Therefore, I have not sinned against you. Rather, you have wronged me by attacking me. Let the Lord, who is judge, decide today which of us is right—Israel or Ammon.”

 ²⁸ But the king of Ammon paid no attention to Jephthah’s message.

The king of Ammon didn't give a rip about God or His plan, and only saw the reality of his land being taken from him. How can we expect any different result today? There will never be peace in the Middle East until Jesus reigns as the Prince of Peace. And that WILL happen. We just don't know when. This whole scenario reminded me of Peter's warning:

2 Peter 3

The Day of the Lord Is Coming

 ¹ This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. ² I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.

 ³ Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. ⁴ They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”

 ⁵ They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. ⁶ Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. ⁷And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

 ⁸ But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. ⁹ The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.

 ¹¹ Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, ¹² looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. ¹³ But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.

 ¹⁴ And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.

 ¹⁵ And remember, the Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—¹⁶ speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.

 ^17  18 Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

   All glory to him, both now and forever! Amen.

February 4, 2011 (Judges 1 - 5)

So now, the Israelites are entering the promised land and are driving out the people that currently live there. They were told to wipe them out - to completely destroy them. And for some areas, they did that, but the second part of chapter one describes all the failures of tribes to completely drive them out. As I read that, I was wondering how that happened? God had told them He would be with them and He would help them to defeat their enemies. Then I read the end of chapter two, beginning of chapter three and it made sense:

^2:20 So the Lord burned with anger against Israel. He said, “Because these people have violated my covenant, which I made with their ancestors, and have ignored my commands, ²¹ I will no longer drive out the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died. ²² I did this to test Israel—to see whether or not they would follow the ways of the Lord as their ancestors did.” ²³ That is why the Lord left those nations in place. He did not quickly drive them out or allow Joshua to conquer them all.

 ^3:1 These are the nations that the Lord left in the land to test those Israelites who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. ² He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle.

He didn't drive them completely out, because if He would have, the younger generation would never have learned 'warfare' - they wouldn't have had an enemy to battle. But instead of persevering and obeying God during this 'time of testing', they chose to let the people live in the land. They not only let them live there, they intermarried with them and began to worship their gods. They failed the test. Judges is all about this scenario:

^3:7 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They forgot about the Lord their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles. ⁸ Then the Lord burned with anger against Israel, and he turned them over to King Cushan-rishathaim of Aram-naharaim. And the Israelites served Cushan-rishathaim for eight years.

 ⁹ But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord raised up a rescuer to save them. 

Different judges, same outcome. The Israelites are oppressed by the people they didn't drive out, they cry out to God for help, he raises up a judge to lead them to victory over these people, they in turn forget about God and so He raises up the people against them, they cry out to Him, etc., etc., etc.

If only when He gave them the victory they wouldn't have forgotten about Him. But don't I do the same thing? When will I realize that God is testing me, to see how much I love Him. Help me God to honor You.

Jan. 31, Feb. 1-2, 2011 (Joshua 8-24)

The first story I read always convicts me, because it's so easy to just 'examine the facts' and do what I think without consulting God.

^9:14 So the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the Lord. ¹⁵ Then Joshua made a peace treaty with them and guaranteed their safety, and the leaders of the community ratified their agreement with a binding oath.

I had a deadline with my accounting work of Jan. 31st. I really prayed about it and gave it to God, acknowledging that I would never meet that deadline unless He did it for me. And guess what? I met the deadline. And guess what else? I found that I didn't thank Him or give Him credit. I pretty much took credit for it myself, saying I met the deadline. Forgive me God. I was convicted of that when I read this:

^10:12 On the day the Lord gave the Israelites victory over the Amorites, Joshua prayed to the Lord in front of all the people of Israel. He said......

When God gave them victory, Joshua prayed to the Lord in front of all the people....ouch! That's why God's word is so important. It gets us onto the right track. It convicts us. God uses it to teach us and to remind us of His goodness and the fact that He is the one who takes care of us. Human nature makes us want to take credit for things on our own. But God reminds us that all good things come from Him.

This last section is a reminder of how important it is to 'personally' have an experience with God, not just second hand knowledge told to us.

^24:31 The people of Israel served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him—those who had personally experienced all that the Lord had done for Israel.

If you just 'hear about' God, but don't personally experience His goodness and power, chances are you won't serve Him. And even if you do personally experience His goodness and power, the temptation is still to go off and 'do your own thing', to examine things and make decisions without consulting Him.

 God, please help us to learn these lessons from Your Word.