kjv@Psalms:49 @ @ RandyP comments: Can you redeem your brother? The question is important. You might think that you can save yourself by your own good works. That may be all that you wish to think about. Well what about that brother? What about that man on the street? What about that sister that has made a series of bad choices? Are your good works going to save them? Redeem them from the grave? Or is your religion just about you?
kjv@Psalms:54 @ @ RandyP comments: Mentioned here are "those that uphold" David's soul in the same sentence as God being David's helper. Shall we assume that amongst other things God is using certain people in David's life to comfort and sustain David's will and judgment? As we are often prone to gathering the wrong people around us, it would be wise to not only pray for the right people to enter and surround us, but to seek out and nurture these necessary relationships well ahead of our time of need, and for His hands to guide them in these times of our crises?
kjv@Acts:27:26-44 @ @ RandyP comments: Through a series of successful prophecies Paul has earned the trust of these foreign men. A counter intuitive decision is made as to the course because of this that saves the entire crew and passenger hold. We must note by it's absence that Paul did not pray to God that the ship would be saved or that shipwreck would be averted as many would, he was open to and receiving divine directions which he passed on to those in charge. Maybe that should be our prayer.
kjv@Psalms:64 @ @ RandyP comments: These enemies plagued David. The battle field was political but, the warfare was spiritual. We may see them merely as personal conflicts but,Satan knew the prophecies and importance God was placing on lineage. He had plenty a willing minions to combat what God was doing. We could also see Jesus surveying His situation similarly in a much larger battle. We would see such if we were engaged in this fight as well.
kjv@Romans:4 @ @ RandyP comments: This law of faith not only separates us from our Jewish brothers but also our Muslim; it is our dividing point in many respects. Their reward is essentially boiled down to "God owes them" because of their obedient works. They do what He commands them and He is obliged/indebted to pay them back. God is committed thus only to their blood seed or proselytized seed. It is our belief that God owes no man no thing, that what He does give us is freely given of His own supreme grace through and for the establishment of His own son Jesus Christ's reign and lordship. We have the entirety of the Bible including the accounts of Abraham and David to confirm this Law of Faith. It's reward is available to all peoples who like Abraham hope beyond hope in imputation and God's providential grace. The story of Abraham thus becomes a prophecy of God sacrificing His son in substitution for reasons of His own love and grace and not because of indebtedness to some percieved goodness we may or may not of performed. The difference is huge!
kjv@Psalms:74 @ @ RandyP comments: Asaph writes about the enemy burning and destroying in the various local sanctuaries most likely in the times before the building of the temple. He was a contemporary of David's from my understanding. Though I don't know which specific time he is witnessing, there certainly were times when Israel had fallen back into its malaise and God allowed desecrations like these to re-awaken congregations. Where might we see this in our faith and church histories today?
kjv@Romans:5:13-14 @ @ RandyP comments: The Law spoken of here is clearly the Mosaic Law. Without/before the Law sin was not imputed and yet all people died showing proof of a Adamic curse. One does not have to sin in the same form as Adam (freely choosing to eat from the tree of knowledge of good/evil) because his descendants are cut off from the tree of life. This condition causes all the descendants to unavoidably sin, the option of choice in this instance is totally removed. Our options now are in how we will sin. Now that the Law is imputed we fully know that our condition is one of sin as well as our available options. Though we seek to do godly right we can not do so knowing only what is right in our own eyes. In this sense Jesus has become the light in our darkness.
kjv@Psalms:84 @ @ RandyP comments: It is often calculated that a compassionate God is not a God of judgement. Here we see a soul longing/fainting for the courts of the Lord. What is it that makes His courts desirable? Judgement is what is most needed in order for true compassion to stand out and take hold. It is because judgement is missing that our position is as it is. We have delegated judgment to ourselves but fail to pursue it. We do what is right in our own eyes and the world becomes a hateful desperate place because of it. Better is a day in His courts than a thousand with the wicked indeed!
kjv@Psalms:84 @ @ RandyP comments: Judgment/Compassion. Have you ever worked for a company that was failing miserably? The employees/customers were pulling it apart at the seems? When a new manager comes in the first thing for him/her to do is to right the ship, and to do this he/she must pronounce judgment. The judgment is even handed; "it is my way or the highway". As hard as these transformations are, I cannot tell you the relief these judgments have especially to the loyal and invested and badly abused workers. To see a company go from a delinquent detention center to a fully functioning productive enterprise is perhaps the best compassion available. This is more like God's judgments; they are only harsh to those who deserve them.
kjv@Psalms:104 @ @ RandyP comments: An illustrative way to to look at the creation all around us to find God behind and within it all. Interesting that such a lengthy section dwells on water often used to poetically to symbolize judgement. That the earth would be refreshed by it, that the birds and fouls and beasts would gather round it's springs, that the raging floods of it would be later rebuked and contained, that it would nourish and grow the grasses and trees essential to all all life.
kjv@Romans:14 @ @ RandyP comments: Notice how this theme of the brethren and striving for the unity of the spirit ties in with what we just read in kjv@Romans:12. This teaching is a very practical way of considering the more general commands of 12.
kjv@Romans:14:23 @ @ RandyP comments: What is not of faith is sin. Almost too bad this major universal truth is tagged on to a line considering the observance of foods and days; it gets over looked. Too many people consider sin the breaking of the one of the ten commandments. The reprobate mind reduces and compartmentalizes down to the un-approachable minimum. The scale of sin is much broader than we observe bringing every living breath and action into doubt. To know this scale of sin and it's human inescapably is to know why Jesus had to die one for all to it.
kjv@Psalms:114 @ @ RandyP comments: The sea parted for Israel. The Jordan river became dry land for them to cross. As a foreign nation watching on from a distance, one would have to ask why such a mighty god would do these things for Israel and not us? Later, after our foreign nation had infiltrated and commingled our gods and idols into Israel, one would have to ask why is this god Jehovah so jealous over Israelite people and not us? What are these many legends being retold about their time in the desert? Surely, Israel is being used as an injection point for His inoculation needle. The surrounding area festers, it fevers, it changes, the remainder of the body takes sudden and frequent notice. The body collectively resists, the body swells against, it is whipped into a frenzy, but, in the process of fighting against the injection the body takes on and spreads the antibody unknowingly, receiving and carrying about that which the Doctor behind the needle had fully intended from the start. 'Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob'.
kjv@Psalms:119:1-48 @ @ RandyP comments: From the very core of his heart outward the psalmist is asking God to perform a thorough work. By God placing his eyes/his heart/his understanding on the righteousness of His judgments, guiding his path with precept and statute and command, by blessing and standing for him as he stands against those that rage against truth, man is transformed in God's way. This petition reaches all areas of his walk.
kjv@Psalms:119:49-104 @ @ RandyP comments: A righteous God does not judge unrighteously. He does not do anything just because of the person asking it. The righteous God is not a respecter of the person but of the statute, of the law, of the principal involved. To be on the right of judgement is to be on the right side of the precept. To be on the right side of the precept one must know and act in accordance which takes study and meditation and daily observance of, to hate and refrain and stand against the opposite. This puts one at odds with those lawless and wicked and often requires the righteous God's re-enforcement.
kjv@1Corinthians:4 @ @ RandyP comments: How is it that a steward is found faithful? In the apostle's case it was in the style of life that he had given himself over to. It was a rough life, much of the luxury that is part of our life were absent in theirs. Much of the danger and persecution that we shy away from they stood toe to toe against. They were made spectacles. A faithful steward today must expect similar. kjv@Psalms:119 speaks of faithful afflictions meant to stir us up from God.
kjv@Psalms:124 @ @ RandyP comments: Logistically and strategically Israel should not have existed to the extent it did. They were a people that was not a people beforehand. They grew and flourished like no other. Their numbers would not have kept them whole if not for the Lord. It should be obvious that His hand was upon them. When it was not they quickly realized it.
kjv@1Corinthians:7:14 @ @ RandyP comments: Their salvation still requires belief and repentance just as the rest of us. This sanctification he is speaking of is of a setting apart. There are varying levels of sanctification. The unbeliever and the household are being blessed tangibly because of the blessing of God toward the believer and the children are raised in a better and more wholesome environment. It still would be better however that they all believe.
kjv@1Corinthians:7:1-24 @ @ RandyP comments: These are general rules for marriage but, the principals involved are far reaching. Principal one: you are not your own, you are the others'. Principal two: don't hold back yourselves from one another except by mutual consent for spiritual matters. Principal three: stay engaged/invested in the marriage even if your spouse is a unbeliever if they are consenting.
kjv@1Corinthians:7:25-40 @ @ RandyP comments: What would a personal opinion be doing in the Bible? It shows me an example of applying principal. There are areas in our lives where we will find no direct scriptural answer or command. I don't think that God sought for each and every area to be commanded. There are several areas however we will find where it is best to apply principal. We are allowed to see how an apostle would reason such an area forward by principal. Yes it is his opinion and we have to take it as such, but, principals are born out great truths that have been meditated and applied in different areas that have similarity to the issue presently considered. Most people don't spend enough time even meditating these God given truths enough during to day to know how that they might relate to the question at hand.
kjv@Psalms:134 @ @ RandyP comments: Even the Gentiles like a wild branch grafted into the true tree are to be blessed out of Zion. Pray for Israel and Zion.
kjv@Psalms:139:23-24 @ @ RandyP comments: David has just spoken of those that speak against and take His name in vain, of a perfect hatred held against them as enemies. Here he wants to know that there is not any similar wicked way in him. Otherwise he would be a hypocrite and wicked to boot. Could there be a wicked way that God would disapprove of in our lives yet here today?
kjv@Psalms:140 @ @ RandyP comments: Here is an interesting look at what we should know from Psalms kjv@STRING:Psalms+AND+know . A similar link regarding the wicked kjv@STRING:Psalms+AND+wicked . What do we know about them currently and what should we know.
