kjv@Psalms:79 @ @ RandyP comments: It is one thing for Judah to be corrected by the Lord and for Him to use neighboring nations as His instruments. It is quiet another for those nations to puff up, to think that it was by their hand, that the God of Jacob is silent, that they are somehow better. Their ill intentions may have been used by God but, that does mean that they are excused for intending and coming against His anointed. We know that as the hearts of Judah is turned back to God and their prayers are cried out that God will once again move in their favor for His covenant and His own name sake.
kjv@Psalms:81 @ @ RandyP comments: Other gods, the plague of Israel. Why was it so easy for them to slip back into this? After all the reproofs, the bondage and countless turning back. It would be wise for us to consider this answer. It may not be as simple as finding the right god and sticking to it. It could be that we use gods to serve us which the false gods are very willing to do. It could be that we feel better being fulfilled and exalted than being brought low and humbled. It could be that we believe the here and now and not the future, that our hearts are never satisfied, that we are driven by lust and fear. There are processes and separations being used by the Lord to make us what we will one day be. It is easier though for us to think that we are now what we will be. Such are our presumptuous sins. Such is the shame of what this life should have been.
kjv@Psalms:86 @ @ RandyP comments: An interesting thought here that the heart would be in need of being united as if scattered or dispersed. It is fairly evident in the case of a corporate body like a congregation that the collective hearts are prone to this. It very well could be the case in the individual as well. To be united to fear His name might imply that the opposite of this fear may be caused by the scattered heart. God is highly praised in this in that He works towards the obedient man and against the those violent who have not set "Thee" before them.
kjv@Psalms:117 @ @ RandyP comments: It is highly unlikely that the nations of this age would gather to do such a simple and straightforward thing; even in an ecumenical/universal God sense. It should be a sign of the times and our hearts that we can't even gather to do that.
kjv@Psalms:131 @ @ RandyP comments: When the heart is haughty and the eyes lofty the soul takes upon itself a great deal, increasingly large matters it really has no business in. I think of the political campaigns we are suffering these months ahead of elections. Presented are entire shopping lists of big and grandiose ideas/programs that each and everyone of us knows will never once be addressed. So why are we making concern over them, why to the near exclusion of the things that we would be able to address? This same type issue is true in our individual hearts as well. Oh yes, grand dreams and visions, miraculous intentions, marvelous causes, big and frequent squawks and chatter. It hardly ever results in any more than that. For some though, a new found calm and quietness, a weaning from the demanding tantrums of a suckling child, a trust and obedience to a more modest constantly maturing godly nature.
kjv@Psalms:137 @ @ RandyP comments: It must be humbling when ones captors request to hear one of your hymns as if to rub your face in the fact that they are taking you back to their land to make you slaves. It drives home the fact that you've let a good thing go. Had they listened to God, had they returned their hearts from their false gods, had they obeyed it may not have come to this. But it has, and there naturally is bitterness towards these captors. Really though God's mercy from kjv@Psalms:123 is still at work in a reproving fashion. We should not be so hardened as to allow it to come to this.
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@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@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@Isaiah:57 @ @ RandyP comments: The plan is not for God to have to contend much longer. The time that He will is of His choosing. All paths cannot lead to eternal blessing and not all souls will be unconditionally accepted. This moment is but an opportunity to turn oneself around. He has now accomplished all that His righteousness/mercy has required Him. He will perform that which He has promised. He will dwell eternally only with those of humble and contrite hearts, revive their spirit and once and for all heal them. For the others it will be a raging murky sea of their own consequence apart from Him. How much clearer can the choice be?
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:17:9-10 @ @ RandyP comments: Whose heart is deceitful above all things? Did He qualify or pin point certain hearts? Move this forward to the time Jesus Himself stood upon this earth with a crowd gathered round Him. Was their any in the gathering not of a deceitful heart? Those that wanted Him killed in God's name? Those who followed just for the free fish? The hypocritical zealots? Even the disciples arguing over who will be the greatest? Whose heart is deceitful above all things? The heart...Our hearts!
kjv@Jeremiah:19 @ @ RandyP comments: The sight of Jeremiah breaking the ancient potters vessel at the east gate should burn in the hearts of Judah even to this day. The words he then proclaimed echoed true. Unfortunately, they still did not listen, whatever they had thought to gain from worshiping Baal was more convincing than loosing it all, being captive, and becoming so desperate as to eat their own children. Was it really?
kjv@Jeremiah:28 @ @ RandyP comments: One must ask themselves "do I speak for the Lord"? We all intend well. It would have seemed good for this all to end within two years. Good for the people, but, what about for the Lord. Is it that the Lord is only concerned for our good and not for His own? His good was being served in a thorough purging of our rebellious hearts, a rooting out of the spoiled figs and tainted prophets. Sure the people were put to shame and humbled, but, isn't that better than being stiff necked and hard hearted? If you intend to speak for the Lord you better well know what He would have you to say.
