kjv@Psalms:56 @ @ RandyP comments: As much as we want our troubles and prayers to sound like David's, very few if any of us have lived the life and done the things towards justice that he speaks of hear. There is a reason he is pursued by his enemies daily and heavily. He can say that his cause is just and that theirs is unjust, that they are wicked or filled with iniquity because they are. Though we picture ourselves in the David role with our own circumstances, chances are more mathematically probable that we are in the enemies role; if not by direct pursuit then by tolerance and detachment.
kjv@Psalms:58 @ @ RandyP comments: This psalm is probably not sung all that much in today's congregation because we have little understanding of who the wicked are and just what a burden they are placing upon the poor and needy and the upright defending them. No we are much more tolerant these days seeking for everybody just to get along. A psalm like this leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of many a congregation because it is too judgmental. THe righteous however will rejoice when they see that God indeed judges the earth righteously.
kjv@Psalms:62 @ @ RandyP comments: Salvation is not only a word for the future day of judgement, it is a word for the day here and now. Too much surrounds us in a day not to be aware of and in need of His salvation. He is strength. He is refuge. Mischief, inward cursing, oppression, lies, vanity, robbery are but a few of the things that either do or could affect us each and every hour. He is our defense, salvation, and our rock. We shall not be moved.
kjv@Romans:1 @ @ RandyP comments: This passage is often used in the debate over homosexuality and gay marriage. You'll notice though that that the list of reprobate tendencies is longer than just that. Though sexual preference is mentioned prominently, it is mentioned in the context of why God gave them over to this along with the list of things equally abhorrent. To continue in any of these behaviors, to attempt to reason that any are anything less than what they are, to seek out those that are similarly minded, is to continue in the defiant and reprobate nature Paul calls to attention. To judge one ill behavior while performing another is out right hypocrisy. We must all beware.
kjv@Romans:1:5 @ @ RandyP comments: Why have we received grace? For obedience. Why have we received apostleship? For obedience. Obedience to what? The faith! Many would associate "the faith" with whatever they are willing to believe. Paul gives the impression that "the faith" is fixed and set by Jesus for us all to obey. Where do we obey? Among all nations. Why do we obey? For His name!
kjv@Romans:2 @ @ RandyP comments: No one is above judgement. Our only salvation in judgment is in Jesus Christ. In the previous chapter we've read of the ways of the reprobate. It would be natural for us to be judgmental of others given this impressive list. The problem with that is in the many things for which we ourselves will be judged, things perhaps more hidden than for example overt homosexuality. Persons on both sides of the line draw their own conclusions and judgements. A wall builds up between us with sinners on both sides. God's long suffering and forbearance has been shown to us all. It is time for us on both sides to think in terms of the spirit verses the letter of the law. Let us set aside any sin that would so easily beset us.
kjv@Psalms:68 @ @ RandyP comments: David now speaks of God's enemies. The righteous have much to be glad for. When we look beyond our own fox holes to see the progress He has made toward the final objective; When we look as David does here into the future of the nations and peoples that will be on board along with us by the end; even the tribes of Israel; it all is too wonderful not to be extremely encouraged and filled with praise. All of this out of the fountain of Israel.
kjv@Psalms:69 @ @ RandyP comments: This passage has a very important description of David made by himself. One being that he is a sinner like all the rest; he knows, God knows; he asks God to hear his repentance. Many use his honest and contrite observance in ashes and sackcloth as opportunity to defame him even in bar room song. He is being reproached by the enemy because of his stance for God, he is misunderstood and deserted by his friends and family as well. He sees the poor and widowed in a sense as being inflicted by God and his God given duty to stand in the gap against those who seek to devour the poor and widowed for their own gain. Though it all could be overwhelming he knows that His strength and refuge is and will always remain in God.
kjv@Psalms:72 @ @ RandyP comments: This obviously is a messianic psalm speaking of the Messiah's earthly reign from sea to sea for as long as the sun and moon endure and beyond. No other king could fill these shoes. This will be fufilled after His second coming and great judgment. There will be a millenial reign and then the reign of His new heaven and new earth according to other prophetic texts.