kjv@Psalms:141 @ @ RandyP comments: This constant talk about the wicked and of his own travail concerns me. Surely this not just any typical man nor situation nor prayer. The psalmist is being oppressed and surrounded for reasons not common to most of us in our personal daily lives. My concern is that we look at our common worldly difficulties in the light he looks at here, which is an intense spiritual warfare set against him as anointed king of anointed Israel being in the direct and announced blood line of the coming Savior. There may be a similarity to the persecution of the apostles and saints and martyrs, but to having ourselves a bad hair day?
kjv@Psalms:142 @ @ RandyP comments: Consider that over and over again the man has called out to pour from his soul his desperate troubles. The Lord hears and the Lord delivers and yet they come up again and again. Where is the righteousness in that? It is in the life long process that molds the man into what he spiritually needs to be, not just for this life but the life to come; it is in the inspiration ignited in others to aspire to the same. Snares have been privily laid by others, harm is meant, there is only one refuge and it is not in mankind. He complains of these others and their harmful intents but not the process and not the master that by this shapes the man into a vessel of honor.
kjv@Psalms:143 @ @ RandyP comments: In all this trouble the important things come to light and for these things we become thirsty and are driven. We are caused to hear of His loving kindness in the morning, caused to know wherein we should walk. We are taught to do His will and quickened with true spiritual life. During these times remember the peaceful days of old. Meditate on all His works, muse on the works of His hands. Know that for His righteousness' sake He shall bring your soul out of trouble.
kjv@Psalms:144 @ @ RandyP comments: The hand of strange children mentioned twice. The hand of our Lord. The future of our daughters and sons. David is willing to fight and willing to be taught to fight all the better. The Lord is His goodness, fortress, high tower and strength. But what about these strange children, is it David causing the fight with this attitude or is it the pesky perseverance of these strange children that pursue to overtake him? Is it the principals for which He stands for? Few if any have ever stood for what is right and not been attacked.
kjv@1Corinthians:10:14-33 @ @ RandyP comments: We often look for clear and concrete guidelines when it comes to the many grey areas of life. Concrete guidelines are not always found. No clearer principal exits however than the conscience of others and the profitability to souls being moved/directed toward the kingdom of God. If it offends, set aside any personal liberty for the moment. Do all to the glory of God.
kjv@Psalms:145 @ @ RandyP comments: This is one of those psalms to remember when you need a boost. We all have times that we are so narrowly focused on our daily affairs that we loose sight of the bigger picture. We get caught wondering what He will do for us when we should observe what He has done for all. Let us fill our heart with praise and our eyes with wonder.
kjv@Psalms:146 @ @ RandyP comments: Thankfully the Lord is not the cotton candy non-judgmental nebulous be whatever you want Him to be god many imagine. His judgments are not just against but for. His judgment produces actions which come to the aid of those needing action the most.
kjv@Psalms:147:15 @ @ RandyP comments: We often put the concept of God spreading His word solely into the hands of man, limiting His word to the places man can get to and the time frame it would take for man to be able to get there and the reaction the man or men would receive. God's word is not limited by any such thing; it moves swiftly. He can use man's willingness to spread just as He can use the frozen ice.
kjv@Psalms:148 @ @ RandyP comments: There is a place where even inanimate objects can praise the Lord, in our eyes and hearts. They praise Him just by being, by the place that they fulfill amongst all creation. Animate creatures as well, though they may not intellectually know they experience which is just as good as knowing. Humans may well place too much on knowing and too little on simply connecting and being part of the praise all around.
kjv@Psalms:149 @ @ RandyP comments: In the new covenant we think of the two-edged sword as God's written word and the bringing forth of His agape to all peoples as our mission. We Gentiles might not have this honor today had it not been for the establishment early on of Israel and it's place in the history of our ancestors who often received it's vengeance and punishments. This tiny nation inflamed us. By standing allied against it yet being strongly defeated we saw it's God Jehovah. It's Jehovah eventually led us to His Son our Lord. Now we reach back to Israel with His agape and His word to complete the circle.
kjv@Psalms:150 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@Psalms:37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD... What more could one's heart desire? I'm ready. Join me?
kjv@1Corinthians:11:16-34 @ @ RandyP comments: There is concern over the way this congregation views and implements it's Holy Communion. This is not to be a drunken party nor a food line, it is a solemn partaking symbolically of the flesh and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Anything other, anything reason less becomes a curse or judgement.
kjv@1Corinthians:11:16-34 @ @ RandyP comments: Interesting tid bits that should not be overlooked. There are divisions today just as there were back then. We are to look at divisions as a means to observe who is approved, they will stand out all the more. Also, the churches are judged within so that they will not be judged without; if so what happens when they are unwilling to accept judgment? Also, there seems to be a connection between the misuse of the Holy Communion and sickness even fatal sickness.
kjv@1Corinthians:14:1-20 @ @ RandyP comments: The building/edification of the congregation is the key to spiritual gifts. If they do not build others of what use are they in the assembly. Tongues publicly require interpretation and prophecy clear spiritual revelation.
kjv@Proverbs:7 @ @ RandyP comments: The good man character is also used by Jesus a couple parables kjv@Matthew:20:11 kjv@Matthew:24:43
kjv@1Corinthians:14:21-40 @ @ RandyP comments: All things are to be done decently and in order, everything done to the edifying. Notice that even if a word of knowledge were to come to you sitting that there is a time and a patience and an order. The earlier church I sense was a much more organic and participatory fellowship than we would allow for today. Perhaps we should lighten up on the reigns a bit!
kjv@Proverbs:10:24 @ @ RandyP comments: Interesting that the comparison here is between fear and desire. The wicked do not desire the inevitable and they fear that it will inevitably come. What do they have to fear? The judgment of their misplaced desires. The righteous desire the inevitable and their desire is inevitably granted. What is it they desire? Judgment leading to fuller communion with God.
kjv@Proverbs:14:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Perhaps we should examine ourselves and ask what is my strong oxen and how do I take better care of it. Is it my education? Is it my field knowledge? Is it my professional acquaintances and associations? Is it my car? My tools? My skill? My courage?
kjv@Proverbs:14:6 @ @ RandyP comments: There are some that pride themselves in their scientific and analytical technique but, that gets them nowhere further toward an answer if they are still are at the core scoffers/scorners at heart. They can talk circles around most of us lesser educated but, really what do their words actually say that this simple proverb does not?
kjv@Proverbs:15:14 @ @ RandyP comments: What does it mean to have understanding? It means to know to seek after knowledge. If we purse an issue thinking that we know everything about it from the start, this is not understanding. If we pursue thinking that simply by the strength of our own determination exerting force we will bend the issue to our favor, this is not understanding. Seeking knowledge means first seeking the fear of the Lord, humbling ourselves and our cause to His presence, listening for direction and knowing that it may well include correction and faithful obedience, this is understanding.
kjv@Proverbs:16:9 @ @ RandyP comments: If the preparations of the heart are the Lord's kjv@Proverbs:16:1, if his goings forth are from the Lord and his way cannot be understood outside of the Lord kjv@Proverbs:20:24 and if it is only the counsel of the Lord that will stand kjv@Proverbs:19:21, what do we have other than to choose which of His steps to take? In light of kjv@Romans:1:18-24 God prepared hearts to follow after Him, He gave them a choice, as much as He prepared they still chose contrary, their steps now are directed (that choice leads to these steps) yet His counsel must stand - they are condemned for transgressing the preparation laid into their hearts.
kjv@2Corinthians:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Is Paul saying that only the Apostles are called to this stringent a life? That we should just sit back and bask in the glory that has been revealed in their work and sacrifice? Surely we are not Apostles, but, we are disciples, we are followers, we are partakers of the divine nature. If this is what Christ suffered, if this is what the Apostles suffered, then we too should be willing/expecting to suffer the same. It is in this manner after all the life and glory of Christ is revealed.
kjv@Proverbs:26:4-5 @ @ RandyP comments: The application of reproof appears to be situational or conditional. For instance, if you snap back at him in like manner you are as big a fool as he. If you rebuff him at his conceit without a conceit of your own you may show where he is unwise.
kjv@Proverbs:30:4 @ @ RandyP comments: I would be curious to know who he meant as son if he didn't mean Immanuel. David also had a sense of God's son in this era as well kjv@Psalms:2:7.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Peter kjv@2Peter:1:4 described this world as a corruption that is in this world because of lust. Corruption can mean death and decay as it does for the sons of the lusting to be wise Adam/Eve. The thought of this death makes us to lust for all that we might have and make out of this short time which brings us to a corruption of all that is good and intended; lust upon lust and it's many other corruptions. What God has done by putting us through this is to be looked at in terms of forever that men should fear Him; a tremendously good and righteous work of making us righteous within the righteousness of His Son; raising us up from this corruption much as His Son a new spiritual creature. From this nothing can be put to nor taken away.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:4 @ @ RandyP comments: If not for God in the heavens this life get odder and more vain with each and every consideration. From the foolish king down to the poor peasant the emptiness piles up. To think that that this how an agnostic and atheist thinks; this is his religion. Meaning is simply what ever gets us through. And if another man comes and steals our meaning then that is just too bad, perhaps it shouldn't have had meaning to us in the first place. If that meaning gets sick and she dies then I have only to know that my time will come as well; I have only the ground to look to past present and future, that is my meaning. And if I am unlucky enough not to find meaning then perhaps I am the luckiest of all.
kjv@Galatians:2:14 @ @ RandyP comments: Peter received correction. Had he been the first Pope and had the Pope been given immutable divine interpretation as supposed by Roman Catholic doctrine, he would not have needed correction. Paul would have shamefully exceeded his lesser authority. Their doctrine follows from a possible misinterpretation on the proclamation Jesus made that on 'this Rock' He would build His church. Rock more likely meaning the divinely revealed faith and not just Cephas 'the rock' personally kjv@Matthew:16:17-20 (literally - You are 'piece of rock' and upon this 'massive Rock' (which flesh and blood have not revealed) I build my church).
kjv@Isaiah:7:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Ahaz B.C 740-724 dict:easton Ahaz
kjv@Isaiah:8:4 @ @ RandyP comments: By my count this would put the prophecy 12-18 months into the future.