kjv@Jeremiah:36 @ @ RandyP comments: One might ask "why does the Word of God need to be written"? "Can't He just speak it into our hearts"? Jehoiakim knew the things written in Baruch's scroll. It testified against him recording a long history of the king's rebellion and transgression. The king's advisers knew well how he would react for they had the scribe and prophet to hide away. The Lord undoubtedly knew as well, just as He knows today. The heart hears what the heart wants to hear, it reasons as would serve it's own desires the best. Nothing is beyond the scope of the deceitful heart. The written word is as much to testify against the fleshly heart as it is to convince it. Today we have the testimony of several thousands of years and several other Jeremiahs in written form. Is the heart then any different today?
kjv@Hebrews:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The unbelief of Israel in the wilderness is given as a example to us of the deceitfulness of sin. They saw many great wonders on their course, but, even seeing was not enough as they were still deceived by their hearts into many things that angered God. We too must examine ourselves daily as we think that we are doing right toward God. So much though is done in unbelief, by our own fear, limited by our perception of the size and scope and purposes of the Lord. We may not be in the promise land yet and we may not be in the bondage from which we were delivered out of, but, we certainly are in the middle of a considerable and lengthy process.
kjv@Lamentations:3 @ @ RandyP comments: It is interesting now that we know more about Jeremiah how similar his lamentation is to Davids psalm. Both were in positions that you would think would be well respected and that people would gather alongside to support and comfort. Both seem almost alone. The things that the Lord had them do set much of which was on the peoples behalf set them apart and made them targets. No singular enemy mentioned but an overwhelming mass of momentum and continuum labeled as godlessness/wickedness. The prophets comfort is instead the recollection that not a thing happens that God does not set forth; the goodness God intends for us all for a long moment can appear as an evil until our hearts are completely turned. If not for these times how would our heart know? During these times how would our heart not know?
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:11:19 @ @ RandyP comments: Some of Israel (not all) was regathered at the end of the seventy years. The Temple was rebuilt and put back into service but, the hearts of Israel barely changed. They awaited an even more horrific judgment that Jesus himself would prophecy. In Jesus Christ a new spirit is given and hearts were changed but, Israel not regathered awaiting a final gathering yet to come in the end of the age of Gentiles. We see that every word of this prophecy is accurate, the time-line however not as direct as we might read.
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:21 @ @ RandyP comments: Many read or else hear about these passages in the Bible and come to the determination that the God of Israel is mean spirited. For these years of judgment they fail to say the ions of longsuffering and mercy. Others would point to the ineffectiveness of God's plan not being able to turn the hearts of even such a small nation as Israel avoiding to consider that His plan is yet hundreds of years from being fulfilled. People under estimate the power the sin nature has over us and just how patient and steady God has had to remain over it to gain our redemption from it. If there is any mean spiritedness to observe, it is in the people who claim that God is over reacting, over sensitive, over bearing.
kjv@Hebrews:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Those of us in the American church body should be concerned about the lack of chastisement. Where is it? We face certain opposition and the opposition seems to be growing. Opposition is not chastisement. In other places our missionaries face difficulty and persecution. Persecution is not necessarily chastisement either. Chastisement involves correction. Is it that we have nothing to be corrected of? Is it that we have been corrected and so now remain? Or could it be that our hearts have become hardened, that the accomplishments of the past have sent us sideways into pride, unawares or worse unconcerned, unable to discern where our needed chastisement might be found? Has our ear to it become deaf?
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@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@Hosea:10 @ @ RandyP comments: Pictures of vines producing fruit, wheat producing flour, flour producing bread, leaven falsely puffing the bread up, sea's producing their own foam, night and day, light and darkness, faithful brides and harlots, sheep and goats, wheat and tares; such picture-grams fill the volumes of scripture. Over and over, situation after situation, pictures of nations and empires, of tents and temples, of times and eras, of deserts and fruitful places; how do they not mean what they mean? How do they lend themselves to mis-interpretation? God surely knows the heart of man, that two men will look at the same object and dispute over what it is. One man will pick it apart with small words, the other piece it together with larger pictures. God knows the limitations of human language and the deceitfulness of hearts. His word is constructed in such a way that the only doubt that can be left is the doubt of a rebellious self justifying reprobate.
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:5 @ @ RandyP comments: We just read and commented that these things must happen; it is not a matter of us holding them off. Now we read of why it must happen. This is not a terrible thing, the crowning achievement of our worthy Lord to open the book. The judgments inside this sealed book are terrible to those outside the coverage of His blood, but, the purging that will result by opening it is much needed in the hearts of men and angels alike. All creation groans as in travail for this to happen.
kjv@Revelation:9 @ @ RandyP comments: The end of the world is often thought of as men inflicting evil upon men, mankind out of hand. What we are seeing here however are things totally outside the scope of man's doing. Stars falling and rivers contaminated by the fall out, pits being opened up, Grasshopper like scorpions stinging with five month agonies, one third of this and that and of man. Even this is not enough to change the hearts of many as if they blame God for allowing this to happen.