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:73 @ @ RandyP comments: It was not until he went into the temple that he realized their end. On the surface it often looks like the advantages of disobedience far out weigh the advantages of godliness. For how long though. In the temple like moments each of us should realize God is God, that God indeed has his judgment and that their day will come, that God will punish wickedness and reward godliness, that things stand as they do now to serve His overall purpose. There is none to desire here on heaven/earth beside thee!
kjv@Psalms:76 @ @ RandyP comments: In Judah God is known for the miraculous protection provided. Many a enemy has risen against her and against most incredible odds Judah has seen the Lord deliver. There is no tactical reason or military advantage they possessed for them to be victorious; other than God's hand. God's judgment is for the meek. There is then a sense of reverence and obligation to the Lord that must be paid. That He has done this for Judah is equally important for modern Christians as well as we have been grafted into this heritage too.
kjv@Romans:1:21 @ @ RandyP comments: Glory and thanks not just belief in God's existence. Two tests of the ReprobateMind.
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@Romans:8:1-18 @ @ RandyP comments: The importance of separating flesh from spirit cannot be stressed enough. It is just as separating death from life. We have grown comfortable in our flesh; it is all that we have ever known. We may have had a particular problem so we think with a part of the flesh such as addiction or anger, so we look to religion to rectify that one fleshly weakness. The problem is that all the flesh is corrupt and in no way can please God. Good Intentions? Certainly. Good deeds? In part. Atonement with God? Only by crucifying the flesh, being quickened in our mortal flesh, walking in the spirit. Without strict abiding in Jesus Christ none of this is remotely possible by our own hand.
kjv@Psalms:83 @ @ RandyP comments: Even in that day there was a substantial and unified conspiracy against the presence of Israel. On one level it appears to be political but, from this author's vantage point it appears to be a spiritual warfare. Given that the promised Messiah was to come from Judah, given that all nations would one day worship in a New Jerusalem, given that God's name would dwell in Zion, given that all nations would blessed that bless Israel, the Devil I am sure makes it his object to tear at Israel. After nearly two thousand years of dispersed absence we are back to the same thing. It takes on political consequence but, have no doubt that it is spiritual in nature.
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@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:105 @ @ RandyP comments: All this He did for the purpose that they might observe His statutes and keep His law. We might say well they didn't really do that, at least not for long. Is that to say that God was wrong or had failed? That God could have found a better way? Or is that to say that it was and is the right way? That by us failing to do this by our own means serves to draw us toward His son the true fulfillment of statute and law? Surely God's doings each and every one are perfect and without failing.
kjv@Psalms:107 @ @ RandyP comments: Then they cried unto the Lord. Over and over we see men working themselves into desperate situations. Most of their own making, some as a consequence of the stormy waters where they conduct their business. God brings them low, they cry out, God does merciful acts to deliver them. To observe this is to understand the lovingkindness of the LORD. Where then do we stand today? What can we do? Well just as frequent is the refrain "Oh that men would praise the LORD...."
kjv@Psalms:109 @ @ RandyP comments: This world is filled with the truly poor and needy. There are countries we can think of that are in a constant oppressive state, countries where it's own refugees are congregated in camps just across it's borders, some for years and decades. We pray for them of course but, what to pray? There are people in the name of the Lord that are standing up for these people but they are lied against, falsely detained, immobilized. We pray for them but, what? There are those that are at the root of this. What shall we pray for them? David must have been square in the middle of some of these skirmishes. Is it wrong for him to pray this? Wrong to sing about this in the congregation? Will the wicked man ever change his ways once he has tasted blood in the waters?
kjv@Psalms:112 @ @ RandyP comments: God can use one upright man can effect an entire generation of upright people. He frequently does. What makes this upright man? He greatly delights in the commandments. What kind of things does he do? We have glimpses here but, it is more to do with how he goes about the things that he does. This description is very similar to the description of Job's uprightness, as in distributing to the poor. It doesn't say that evil tidings will not come, it says the he will not be afraid of them, his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord.