kjv@Galatians:4:15 @ @ RandyP comments: It appears that Paul's infirmity at this time may have been in his eyes or eye sight. Remember that his eyes at one time had been blinded and scaled over by the light of the Lord's glory.
kjv@Galatians:4:25 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:easton Sinai
kjv@Galatians:4:25 @ @ RandyP comments: Did you know that this Mount Sinai is supposedly also where Mohammed's horse Boraq ascended into heaven?
kjv@Galatians:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Notice the passion with which Paul speaks of/to the Galatians as he extols the difference between the two covenants, how they are not to be inter-mingled.
kjv@Isaiah:14 @ @ RandyP comments: Removed from the context of the passage the section on Lucifer can be looked at as a description of the Devil; which may or may not be the author's intent. In context, we might think of it as a description of the king of Babylon who had similarities to the Devil and may have been heavily under his influence. The remainder of the prophecy in context namely the desolation of the city of Babylon has for a long time been fulfilled; the city ruin only recently haven been located by aerial satellite in Iraq. Plans are being made by some to rebuild it. It is mentioned again in latter day prophecy.
kjv@Galatians:6:14 @ @ RandyP comments: There are those it has been reported who believe that cross was a symbolism added to the faith later by Constantine. Paul is not explaining a symbolism here, he is describing his key life principal. Whether he wore or prayed to a cross is of secondary consequence.
kjv@Isaiah:24 @ @ RandyP comments: This is an unimaginable time. To see everything broken down and laid to waste. To fear the next thing whatever it is to happen. To know what is was before and have none of that. All because of sin, the breaking of the eternal covenant, going about our lives completely void. This time may be a revelation of our inward selves, our spiritual habitat, our relationship with our creator; desolate, wasted, rotting and decayed.
kjv@Ephesians:4 @ @ RandyP comments: We see the importance of the body of believers to our own personal growth process; it can not be escaped. Much of our development is in the striving for the unity of the Spirit, a most difficult but yet essential task. The bonds of peace, the unity of faith, the whole body fitly joined together, these are the works of the Holy Spirit and the directions given our pastors teachers and evangelists. When we give ourselves over to Christ this is what we give ourselves over to. Anything other is of our old corrupt selves.
kjv@Isaiah:34 @ @ RandyP comments: Edom is included in this list of destructions. It shall be to them as if the skies have fallen.
kjv@Isaiah:35 @ @ RandyP comments: If this connects back to kjv@Isaiah:34 does this put it forward into a end time prophecy?
kjv@Isaiah:40:3 @ @ RandyP comments: tsk@Isaiah:40:3 This passage is frequently quoted by the New Testament writers.
kjv@Isaiah:40:10 @ @ RandyP comments: Does this confirm that His reward/work has been previously accomplished as then His work? If so, than this is a passage concerning His second coming. First He comes as a sacrificial lamb, completes the work and receives the reward, now He comes with a strong arm.
kjv@Philippians:4:5 @ @ RandyP comments: How do we best show moderation to all men? Something to seriously consider.
kjv@Isaiah:41:26 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord is righteous. A large measure of that righteousness can be found in the fact that He announces what will be before it happens. It is not to show off, though it is impressive, it is to warn and instruct. It is righteous for instance for the highway department to put a warning sign before a sharp curve or steep decline. Whether there is good ahead or danger it is right of the Lord to show it in advance. It also shows that He is a Lord like no other with vision and capability to perform it.
kjv@Isaiah:41 @ @ RandyP comments: You can imagine a tyranical king thinking that his mighty hand had done all this. How does he explain the fact that wonders have occurred even where his feet have not gone? that there is a momentum and wave far beyond his? Surely he will not admit that he has been played like a pawn just as all the rest. These things even are by God.
kjv@Isaiah:42:1 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@Matthew:3:17 kjv@Matthew:17:5 This is Jesus.
kjv@Isaiah:42 @ @ RandyP comments: mhcc@Isaiah:42 worth the read!
kjv@Isaiah:48 @ @ RandyP comments: Knowing the heart of man and His servant Israel, the Lord knew how we would bend the truth of this thing, that we would claim we knew it, that our own hands or our own gods brought this thing to pass. The Lord therefore declared it long before it happened, declared a new thing that could not be known any other way and performed it with intricate precision. This is how He has to operate given our blind and corrupted nature. It may seem terrible that Judah must suffer the furnace of affliction in double measure. It seems odd that this would be the only way left to refine them and prove His love/covenant. But, it seems odd that we would refuse to see things in the light of truth, follow His commandments and directions, not pollute His name with our rebellious and self serving whims.
kjv@Isaiah:48-49 @ @ RandyP comments: Babylon did not gain it's strength by it's own greatness or doings. Their surge was as unpredicted and irrational as any other peaceable nation of that time. The fact that the Lord made it happen testifies to His power, not theirs. They were the 'Grand Lady' of the region. He made them into a war like empire perhaps like no other in history not for their own glory (He would quickly take that away) but to reproof Judah and alert the known world His displeasure with sin/the inability of man fulfilling the Law/the coming of His Messiah/His unmovable commitment His covenant to Jacob.
kjv@Isaiah:49 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord has done all this. The Lord is doing and will do all this. And yet Israel says that the Lord has deserted them, that they are barren and childless. Oh if they only knew the great thing that the Lord is doing all around them, the mighty fulfillment of everything that they though had passed. They shall not be ashamed that wait for Him.
kjv@Colossians:4:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord makes evangelical opportunities to speak for those that are watching for them. For most of us that means the daily one on one talks. For some that means the larger event or location based individual or team efforts. The fact that Paul asks us to pray for these means that the Lord does seek these types of prayers.
kjv@Colossians:4:12-13 @ @ RandyP comments: Some are given the burden of prayer. It does not say what other positions or responsibilities this person may of held. To be saluted as a warrior of prayer and acknowledged for a particular burden for some specific congregations is illustrative of how Paul's team operated.
kjv@Colossians:4:15 @ @ RandyP comments: Church is where ever people regularly meet. Often we get too wrapped in buildings and architecture and pipe organs and stain glass. A house, a park, a drive-in theater, a school, a rodeo grandstand, a prison cafeteria all work just as well if not better. It is not the type of place that is important but the types of hearts that gather.
kjv@Colossians:4:16 @ @ RandyP comments: There are other epistles that Paul wrote. Perhaps several. Perhaps daily. Paul was not attempting to write for inclusion into some soon to be published New Testament collection. He was not seeking to dominate the other writers with his massive content. He was addressing the needs of the people and congregations that he was placed directly over (Romans possibly being the exception - perhaps planted by acquaintances that he had discipled). His letters were treasured enough that people kept hold of them. By the time the Testament was canonized several years after his death there were enough of these verifiable copies still circulated for them to be included into what we hold today as scripture. Many of these other letters, though I am sure were treasured have either been lost or cannot be accurately verified as there were many plagiarizers of his name and authority even yet today.
kjv@Isaiah:54 @ @ RandyP comments: The effect of the 'Servant's' redemptive work is glorious. The life to follow extreme. For now we have this eternal hope. It guides us and feeds us and inspires us. Soon it will be our reality. Instead of a flood of destruction it will be to us a flood of supreme love and good will.
kjv@1Thessalonians:4:5 @ @ RandyP comments: concupiscence is a forbidden lustful longing
kjv@1Thessalonians:4 @ @ RandyP comments: It is clearly evident that this church is operating in a good amount of love. Paul exhorts them to love all the more and gives them a picture of what that is to look like working quietly and honestly with their own hands, abstaining from the prevalent idolatrous fornications and lusts.
kjv@1Thessalonians:4:13-18 @ @ RandyP comments: There are differing theories that can be scripturally supported regarding the dead in Christ. The most common would suggests that this passage is speaking of the body being at sleep but the spirit being fully awake and present with the Lord. This would allow for Paul's 'being absent from this body means being present with the Lord' comment as well as Jesus' 'this day you will be with me in paradise' statement as well as others (beggar and rich man etc..). Others suggest this is a literal sleep (like Lazarus), that time is imperceivable in eternity, that from our side this sleep is for a while, from eternity it would be instantaneous. There are other plausible explanations as well. Either way, the Lord has matters well in hand, and the soul is at a state of grace and peace.
kjv@Isaiah:58:4 @ @ RandyP comments: What an interesting statement. Fasting to make ones voice heard on high instead of fasting to hear the 'Voice on High'. Fasting for strife and debate? Much caution should be made to fast for the right intents.
kjv@Isaiah:64:4 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@1Corinthians:2:9 quoted by Paul
kjv@Isaiah:64:8 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@Romans:9:20-24 alluded to by Paul
kjv@Isaiah:64:6 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:our+righteousness
kjv@1Thessalonians:5:18 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@1Thessalonians:4:3 suggests that the will is to sanctify us. Could these two seemingly different concepts go hand in hand? kjv@STRING:will+of+God
kjv@1Thessalonians:5:23 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@1Thessalonians:4:3 sanctify to abstain from fornication was previously mentioned at least in the Thessalonian's case. sanctif
kjv@Jeremiah:4 @ @ RandyP comments: I see two possible explanations as to why the language very similar to kjv@Genesis:1 would be used here. 1a: This coming judgment will so severe as to symbolically set Israel/Judah back to the beginning as if none of this covenant had ever been. kjv@1b: It will be so devastating as to appear as dark and chaotic as earths infancy. 2: Gap theory suggests a gap between kjv@Genesis:1:1 and kjv@Genesis:1:2 where this type of judgment actually occurred to a pre-Adamic human or angelic race on earth; that what we read is not an account of creation but of a earth's first restoration. Both explanations may not be exclusive as well.
kjv@Jeremiah:9:24 @ @ RandyP comments: The thought should not be that when the Lord acts in loving kindness He acts one way and when He acts in judgment it is another. The Lord always acts in loving-kindness just as He acts in judgment. There is no separation. Those that think that a loving God would not judge are caught in a loop of self justification, nothing that they could do deserves His judgment, or so they think. Instead, judgment and mercy go together, there cannot be one without the other especially when you are talking the hearts and lives of billions of people. Ask yourself, what is loving about sovereign Deity that simply over looks all of the ills men inflict upon themselves and others? What is loving about a God that created us to be happy and fulfilled as one thing but allows us to be everything other than that in this sad sad state?