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@Revelation:15 @ @ RandyP comments: His judgments are made manifest. How can these be known as being from anyone/anything other? None of these things before this could be analyzed honestly and be said to result from nature gone bad or coincidence or misfortune; especially when He has made it known so far in advance. Instead, I would say that the people are fully aware of where these judgments are coming from but, are all the more angry that this God would be judging them. These times are flushing out those who no matter what the situation proves to be, no matter what evidences are on the table, will not allow themselves to be part of nor worship Jehovah God or Son Jesus Christ. God is proven then to be fully justified to discontinue His grace and presence amongst these rebel tares. These vials are brief tastes of that absence, not even this will change many hearts.
kjv@Revelation:17:18 @ @ RandyP comments: This is very revealing, a power/principality that rules over the kings of earth. It is put into their hearts, it is God's will (just as He has given them over kjv@Romans:1 ) to follow. They will follow wholly to make war against the Lamb. She is identified as a city with seven hills (often thought of as Rome). The seventh and eight king of which are the beast. She is presented in continuous present tense as old as Babylon and young as the martyrs of the Lamb.
kjv@Malachi:1 @ @ RandyP comments: The love and hate of the Lord for the two brothers and their seed may have nothing to do with their personalities or what they might be able to do, but, who He has chosen to be incarnate amongst. His love for Jacob certainly has not been any easier of a road for Him. His greater love is for all people, He seeks all of their hearts, He has died for all of them - Jacob, Esau, and Gentile alike. His particular love for either of these two has more to do with the division of pathway He chose to pursue His greater plan.
kjv@Malachi:2 @ @ RandyP comments: One can almost sense what religion has become to them; an alter to shed their tears upon. I suppose that tears are well and fine but, what about the wholesomeness of their offering? If all one does is cry and complain and petition and yet goes about their lives in the same sinful way, making dirty offerings with dirty hearts and hands, what good is this religion? The two parts make one whole. It is not just emoting your fears about what concerns come against you, it is how the strength of the Lord is always sufficient. It is not just this sacrifice you made or that offering you gave, it is about the sacrifice that He made and you wholehearted submission and faithfulness to living in it. One without the other is a means of dealing treacherously with self and master. When religion is only a crying alter, the alter becomes more and more a place where everyones evil is declared as good. This treacherous form of religion wearies the Lord. The fear is best placed in His judgment and not just His pity.
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: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@Matthew:6 @ @ RandyP comments: Notice that the heavenly reward is not based upon the deed but upon the heart from which it was issued. That is not to say that we should avoid doing good deeds being fearful of our hearts intent, it is to say search the intents out and do these good deeds right and one will be all the better off.
kjv@Exodus:6:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Just as the people have little working field knowledge of Jehovah they have little knowledge of Moses. All that they know is that the ambition of Moses has made their bondage much more harsh. When we today read this we kind of know how the story is going to progress and we see the peoples hearts as immature and disbelieving. Stepping into their shoes though one can see that from their immediate vantage point that they are absolutely right. The key then for us to learn is that of vantage point. While something may appear to us to be a certainty in one direction, they actually could be opposite and with good reason; it is all a matter of vantage point.
kjv@Matthew:16:21-28 @ @ RandyP comments: The comment about the leaven of the Pharisees is just as much a observation of what is currently transpiring against Him as it is a doctrinal fidelity teaching. Jesus sees what is developing and the rage mounting against Him so He checks to see how far along the Disciples hearts are in the revelation process. They are currently far enough to know that He is Christ but, not so far as to know what Christ must suffer for them in the very near future. Until they grasp this further more complete revelation they will not grasp their own future pathway - the baring of their own cross for Him in His absence up until His return.
kjv@Matthew:21:12 @ @ RandyP comments: There is the physical temple and there is a temple of individual men's hearts. Where a man's heart is there will be his treasure. There are men who treasure making money from the religious needs of many. There are men who treasure peace that do not confront them. There are men who treasure their position in the church that allow for even profit from such allowance. There are men who treasure the way things just the way they are, the way things have long time been. There are those who treasure their own ideals of the temple and not the ill image it projects to those it mistreats. These are the types of men who would be displeased by Jesus' message carried out in the temple for they do not treasure Him. When we look as individuals upon a collective temple such as this we look upon men's collective hearts. The object is not to avoid coming to the collective temple, it is to call upon all men's hearts by a higher calling; to call upon all men to come observe the most holy heart of our Lord and Savior; to meet with Him by His grace then and there. And if need be, shake a few tables of our own.
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