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@Proverbs:13:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Instruction often comes in the form of rebuke/reproof. Being willing to listen to it is the key to being wise. The rebuke/reproof has to wise of course otherwise it is mean cruel for it's own sake. Parents for instance need to be as wise or wiser than their own fatherly instruction, which many times means being wise enough to listen to our Father's rebuke as well.
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@Isaiah:65 @ @ RandyP comments: I cannot explain how a Hebrew today would be able to explain away the fact that their Lord was found by another people and not them because of their rebellion. It is said so and has been said all along. How does one explain this passage if it doesn't say what it says. It is not as if we went out seeking to replace them as the apple of His eye, it is that sought us out and found us because they wouldn't listen.
kjv@Jeremiah:7 @ @ RandyP comments: If one could imagine taking the temple called by Yahweh's name with all of it's history and using it to worship Baal, sending prophets and no one listening; how angered the Lord must be. When a religion becomes a place and not a person, worship a happening and not a lifestyle, judgment for everything except what is to be judged, this is what you have. Where are the priests? Where are the great orators of truth? Where is the resistance or reactionaries? Does a religion that sacrifices it's live children really have that much to offer other than in your face God rebellion?
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:22 @ @ RandyP comments: The kings of Judah surely had their part in this coming judgment. There was a long pronounce track record of God pleading to them through His prophets. They were warned, they chose not to listen. They were commanded to execute judgment on behalf of the people and would not. They enslaved them for their own gain and ended up loosing everything. To the end that later, when other nations looked upon the wreckage they would know that this was not typical downfall of just any nation, this was God's people that had deserted their God.
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:29 @ @ RandyP comments: I am just as confused here as the people must have been. Multiple messages coming from multiple places? Who is right and who is wrong? Do we listen to Jeremiah or Shemaiah who wants Jeremiah killed? Remember, we are reading the story line clinically detached; we know who is right in the end. They did not have such luxury. Would you vote for seventy years of peaceful subjection (running the risk of deep foreign integration) or a few years of radical revolt and resistance? Which prophets are true and which are false? Aren't they all about the same from ground level? Again, luckily we know the story.
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@Ezekiel:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Again, a visual message given to the rebellious house. They may not listen but, it will not be said that they were not shown. They will ask questions but, will not consider. The words will not be prolonged any longer, the time has come.
kjv@Daniel:5 @ @ RandyP comments: The kingdoms of men are ruled by God and He appoints them to whomever He will. Would He appoint a tyrant? If it served His purposes. Would He appoint a socialist or a mad man? If it furthered His will. He would? He has and He will. What then about His righteousness, is He not then an unrighteous God by appointing an unrighteous king? This God is righteous, mankind is presently unrighteous, His design is to lead us from our unrighteousness into His righteousness. If a good shepherd commands his flock to move forward and they move not, is it not right for the shepherd to send his dog? If it takes appointing certain men exhibiting the worst of our collective unrighteousness to show and move us off of our unrighteousness when we otherwise would not listen, is that not in itself utterly righteous?
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@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@Zechariah:1:6 @ @ RandyP comments: Would the Lord be unfair if He dealt with us according to the way we dealt with Him or each other? Would He be wrong? Would we be wrong if we expected Him to stay out of our business when our business so much effected His? What business is not His? In a sense the Lord has dealt with us according to our dealings. In another He has constantly risen above it with His patience and his reproof and mercy. He has spoken through His prophets when need be. But, who has listened?
kjv@Zechariah:7 @ @ RandyP comments: The command seemed simple enough, to execute true judgment, show mercy, oppress not. To do these things as an individual is one thing; as a nation quite another. When the Lord cried out they would not hear. Now that they are crying out the Lord seems to not hear. What was so hard about the command? The answer may be within. Now they fast in the fifth month these many years, but, is it to the Lord they fast or to themselves? They send men to inquire of the prophet, but, is it for the truth or to bend God's ear? Why should He listen if they do not listen? Why should He do for them when they intend to do plenty for themselves only as well? Worship is not about doing better for yourself. It is not about bending His will around yours. It is not Him plucking you out of the pit that you've dug yourself so that you can run along to dig yet another. Worship is about Him, it is about what you most value, what you are most willing to serve. One cannot perform the command without the deepest reverence and worship towards Him who wants you first to listen. And to best do that one must do this worship as a nation. That is what is so hard.
kjv@Exodus:18 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord instructs us Himself one to one. He instructs through the counsel of others as well. Moses had taken too much upon himself. Not only was it bad for his health and endurance it was bad for the people he was trying to lead. Notice that the Lord did not tell him this, the Lord used his father in law. The Lord did not object. Perhaps Moses had been praying for an answer but was too busy/distracted to listen for it. Perhaps the Lord had told him but, he did not receive it for some reason. Maybe the Lord choose this method from the beginning to develop Moses in the areas of friendship and counsel that he needed developed himself. Regardless, the point for us to take is the importance of counsel, of grooming trust relationships, of allowing opportunity to receive, of being able to compare and line up with the known word of God and correctly decide. Not just any counsel mind you, not just the advice we want to hear, the right godly counsel.
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