kjv@Jeremiah:14 @ @ RandyP comments: If one were to listen to the many prophets of that day one would think everything to be all right. A prophet like Jeremiah would stand out because he would be contrary. The people tend to pick and choose their prophets based upon what serves them best. One wold think that God works in numbers, so if the majority of prophets all said one thing that this would likely be the word of God. Most generally this could not be further from the truth.
kjv@Jeremiah:23 @ @ RandyP comments: False prophets kjv@Jeremiah:23:13 caused Israel to error, kjv@Jeremiah:23:14 strengthen hand of evil doers that none return from their wickedness, kjv@Jeremiah:23:15 spread profane throughout the land, kjv@Jeremiah:23:17 prophesy God's peace/no evil, kjv@Jeremiah:23:27 think to cause the people to forget God's name, kjv@Jeremiah:23:32 cause my people to error by lies/lightness,kjv@Jeremiah:23:36 pervert the words of the Living God, kjv@Jeremiah:23:38 say that they are moved by a burden from the Lord.
kjv@Jeremiah:24 @ @ RandyP comments: This is a powerful vision we are allowed to see into of the good and evil that can be purposed in the same decisive action. The same fearful action upon two different types of figs causes the utter shame of the one and the future establishment of the other. This should give the depressed and afflicted prophet hope as it should the true figs amongst us as well.
kjv@Jeremiah:34 @ @ RandyP comments: At this point, even when they do something right, they turn from it to do wrong. What good can be done unless they are purged clean?
kjv@Jeremiah:41 @ @ RandyP comments: The United States itself has learned successfully the type of concerted and focused effort and force to conquer a complete nation, but the nearly impossible dispersed effort of maintaining the rule over it. Here bands of rogue men are able to nearly do as they pleased, even assassinate the appointed leader at will.
kjv@Jeremiah:42:7 @ @ RandyP comments: Even a man of God as Jeremiah was had to wait on the answer of the Lord. One would think the Lord would be eager to get the remnant up and running, after all they seem sincere and honest in their desire. The Lord's timing is perfectly right however, even if it is not what we would expect.
kjv@Jeremiah:42 @ @ RandyP comments: Just because the people of the remnant appear to be sincere in their approach to serve the Lord does not mean that they are sincere. A terrible thing has happened and continues all around them. Their fear may be not as much for the Lord but, for their own safety. They may say that this is what they'll do, but, the test is will they? God certainly wants to do good for them but first it is up to them. Which fear is the fear that will motivate them most?
kjv@Jeremiah:43 @ @ RandyP comments: The lesson I guess has not been learned yet. The leaders are lead by fear, not by fear of the Lord. Everything Jeremiah has said has panned out and yet he is despised like this. This time he offers them calm and peace and they will have none of that. What else can be said?
kjv@Jeremiah:44 @ @ RandyP comments: We see how the mind will always justify itself. Their argument is that because they stopped their offerings to the queen of heaven these things have befallen them. When did they stop making these offerings? Haven't they made them all along? Even to others gods as well?
kjv@Jeremiah:44 @ @ RandyP comments: Suggested here in this text is a goddess largely worshiped by the women. We sense that men were typically excluded. Many of the male gods now have fallen yet the complete destruction of a nation has not rooted this one out; it has only strengthened it in the void. We are again looking down on this from a clinical view as readers knowing beginning/context and end. They are living it in real time without the top down insight. They are left to decide by observing the mounting evidence around them. The idolatrous mind certainly sees the evidence in a much different fashion. For those of you lead by your heart this should be a warning; the heart may be 180 degrees off.
kjv@Jeremiah:46 @ @ RandyP comments: Egypt is in a bad spot. Not only are they being cursed for harboring the adulterous remnant of Judah (who were told not to go into Egypt or they would be a curse) they are judged by all the gods and idols of their own making. Surely the Lord has not kept this secret from them, we have some evidences of His dealings with them from this and other prophets. Other nations should be warned of this as well. When they see what and why this has happened to Egypt they should realize that this could be them as well.
kjv@Jeremiah:47 @ @ RandyP comments: God has never intended to work in the life of Israel alone. It has always been His plan to work in the life of all mankind and He has done that throughout. He has used Israel/Judah as His insertion point, His needle carrying the needed inoculation strategically planted. It is in their reaction to the antibodies, vile and repulsed, that they are stirred, inflamed and angered in to accepting His serum.
kjv@Jeremiah:48 @ @ RandyP comments: The conditions in Moab are just the same, pride and false gods. If not for the pride perhaps one would see that what has happen to the others may happen to them as well. If not for pride one might sense that something consistent and immense is happening in the region having to do with the God of Israel.
kjv@Hebrews:4 @ @ RandyP comments: It sounds contradictory that we must labor to enter into our rest. We can assuredly enter into that rest today but, today is not that day of rest. Today we know Jesus Christ to be our rest and we enter into that rest laboring for Him until His work for us here in this day is done. The rest for us today is the peace and assurance and hopefulness of that day and His high priesthood. The rest for us in that day will be to be there with Him, to be like Him, to partake of all the grace and goodness that He has stored and readied for us. Our rest is in His completed work. His two-edged sword, penetrating as it is, is used to bring us through to there.
kjv@Lamentations:2:14 @ @ RandyP comments: tsk@Lamentations:2:14 Here are numerous reminders that the Lord had exposed the false prophets to them on several occasions and yet they still listened to the others. False prophets did not end during this captivity nor did they end in the time of the early church. They remain and flourish today. They are exposed over and over and yet do we listen to them. It is in part because the true prophet discovers our inequity, in part because we are self justified and vain, in part because our image of God does not allow for Him to do this.
kjv@Lamentations:4 @ @ RandyP comments: From this distance we may loose the scope of context a contemporary of Jeremiah may have sensed. One thing we now we might miss is just how impossible this all may have seemed. All of the eyes of the other nations looking on this would have known how unbreachable the defenses of Jerusalem would have been and yet they were utterly destroyed; and if Jerusalem then surely theirs. It was known to them as well that Jerusalem was the Lord's and that the Lord had not let iniquity go unpunished even/especially amongst His own. Predicted now is the fall of great Babylon, an even greater impossibility. Surely there would be the sense that if this is to happen that all of this can only be of the Lord.
kjv@Lamentations:4 @ @ RandyP comments: The other thing we might be missing as to the real time context is just how complete and desperate the destruction is all around Jeremiah. What he is seeing at ground zero is simply unfathomable. He speaks of the destruction of Sodom to have been merciful compared to this.
kjv@Hebrews:8 @ @ RandyP comments: Quoted is kjv@Jeremiah:31:31-34. Elsewhere in Jeremiah kjv@Jeremiah:24:7 it is written that the heart to know after God will be given by Him and that this will cause us to return to Him with our whole hearts. It is precisely what the Law could not do.
kjv@Ezekiel:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Think of the strange public methods that have been employed to broadcast the impending judgment. Here Ezekiel is to lie on one side on a tile 390 days continuously and 40 days on the side eating only the rations given at the start and bread cooked on dung. Jeremiah was breaking ancient pots and such. Wasn't it Isaiah walking naked for three years? Certainly not just anyone could get the message out by doing this, these men must have been fully established as prophets before hand in order to have impact. With the state of things the way they are this well may have the best of all options. It is rarely the convincing intellectual dialog and reasoning we think of that is called for. Knowing that God is perfect in all His ways, it makes me wonder what methods He might have for us today?
kjv@Hebrews:10:24-39 @ @ RandyP comments: There are times in all Christians lives where they miss the mark, where they become drowsy or sloppy or unfruitful even counter productive. There are times even when we shake our fist and blame God (as in the death of our young child). We have all encountered times when we wondered if this draw back passage wasn't written for us. Self condemnation can be a tremendously discouraging thing. I would imagine however, if it is still in your heart to get back to the things of God, if there is still the will to repent and rejoin the body in fully restored standing, if the love of God is still wanted and sought after, then you definitely have not crossed this final point yet. This is written for the man where there is none of crushing sorrow, confussion and desire that remains, he has completely given himself over to his own condemnation, forever sealed in the hardness of his own heart.
kjv@Ezekiel:14:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Does this mean that God lies? That He deceives? Think of it this way, if He created the mental faculties to believe the truth when they heard it couldn't it also be said that these faculties could also be used to believe their own vain imaginations rather than the truth? If God made certain things to be more enticing than others to guide man along the straight and narrow, cannot that gravity toward be corrupted and converted to something else? If that which is meant for good can be used for harm, if that which locks men's hearts into good instead can lock them into falsehood, cannot it not be said then that God in this sense has made it so?
kjv@Ezekiel:14 @ @ RandyP comments: Three righteous men of the ages are given as repeated examples. The righteousness of these men can only save themselves; not even their immediate sons and daughters can be saved unless by their own individual righteousness. So too, only you yourself is saved if so be, your family and friends will have to be saved themselves by their own righteousness. Any righteousness any of us would have is found solely in the righteousness of Christ Jesus and on the personal confession of that alone will any individual be delivered.
kjv@Ezekiel:24:18 @ @ RandyP comments: The prophet is human too. His wife dies the same day. Tragedy upon tragedy with work still to be done.
kjv@Ezekiel:24 @ @ RandyP comments: Their eyes/desires are upon one thing. And when that one thing is taken away suddenly it's stare then shifted upon their sons and daughters and their own iniquity certain. Why must it come to this? I am asked why a person must fall to such depths before they see way to the Lord? It is implied that there is something wrong with a Lord that is only the Lord of the fallen. Rather, there is something wrong with the heart of a man that can not see the Lord while in his strength and youthful prowess/splendor, that his sinful and proud and arrogant nature must be ground down and disrupted, laid bare upon a table of self desperation before seeing light. The Lord of the fallen indeed if to be Lord of such souls at all.
kjv@James:4 @ @ RandyP comments: The mention of friendship with this world along with lust to envy is used to describe our spirit. All of the things we want and have not, all the things we ask but do not receive, the strivings and wars, they have their roots in this combination. It appears to be within our power because if we are to come to Christ we must put aside these things. But, putting this aside involves humility and affliction, mourning and cleansing, which are the opposite of our envy and destructive to our friendship with this world. This mention may be just as much for the body of believers as for the individual.
kjv@Ezekiel:34 @ @ RandyP comments: The flock here is identified as Israel. The Lord had set shepherds over them; they fed themselves on the flock instead. Some were driven away, some lost, some diseased, many scattered. Their good pasture was trampled and their good water muddied. These shepherds are no doubt spiritual and civic leaders. The answer is that the Lord himself becomes the shepherd; He is the Good Shepherd. In the end, when His glory is come, He will set David over them (David is not the Shepherd himself). There is a shame of the heathen that they bare (perhaps that the heathen recognize this Shepherd before they do).
kjv@1Peter:2:24 @ @ RandyP comments: Healing in the larger passage context more likely refers to the soul's restoration back to God, the removing of enmity. Healing of the broken hearted for instance is not so much a healing of the physical heart/arteries. Healing of the nations is not so much a physical healing of diseased people within those nations. Restoration (healing in this case) surely has more to do with proximity or position or good standing; the returning to the Bishop of our souls.
kjv@Ezekiel:37 @ @ RandyP comments: Some of the dispersed have been regathered here since 1947 + 1968. Many are still left to come. Judah and Israel are again solidified as one. The things not yet achieved is the revelation of the true Shepherd, the cleansing of their hearts, the installment of David as His king. Whether the raising of the bones is literal or symbolic, it would have to be at least in the case of David. These things are moving ahead quickly.
kjv@1Peter:4 @ @ RandyP comments: You can see just how much the subject of trials and suffering for Christ play into Peter's theology. He sees it as the necessary cleansing and separating agent in the believers life, thus the will of God. This leads him to conclude that the end judgment begins with the house of God and works outward. Essentially, it is suffering in Christ that shapes us and our reaction to and obedience in that we are judged by. It is the measure of just how faithful we believe Him to be.
kjv@1Peter:4 @ @ RandyP comments: So should we go out a stir up some suffering? The gospel is preached that men dead to Christ might be judged as men of the flesh. They are this to begin with, their reaction once presented condemns them all the more. One does not have to go out purposely to stir things up, the Gospel of Christ does this by itself. By presenting the Gospel in it's truest form man's very nature is stirred against Him/Us.
kjv@Ezekiel:40 @ @ RandyP comments: The chapter reads much faster than the vision would have played out. Imagine the time involved making these measurements 6 cubits at a time. In order to remember all this detail, Ezekiel must have been writing it down as each transpired.
kjv@Ezekiel:40 @ @ RandyP comments: Having been around friends that are architects and structural engineers, I can sense the amount of thought and design that must have gone into this temple. The attention to scope and field and depth, semblance and symmetry and proportion, utility and aesthetic. I would imagine that Ezekiel is seeing this pristine and uninhabited. I would imagine the architect is seeing this with the flow of people in and out, the reverence and perception that He is attempting to evoke. I have seen the complexity of blue prints and schematics, I cant imagine trying to build this from a written description.
kjv@Ezekiel:40 @ @ RandyP comments: What is the importance of these details to us today? That God has a great many (if not all) details planned out; that He is trying to tell us something needed to be known. Consider that this temple fell and was desecrated just as the first and yet it is not a mistake that God gave it such detail and foresight; it is all part of a much greater plan/dialog. Often physical things and events described in the Bible are shadows/pictures/blue prints of things occurring in the spiritual world put into a language we could more readily understand. I have heard men like Dr. Vernen Mc Gee attempt to show how the Temple, the things of it, the predetermined rituals spell out a spiritual description of salvation and atonement; things like the 'holy of holys' that only the high priest was able to enter after being cleansed once a year. North gates, south gates, having to go in one gate and out another, tables and hooks, borders of pomegranate and palms, etc..., they all have their meaning in a spiritual sense. The thing for now to know is that Jesus is the complete fulfillment of all of these descriptive types. To go back and rediscover what each of these types means is to study what Jesus was able to accomplish and who we are in Him; for us each detail measured out precisely.
kjv@Ezekiel:42 @ @ RandyP comments: It may be that having seen the original temple that Ezekiel's contemporaries would have known how this Temple would have differed from the first. Perhaps they are following along in their mind right and left and forward as Ezekiel's vision goes. Many men today would be able to study comparisons of the two even the third yet to come, but it would be interpretive, their best guess. index:WEBLINKS temple has some videos and maps of the Temples in the bible search - images and bible - video sections.
kjv@Ezekiel:43 @ @ RandyP comments: Further study off site is suggesting that Ezekiel's Temple would be the Third or Millennial Temple. I still don't quite understand. If there is a temple built at Tribulation and it is desecrated that would be the third. This chapter suggests that this will be the final temple, that His feet will never again leave. Is the same temple simply restored in the Millennium or the same design used; is the third essentially the fourth? Is there not a new and final temple in the new Heaven and Earth's new Jerusalem post Millennium? Confused!
kjv@Ezekiel:43 @ @ RandyP comments: The Law and ritual return in this temple as do the sacrifices. If this is in the Millennium or later salvation and the remission of sins have already been achieved once and for all by the blood of Jesus and the order of high priest is now after Melchizedek and not Levi. These offerings then would either be symbolic and memorial or else a covering for sins that the sacrifice of Jesus does not atone for. The former makes greater sense to me.
kjv@Ezekiel:43 @ @ RandyP comments: Could this be a symbolic service of the alters initial consecration? Maybe not an eternal requirement? Further investigation is required.
kjv@Ezekiel:44 @ @ RandyP comments: Only the Levitical order of Zadok is re-installed, the rest bare their own shame. The daily service and requirements seems to be much the same as before the difference being this time that it is all carried out to the tee. This is performed for the children of Israel. There still appears to be strangers and uncircumcised that will not be allowed into this temple. If this is the third or final temple it must suggest a continued segregation of Israelite worship from Gentile.
kjv@Ezekiel:44 @ @ RandyP comments: I find this an extremely challenging section of prophecy. The consequences of interpretation shape deep doctrinal foundations. The reader must study and ponder this deeply and come to their own conclusions; which is a very good thing. We are challenged by scripture every day. We are stirred. We are unsettled. We are encouraged to examine and re-examine. Nothing but Christ at times seem fully settled. This is what makes faith in the Bible real and living and dynamic; the constant challenge. Thereby we grow, we are shaped, we are moved. Some seek the answers that are readily available and figure if it is not readily there it is not there at all. Others however seek deeper into the broad context and the doctrinal consequence to shed light upon that which is not readily answered. Just because I am presently confused over this passage does not mean that the answer is not there, it means that I am being challenged. My curiosity is thus thrilled to explore it much further.
kjv@Ezekiel:45 @ @ RandyP comments: A large parcel of land is sectioned off for the the ministers of the temple as a sanctuary for their homes. The home of particular interest is the home of the prince. Weights and measures are corrected by the princes under the prince to make right the tithes and gifts and commerce. Sacrifices are being made for errors, there remain sin offerings, reconciliation is mentioned twice. New moons and Sabbaths are ordained, there is a monthly cleansing performed for the alter and for the priests. All of this specifically detailed as for the children of Israel.
kjv@Ezekiel:46 @ @ RandyP comments: Concerning the prince, burnt and peace offerings are being prepared for him therefore he is not a priest. He is required to make offerings and sacrifices, he must not be covered by the blood of Christ. He is gifting possessions to sons born to him and servants that work for him as inheritances. Who then could this be? My guess as of now... it is most likely that this prince would be David. That is if this temple is the final temple.
kjv@Ezekiel:46 @ @ RandyP comments: Are we seeing that there will be possessions exchanged and given and inherited in the future? Are we seeing that there will be class distinctions between royalty and servants? We have seen mention previously of money and measurements of commerce.
kjv@Ezekiel:47 @ @ RandyP comments: There is a new and quite large river that will flow from Jerusalem to the sea. Healing waters, water purer than any other will be its claim to fame. It will heal the other waters that come in to it.
kjv@Ezekiel:47 @ @ RandyP comments: I am not familiar with very may of these geographic points listed. From the ones I do it appears that if it reaches as far as Damascus that Israel will have gained considerable size.
kjv@Ezekiel:47 @ @ RandyP comments: A few interesting indications of the future life of Israel. Fishing, there will be industry and markets and the need to eat, the brackish water where the healing water meets the sea will be particularly plentiful. Medicine, it will still be needed, there will be a new leaf from a new tree (evergreen) that will be used to produce a new medicine.
kjv@Ezekiel:48 @ @ RandyP comments: The original blood lines will have to be re-established in order to do this. I doubt if this could be done right now with total accuracy. Much of the blood lines have been co-mingled or defiled and the proofs of the lines have been blurred. I would think that authentic right would have to be told to us by the Lord.
kjv@Ezekiel:48 @ @ RandyP comments: We have commented before as to how several cults believe that Israel has been stricken from from the Lord's redemption plan because of their apostasy and that they (the cult followers) are now its spiritual replacement. If so, then explain this chapter. Does there not have to be the original blood lines?
kjv@Daniel:4 @ @ RandyP comments: I sense a subtle transition in this testimony of Nebuchadnezzar from a belief in the mighty God of gods and the spirits of holy gods (polytheism) to 'Him' the blessed 'Most High' Him that liveth in dominion forever 'King of Heaven'. There is not enough said here to say that he became monotheistic but, his respect for one particular God certainly heightened. Without doubt his worship of self was tangibly altered to have published this account.
kjv@Daniel:4 @ @ RandyP comments: A thought about free choice... Nebuchadnezzar had twelve months to consider the interpretation of his dream. For some the dream alone would be enough to alter/soften their hearts, or so we would hope, but, is that actually true? Daniel as much as said some sort of lessening would be possible. It was not ever said though that this chastisement would ever be avoidable, that the choice was totally his. It could be that over the course of twelve months Nebuchadnezzar did everything that he thought would hold this off only to realize that he was still under it's shadow. He may have hardened in the end. Therefore it is evidenced that as much as Nebuchadnezzar may have thought that he had changed, he had not actually changed; the pride was still deep within him. Our circumstances may be similar, God may be trying to remove a destructive trait or element from our heart. We may try (and be given time) to extract that ill on our own, but, until it is given into God's hands it is never really removed; it simply lays hidden producing further atrophy/paralysis. Where then is free choice? It is in accepting the way things must be. It is all things given into His hands.
kjv@1John:4:6 @ @ RandyP comments: filter:NT spirit+of
kjv@1John:4 @ @ RandyP comments: If I were to ask nearly any non-believer 'what is God?' the near unanimous reply would be "God is love". If I were to ask then 'what is love?' I would receive a multitude of varying replies mostly having something to do with tolerance for their sins. The question then to ask is 'doesn't that mean that love is whatever one wants/needs it to be?' or better 'that God is whomever we want/need Him to be?'. What kind of god can we ourselves make up? Is your wife whomever you wish her to be? Is your son? Is there any other working relationship that you know of that is determined by what you wish it to be? Are we not individual? Do we not have structure and backbone, interests and opinions and needs of our own that you yourself have to accept navigate and familiarize your self with? Isn't that the beauty of relationships? Why should it be any different with God? We love God because he first loved us. It was not our minute and varying personal perceptions of God with which He loved us, it was His gigantic eternal design for present and future, a love that would redeem us from our sins and set us aright into eternity. It was not our selfish 'I need you to be this' love or 'do this now for me or else' love or 'if you even exist' love for His love came before our love. What then is love? God is love? What is God? Creator and perfecter and possessor of our souls in whom no darkness dwells and in that He is absolute love.
kjv@Daniel:9 @ @ RandyP comments: The math if we understand one day to be one year correctly is exact, 490 years from the year of this vision to Christ's baptism, 434 from Ezra's rebuilding of the temple. Christ the Messiah is in Jerusalem but is cut off (not for himself but for our sins) and then shortly (AD70) the city and temple are destroyed. There is an unrevealed number of years of desolation (current) followed by a confirmation (or tribulation) of seven years. I am told that many Jews of the time by this prophecy expected the Messiah on this same schedule and by some Jews expectation even today He is nearly 2000 years late. When the veil is lifted they will understand their confusion as to Jesus (1 Messiah appearing twice lamb and ruler instead of 2 at once).
kjv@Hosea:4 @ @ RandyP comments: No truth, no mercy, no knowledge. Swearing, lying, killing, stealing, adultery. The Apostle John had said that God is light and in Him is no darkness. How can Israel be in Him and yet have this obvious darkness? His plan is for them to be removed from their darkness. First, they must be made to realize and understand their darkness. How does one that doesn't listen, that thinks opposite come to realize? Something is done to get her attention.
kjv@Hosea:12:4-5 @ @ RandyP comments: The angel Jacob wrestled with is the Lord.
kjv@Hosea:14 @ @ RandyP comments: We tend as readers to read these things clinically from the top down knowing how the Lord feels about them. Imagine these things down looking up from the street view. Who is this Hosea? Why does he say the things that he does? Does he not love his nation Israel? What wrong has Israel done and who have they harmed? Sure there are idols but then where is the God who delivered us from out of Egypt? Why does He not deliver us now? You see how deceitful hearts work; they work the same today as yesterday. When it comes to blessings everyone is all for it, when it comes to correction there is nothing to be corrected for/by. As if God needed correcting, we pray to God for Him to change His mind. Who then shall be wise to these matters?
kjv@Revelation:3:14-22 @ @ RandyP comments: Laodicean, the lukewarm church, what a terrible thing to be. Many consider this church to be the closest to our modern American church. Some even suggest the the churches listed here in Revelations mark out specific church ages and that we are in the last age. The things that most identifies this church is that it is affluent and coasting not receiving much persecution but not extending itself outward into any situations that it might receive any reproof or chastisement. It is the polite to everybody, let's not stir anything up, we got it too good church.
kjv@Revelation:4:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Must be. So many consider this book as what could be if we don't straighten ourselves up, that the power to hold this off is in our hands. All of scripture suggests different. As bad and as wrong as all that follows seems to be, it is right and part of the course God has mandated. His faithfulness is contrasted by man's deprived nature given every opportunity to repent and by the spiritual war of Satanic powers and principalities that have been hidden all about us till this time. It is the time that His chosen people come awake, their eyes opened to His Messiah, His covenant to their fathers Abraham Issac and Jacob towards them finally realized.
kjv@Revelation:4 @ @ RandyP comments: If you have ever been blessed with revelation you know that your attention to detail is un-human. The things that you remember are remembered because there is divine meaning planted in each and every little thing, they are sealed in your memory because they are meant to be sealed. There is no doubt coming out that you are granted occasion to be a part of something foreign and miraculous and you want to go back into it without letting the moment get away from you. You try to get back into it for days, but, eventually realize that it has ended. It may be the only revelation you ever again receive or it may be years until another. Part of you however searches for it again in your dreams, in strange little occurrences, in voices you think that you might of heard. John here receives perhaps the greatest and most complete revelations ever recorded. The imagery and symbolism and threads tied to other bible prophets and covenant history that God uses is utterly mind blowing. John must have been exhausted afterward beyond human strength.
kjv@Amos:4 @ @ RandyP comments: All of this and yet 'ye have not returned to me'. Sure there is the attempt at worship, the attempt at sacrifice, but, this religion is hollow and puffed and idolatrous. Bethel was one of the two temples of the golden calf. Gilgal (there were a couple) was either a religious landmark of the 12 stones by the Jordan or a school of prophets. They are called kine of Bashan (cows from east of the Jordan) and the calf that they worship at supposedly symbolic of Jehovah as a replacement for having to go into Jerusalem. Nothing God has done to this point has worked. They are told to prepare to meet their God.
kjv@Revelation:7 @ @ RandyP comments: There are those 144k of the tribes of Israel that are sealed and on earth. There are are a innumerable number present at the throne from all nations and tongues washed in the Blood before the opening of this seal. Somewhere in this time frame many gather that either the dead in Christ or the actual living church has been raptured. When exactly is debated. Most assume that the dead in Christ are already with Christ.
kjv@Jonah:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Jonah explains his reasoning for going to Tarshish, to change God's mind. Did he change God's mind or did Nineveh's repentance? Jonah is asked repeatedly 'doest thou well to be angry'? In the case of the gourd Jonah believes himself so. The Lord points out the difference of a anger/pity over a gourd and a great city of 120k lost gentile souls.
kjv@Revelation:9:4 @ @ RandyP comments: We know from earlier that the foreheads of 144k have been sealed. Now we see that those 144k are spared from this terrible plague. What about the Gentile Church? It is for this reason and more that many believe that the Church has left the storyline completely having been raptured (they have not specifically been mentioned since chapter 3), they are a part of the numerous host surrounding the throne. There may be new tribulation believers haven seen these occurrences first hand of course.
kjv@Micah:2 @ @ RandyP comments: You may recall that property was divided amongst the early Hebrews by blood line and passed by inheritance. By the Law, property was a spiritually/morally a civic right. Even when a family member got into debt or trouble and the property was taken from him, 49 year Sabbaths existed for him/his descendent's to be restored back to it. Property according to Micah now is being stolen by violence and oppression. Because of the drunkenness of idolatry, little is being done against this violence and oppression, institutions are far too corrupted. People have taken to listening to the prophets of falsehood. How similar this sounds to today!
kjv@Micah:4:5 @ @ RandyP comments: This does not say that the gentile nations will be allowed their own gods to walk in or that other gods exist. There will be but one God Jehovah. It instead marks an important relationship between the people of Israel to the name Jehovah, a peculiar bond that they will always have. As special as that name will be to all the peoples, it will still mean more given their history to the Hebrews. As is rightfully so!
kjv@Micah:4 @ @ RandyP comments: An interesting mix of what is and what will be. It is almost a here is what one it will be one day therefore suffer this proposition. Given everything, they certainly deserve what is now, probably deserved it long before this. Given everything that will be, no one - not Israel nor the Gentile nations deserve that, it is only by God's mercy and grace making for truly thankful hearts no doubt.
kjv@Micah:7 @ @ RandyP comments: What God will do for those who will bear His indignation: 1. plead my cause 2. execute judgment for me 3. bring me forth to the light 4. pardon iniquity 5. pass by the transgression 6. retain not his anger 7. turn again 8. have compassion 9. subdue our iniquities 10.cast all sins into the depths 11. perform the truth to Jacob 12. mercy to Abraham
kjv@Revelation:13:4 @ @ RandyP comments: The thought of warring against the beast is there it seems but, the futility of doing so is obvious. Can you imagine the United States for instance backing off from a war due to it's inferiority? Worse yet, could you imagine the strength of the USA standing firmly behind such a leader?
kjv@Revelation:13:7 @ @ RandyP comments: Are the saints the not yet raptured Church? To make war with the saints suggests that the saints are no longer dispersed or that they are dispersed but banded into target-able formations. To be overcome as the Church however rubs against a whole lot of scripture, namely kjv@1John:2:14 kjv@1John:4:4 kjv@1John:5:4 kjv@John:14:16 kjv@2Peter:2:19 kjv@2Peter:2:20 kjv@1Corinthians:3:16 kjv@Hebrews:1:14
kjv@Revelation:14:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Nearly the same thing is said kjv@Revelation:13:10. First in regards to the captivity of those who lead the peoples captive to the beast. Here in regards to the eternal smoke and torment from the pit of those who worshiped the beast and received his mark. The patience is in holding true throughout for as long as it takes.
kjv@Revelation:14:12 @ @ RandyP comments: The faith of Jesus (as opposed to the faith in Jesus) is presented as an object to be kept just as a commandment. It is not our faith, it is His. He gives us His commandment to keep. He gives us His faith to keep. We could have faith in His faith. We can keep believing in His faith but, ultimately it is His faith that we are to keep. One might say "well I don't have enough faith" to which we ask "does not Jesus?"..."Keep His faith then". I have my faith and He has His. Which should I keep? Keep His!
kjv@Zechariah:4 @ @ RandyP comments: The work of restoring the Temple has begun and will be finished the Angel assures, but, not by human might or power. Two anointed ones stand by the Lord at that time, we presume to be the King Zerubbabel and the Priest Joshua. The Lord will work through these two to get this done. Christ now is our king and He is our high priest. We are to abide in Him, His strength, His power. We are the temple He works like clay and anoints with His Holy Spirit to restore and set apart. He shall be brought forth as the corner stone with shoutings crying 'Grace, grace unto it'.
kjv@Zechariah:14:19 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:feast+of+tabernacles dict:all tabernacles
kjv@Zechariah:14 @ @ RandyP comments: This passage moves quickly through a series of end day events regarding plagues and judgement and even an apparent geologic reshaping of the Judean landscape. I believe this time immediately after the war on Jerusalem to be millennial because not everyone is yet on board fully, there are still those in rebellion who choose not to attend the yearly re-enactment of the Feast of Tabernacles done on behalf of the seated Holy King with specific reference to a band of non-conformist out of Egypt.
kjv@Malachi:4:5-6 @ @ RandyP comments: Interesting what it says Elijah does in his return, turns the hearts of fathers to their children, and the children back to their fathers. Where did their hearts go that it requires turning back? Think of the context of this book; is it not a false and self justified religion? Before the great and dreadful day of the Lord; is that not today?
kjv@Genesis:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Another peculiarity we should not let escape our attention is that while there is a division between light and dark strkjv@Genesis:1:3-5 called Night and Day, the actual objects visually determining those observances for earth were not until kjv@Genesis:1:14-19 after even vegetation. Light and darkness till then were from a different source and that source was sufficient for massive plant life. In kjv@Revelation:21:23 we see a similar occurrence in the new earth.
kjv@Matthew:1:1-17 @ @ RandyP comments: The human ancestry of Jesus is not as dry a reading as one might expect. It flies by in 16 quick verses, but, the personal histories of these individual lives cover an amazing 42 generations. You can imagine someone someday reading over your descendent's genealogy and skipping over your name as dry and inconsequential. What is important here is the lives, the lifetimes, passions and interests and occurrences, successes and set backs, wishes and desires, health and sickness, riches and poverty, sin and righteousness, freedom and captivity. Much like our lives, these people had the hope that despite everything that this life or at least the lives of our offspring was leading to something good. In these peoples case it lead from a promise to a patriarch to a fulfillment of that promise the living Messiah.
kjv@Genesis:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Did you notice that Abel and Cain were offering sacrifices, but, men did not call on the name of the Lord until Enos? What men? Were there others? Remember that incest at this time was not forbidden, logically it was the only way for these people to reproduce. Notice that sisters of Cain and Abel and Seth are not recorded, there may have been many (perhaps in modern terms 7 to 1 or more). Seeing how quickly Cain's numbers grew, Abel's could have been just as quick, along with Seth's. Given the either of these brothers could have had any number of other unrecorded brothers the human race could have grown quite quickly. Only later when incest was not needed and began producing genetic flaws was it legalized against.
kjv@Matthew:2:3 @ @ RandyP comments: All Jerusalem? The Persians had (as recently as 40+/- years) invaded and temporarily held Jerusalem. This visit of the magi may have been seen in the city as a plot to regain the city. It is an interesting way to create a public buzz around the messianic arrival.
kjv@Genesis:6:4 @ @ RandyP comments: There are concerns that the sons of God mentioned here may have been fallen angels; an intra species race. It would lend a different understanding to why the flood would be immediately necessary if true. Others see these giants to be plain men of unusual stature and influence.
kjv@Genesis:9:22-24 @ @ RandyP comments: The language or translation seems to be holding something back here. If Ham only saw (caught a glimps), why does it say Noah knew what the younger son had done to him? There was some type of violation or deeper shame committed to warrant the severe curse that followed. In seeing it may be in how he saw and in telling it may be in how/what he told his brothers. Or else it may be something worse.
kjv@Genesis:12 @ @ RandyP comments: This is the beginning of what we call the Abrahamic Covenant. It is a covenant based totally upon God's grace; the land will be a gift, the seed will be a gift. The Lord leads Abraham away from his kin to show him this land. The seed will not begin to come for another 20 some years and the land not for another 450+ years. In the mean time Abraham and Sarah stumble trying to make it happen on their own.
kjv@Genesis:14 @ @ RandyP comments: It is often said in the modern classroom that religion is the number one cause of war. And in that they mean to imply specifically Judeo-Christian religion. Massive wars were waged long before our religion had any influence to do such, massive wars have been waged despite, massive wars have been waged on our religion, massive wars have been waged alongside our religion, but, few wars have been waged by our religion. This war in particular is a case where war was waged and our religious figure after the fact went in to deliver a relative out of his captivity. Abraham strongly disallowed himself from any personal gain that may have rightfully been his as victor. The number one cause of war is mankind's sinful nature; a nature that even pressures and penetrates religion.
kjv@Matthew:4:1-11 @ @ RandyP comments: Tempted - as in tested, examined. Of - as in by, from. Was there a chance that Jesus would not pass the test? Think of this as you examining a mirror. Is their any chance that it will not pass the test of being a mirror? Not if it is a mirror. Can you entice the mirror to be something else? An orange? By examining the mirror, you are testing your understanding of what a mirror should be, evaluating by your understanding if this is indeed a mirror. Satan is testing his understanding of Jesus just as we would. Literally, does the text say that He was being examined by God? Or by the Devil?
kjv@Genesis:23 @ @ RandyP comments: A mighty prince amongst us. Notice how the people of that land viewed Abraham. No doubt Abraham was blessed from above and therein a blessing to others. Even strangers could sense that of him. They were not only willing to sell land for a burial plot, they were willing rather to give it and protect it a great many years after. He was a man of tremendous faith, imagine how that carried through his daily dealings and business with others. Sarah had lived to be 127 years, almost 40 years after birthing Isaac. If Abraham was a prince, then she was a princes.
kjv@Genesis:24:15 @ @ RandyP comments: By my count, Bethuel would be Abraham's nephew(?) and Rebekah Bethuel's daughter.
kjv@Genesis:24:17 @ @ RandyP comments: This may be the same servant Eliezer that would have inherited Abraham's possessions had not Ishmael and Isaac been born so late in the couple's life.
kjv@Genesis:24 @ @ RandyP comments: The angel had prepared the servants way to prosper at this task. The blood line was to remain pure. I take it (way) to mean that he prepared Rebekah and her family's heart. The servant put a test before the angel so that he would know when he found the right woman. I have known people to put other tests out in their own prayers and dealings; I think that we need to be careful. Remember that Isaac was to become the continuation of the covenant with Abraham, this wife was to birth a great many seeds of the covenant. There is a righteousness there that may not be there if we place a similar test on which job shall we take or what city. Often our tests favor preconceived notions of what we would most like the answer to be and the situations leading to them born out of our dissatisfaction or restlessness. I am not saying that tests such as these are not good in certain cases, I am saying one must truly search out their intentions and honesty before making demands upon the righteous will of God.
kjv@Genesis:25:34 @ @ RandyP comments: It seems to me that the birthright would have meant more to Esau had his father's love meant more to him. We don't know the full details of their relationship, but, for all intensive purposes it was boiled down to one's love of hunting and one's love for venison; not much to stand on. There is also the possibility that he knew or it had been discussed in the family of God's revelation to Rebecca. Then Esau would have grown to despise the birthright because he knew sooner or later it would be taken from him. I am not sure that birth right would have made any difference to the revelation or whether this was just the way that the individuals were interpreting it.
kjv@Genesis:25:34 @ @ RandyP comments: We have a spiritual birth right similar to what is discussed in this passage. Any number of us at any number of times have sold our rights for mere morsels of common bread and drink thus in effect despising our birth right. What is the intellectual make up of this? Could it be our narrow perception of our Father's love and wealth? What this birthright means? Could it be our own appetites? Is it that we feel that in the long run we have no right or that our right is somehow ordained to be given another? Some would say in this case 'didn't God make it so?' to which I reply 'didn't God foresee?'. In Jesus we not only have the opportunity to be born again but, also to be born into an inheritance of saints. Where does this heavenly birthright stand with you today?
kjv@Genesis:34 @ @ RandyP comments: It may be tempting to want to fit in with others. There is always the enticement of being as one and sharing the purse as one together. It is not ever God's will. We are to be peaceable but set apart, peacemakers but abhor evil, engaged but not compromised. These men portray a noble desire of commune, it is easy to lose sight that these are the same men that just raped a sister; now they want the rest of our daughters. I am not sure that the use of deceit (by a token of God's covenant) is sanctioned or warranted but, the end result is similar.
kjv@Genesis:35:1-4 @ @ RandyP comments: Jacob takes on the role of a proper spiritual father. He leads all of his children, as old as some may be, as a whole. He insists that they put away their strange gods, to be spiritually pure, to be circumspect in their dress and adornments. He became inclusive of them participating in the spiritual projects and worship that he himself was driven to accomplish. He set the tone and pace and they indeed followed along.
kjv@Genesis:40 @ @ RandyP comments: How does one forget such a one as interpreted his troubling dream? How does one forget a solemn oath? Quite easily it appears. Notice that Joseph believes in his Lord and at the same time is pleading his way with others to be delivered. There may be times when the Lord works His favor through other people blessing ones initiative. This however seems to be a time when it was not yet time for the Lord to fully reveal His favor. In the long run Joseph's initiative sticks but, it should be known that it was not the cause.
kjv@Genesis:41:51-52 @ @ RandyP comments: Joseph possess two attitudes beneficial to his relationship with God from which he names his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. His first attitude is that He has made him to forget his toil and fathers house. It is not that he has forgotten it whole it is that it has a positive influence on him. Instead of blaming God or that he is entitled to this time, he praises God that all of these experiences have lead him to this moment; he would not be this had he not been through that. And surely the desire to be reunited with his kin (particularly Jacob and Benjamin) is still there but contained in the knowledge that it will be by God's hand in God's time. The second attitude is that God has made him fruitful in the land of his affliction. He is not sugar coating the fact that he has been afflicted, he is acknowledging that God has brought him through affliction into fruitfulness.
kjv@Genesis:41 @ @ RandyP comments: The revelation of the dream was toward the years of plenty followed by years of famine, the interpretation is in what best to do. The dream does shows the years of famine surviving on the carcass of the years of plenty, but, does not show a man appointed to gather during the years of plenty. It is one thing to know what is about to happen and quite another to be wise enough from it to know what needs to be done. Both are from God, one a product of divine announcement, one the product of divine preparation and testing.
kjv@Genesis:42 @ @ RandyP comments: I have often puzzled over the allowance of Joseph to treat his brothers in this somewhat mean and deceitful manner. Jacob was a trickster in his day and now he is being tricked himself. Not to say that I would have reacted any better (probably worse) given the situation, but, wouldn't you like to hear him discuss his thought process now after the fact?
kjv@Genesis:43 @ @ RandyP comments: Others have suggested that Joseph is testing his brothers hearts to see where they stand. After all of these years would they still be of the heart that led to selling a brother into slavery and faking his death? Had they learned anything? Had they changed? We saw that there was remembrance of the event and suspicion that this current problem may be the pay back. We are seeing some effort today by them to do what is right even in the midsts of some oddities beyond their control.
kjv@Genesis:44:29 @ @ RandyP comments: This would be the first Joseph heard of how the brothers covered up his enslavement by faking his death. Surely a difficult moment for him here.
kjv@Genesis:44 @ @ RandyP comments: The truth is now pouring out from Judah's mouth. He is expressing concern for his dad, concern for his youngest brother, and a willingness to take the place of Benjamin for any wrong the brothers may have done. Nearly everything is here except an outright confession of the past treatment of Joseph.
kjv@Genesis:45:5 @ @ RandyP comments: This is a solid offer of forgiveness to pattern our own after. First, it does not seek anything further from them to make it or keep it happening. Second, it is based upon God's intentions and not either of the two parties involved. Third, it is concerned for reaction of the guilty towards their own selves.
kjv@Genesis:45 @ @ RandyP comments: The reaction of Pharaoh should be noted. We know from previous text that the Hebrews were not looked favorably on by the Egyptians during these days; they were not even to be eaten with. Here we see how differently Joseph was viewed, as a man in whom the spirit of God dwelt. That Joseph had been reunited with his Hebrew kin was a favorably endorsed event by Pharaoh.
kjv@Genesis:46:34 @ @ RandyP comments: Joseph is having them make a cultural shift here, because of the sentiments of Egyptians against shepherds they are to call themselves cattlemen. They most like had been both before this.
kjv@Genesis:47:30 @ @ RandyP comments: God had as much as promised Jacob this kjv@Genesis:46:4.
kjv@Genesis:47 @ @ RandyP comments: We should be mindful as to just how serious famines can be. Within the first year the people of Egypt had sold Joseph their cattle and by the second year had sold all but the priest' land. This is a sanitized way of saying that they were absolutely desperate. The dust bowels of Great Depression are the closest thing we Americans have seen to this, not nearly as devastating but requiring a buy back program from the government for many as well, some had to walk away from everything.
kjv@Genesis:48:19 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@Numbers:1:33-35 dict:easton Ephraim
kjv@Matthew:6:25-34 @ @ RandyP comments: The 'therefore' here seem to point back to the singleness of eye and one master service preciously discussed. The key verse appears to be the 'seek ye first'. If you seek the food and raiment first then the worry for it becomes your master. It is not that you don't need these things for the Father knows that you have need of these things. It is not that the birds do go about the task of seeking out a field in which to eat, it is that it doesn't worry them. Serving two masters makes us to hate the one (most likely our Father) should the worry consume us.
kjv@Genesis:49:4 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@Genesis:35:22
kjv@Genesis:49:6 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@Genesis:34:25-30
kjv@Genesis:49:3 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Rueben
kjv@Genesis:49:5 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Simeon dict:all Levi
kjv@Genesis:49:8 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Judah
kjv@Genesis:49:13 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Zebulun
kjv@Genesis:49:14 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Issachar
kjv@Genesis:49:16 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Dan
kjv@Genesis:49:19 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Gad
kjv@Genesis:49:20 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Asher
kjv@Genesis:49:21 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Naphtali
kjv@Genesis:49:22 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Joseph
kjv@Genesis:49:27 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Benjamin
kjv@Exodus:14:11 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord had told Moses what was to happen. The question is whether Moses told the people. We are not told. God did not say 'tell my people'. It would be interesting (though maybe speculative) to ask how the people would have reacted if Moses had told them; probably much the same reaction. The point either way would have been that the Lord has to be trusted. Knowing or not knowing the details often in advance has little to do with our acceptance and willingness to undergo what must happen. This is a space that only trust, even trust in great big unimaginable miracles can fill.
kjv@Exodus:14:15 @ @ RandyP comments: I am sure that the Lord is always encouraging of prayer and communication. Crying out may not always be appropriate however. David for instance often cries out in his Psalms but, his desperation often leads him to the conclusion that God is truly great and a mighty deliverer in times of need. How often do we cry out however with desperation alone, seeking for answers that we are not prepared to follow, directions we are not observant to go, pleading for self strength without having established ourselves within His. We can not be too hard on these Israelites for they are experiencing God many of them for the first time. We should be harder on ourselves for having had their experience plus our own plus that of others and still yet crying out for the sake of crying out. Is there not reason to be communicating with God on a totally different level?
kjv@Exodus:14:18 @ @ RandyP comments: Honor at another man's expense is typically not a good thing. Honor if by the hardness of ones own heart after being given every opportunity to do otherwise and after having given one's oath not to pursue this any further... that is honor above and beyond, especially when it is the course of two nations and not just single men. The men that will die along with him have made their choices long ago to blindly and courageously serve regardless of Pharaoh's right and wrong. They by their personal honor/allegiance will die by their Pharaoh's utter dishonor. Make your choices wisely my friends!
kjv@Exodus:14:20 @ @ RandyP comments: There are a number of secular (even some theological) scholars that have gone to great lengths to explain how the parting of the sea may have happened in natural terms. None of these go to explain the prerequisite element of the Angel of the Lord and Pillar of Fire keeping the Egyptians at distance from the Israelites as they prepared to cross the dry land. If you are going to explain one thing by natural terms, you must be able to explain them all.
kjv@Exodus:14:31 @ @ RandyP comments: The emphasis of the word fear is not only on the sheer terror of this event but also on the reverence toward the controller of of such uncontrollable elements. That this happened in the manner that it happened for the people who were in this moment could only have been the hand of God. For us who now read of this event there is intellectual wiggle room and physical detachment from these occurrences that these many witnesses were not privy to. It is interesting to see how in the coming hours/days how this fear/reverence too wore down; a testament to the tendencies of the self justifying human reprobate will.
kjv@Exodus:16:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Have you ever wondered if the dry spell that you are going through now is a time where God is seeing whether you will obey His command or not? There may be a section of time in advance where your expectations are not met when you begin to murmur. And maybe you think you are murmuring at somebody (a boss or a spouse a pastor) but, really you are murmuring of God. The problem may be in your expectations. Then there is a second phase where God in His wisdom has provided an answer for you. Again it may not be what you expected; instead it is an intermediary answer as in this case to see if you will perform the steps mandated in the frame of heart that is needed. Again the problem comes with one's expectation. When following the deliverance of God one must expect that our own expectations and His may differ grossly. His offering may not be the final answer all at once, it may be a series of processes that lead us to His ultimate answer. In our own personal wilderness experience, not only do we need learn to trust/depend on Him, to be thankful for anything when do or do not have, but, also to obey what He has impressed upon us to obey.
kjv@Matthew:12:38-45 @ @ RandyP comments: We tend today to see the gospel as pertaining to individuals and salvation, which in part it is. Jesus is shown here as also seeing the gospel in terms of groups and cities and generations. Just as a man can be inhabited/possessed/re-inhabited so can collective movements and generations. Individuals think and act and behave within groups. Unclean spirits think and act and behave in similar conjunction. In Jesus' time He saw a perfect storm of the two mounting against Him. Though He could be convincing to some individuals one on one at this time, it would not be until His death and resurrection that the true forces driving individuals within masses could be dealt with.
kjv@Matthew:12:46 @ @ RandyP comments: Makes one wonder what they wanted to talk to Him about.
kjv@Matthew:13:24-30 @ @ RandyP comments: This parable is to be placed beside the parable of the sower for direct comparison, one extends the other. The first is a look at the process of the individual believer and what he must overcome. The second is a picture of the field (world) of all. The enemy has come in and planted a false believer with every appearance of the true believer except in final fruit. To remove the false believer at this time would also uproot the true believer, so the two are left to grow together. Both parables work together to draw a broader and deeper picture. The Disciples will shortly ask Jesus to explain this further.
kjv@Matthew:13:24-30 @ @ RandyP comments: This is not to say that the Devil has created his own humans and planted them amongst God's. This is better explained by whom the God created human becomes moral agent of/to. The Kingdom of Heaven becomes firmly planted into one and the false kingdom of heaven becomes established in the other. The differences nearly indistinguishable until the fruit from each is bore out.
kjv@Matthew:14:1-12 @ @ RandyP comments: This passage almost reads backwards. At some point earlier the disciples of the Baptist told Jesus and His disciples the outcome of John's imprisonment - beheading. The crew is aware of the circumstances therein. What is happening now that Herod Antipas is associating Jesus with as a haunting of John. We do not know how this becomes known (perhaps one of Herod's servants) but, it does.
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