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:119:49-104 @ @ 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@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@Psalms:128 @ @ RandyP comments: I am seeing this as a blessing of God to the individual believer and it revolves around being to eat the fruit of your own hands. There is a blessing of sustaining and protection and multiplication here allowing one to plant and to be able to see and partake of the return. If your hands have not planted there probably wouldn't be all that much to eat but, then none of us really plant as much as we eat. We know that there is a multiplication at work even for us. The man who fears God will plant. Wife and children will be a blessing, grand children and peace upon Israel. What I am considering is a general blessing, for not everyone will see this. Some brothers will die valiantly for us in war, Jerusalem may not even be occupied or obedient, enemies may at once amass along the borders of Israel. But, in a spiritual sense, in a general sense, in a sense we may not have even considered God will bless every man that fears him.
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:133 @ @ RandyP comments: Brethren in unity is like sanctification oil to Aaron kjv@Leviticus:8:12. How good and pleasant must it have been for Aaron. How sanctifying it must be for us. Like in a dry land where rain does not come from May through October it is like a welcome and needed dew.
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@1Corinthians:10:1-13 @ @ RandyP comments: Ensamples they are, written for our admonition. Let's look at just the pure mathematics of probability. It is immensely more probable that we are beset by one of these traits than not. Idolaters, fornicators, tempters of Christ, murmurers, each trait more diverse and profound than first glance; and there are more. If one today thinks he stands he should take heed lest he fall. God knows this and is faithful. He has made a means to escape and bear it!
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: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@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@Proverbs:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Proverbs typically are short perhaps single verses of two stark contrasts. Here an interesting contrast is developed over the entire chapter. A gang of evil enticing roughions and a docile uncommitted society of simple minded fools. One is obviously setting a trap for themselves, the other secretly trapped in the cruel rewards of their simplicity. Which is worse?
kjv@Proverbs:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Simple mindedness can be thought of as open mindedness; it can be both good and bad. An open mind can lead to the acceptance of the possibility of wisdom all ready being prepared beforehand there for the taking, for the shedding of and separation from foolishness. It can also lead to nothing more than an attitude permitting oneself to scorn the notion of true wisdom and an investigation into stolen and secret sensual pleasures. One way leads to life the other to hell. Ones focus should not be on having an open mind just for the sake of having an open mind and being able to self justify any and everything, one should have an open mind for the sake of seeking absolute truth for it will catch up with us sooner than later. Perhaps having a clear mind should be a better objective.
kjv@Proverbs:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Like all scripture the proverbs take some digging into. Meaning may not be immediately obvious especially when two proverbs take the same point from two different directions. In a sense many of these appear as generalities when taken individually. But if taken as spring boards toward a greater reverence/fear of the Lord, the sum brings true wisdom/understanding; somethings that the casual reader will not spend time to consider.
kjv@1Corinthians:15:33-58 @ @ RandyP comments: It is asked by many "how could it be that God is righteous when He allows this and that and there is such pain and obvious corruption"? A mystery is revealed here about how this corrupt life that God has planted in becomes righteous, what is incorruptible must be born out of what is corruptible much like a seed of grain. We tend to look at this life as if this were all that there is and not see the eternal purposes for which God has set our paths on. This explains much about God's patience and love and forgiveness even when considering the events/actions of the day as they appear to our simple minds.
kjv@1Corinthians:16:3 @ @ RandyP comments: I may have mentioned before that the long distance transfer of monies was dangerous business back in this day. Not only did the actual envoy have to be fully trusted, I assume that diversions and disguises and stealth's had to be planned to avoid being robbed. Larger volumes of money may have to be sent out by multiple and less obvious means. A charitable Christian church was no doubt a target for thieves and a good place for them to plant conspiring informants. Paul's public announcement may itself be a ruse. This is my hunch and not a revelation. Would it be wrong if he did?
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:15:22 @ @ RandyP comments: The problem is that few of us have ever taken the effort of developing and maintaining a circle of wise counselors. It is a purposeful and extensive investment long before an issue ever arises. Knowing who to trust, who most sees things as they really are, having previous experience with them in smaller issues. Men seem to hold off seeking counsel until times where a circle of counsel cannot be mustered soon enough. Women tend to seek the wrong counsel, counsel that will tell you whatever they think you want to hear instead of counsel that is honest and fearless enough to tell you where you are wrong.
kjv@2Corinthians:2 @ @ RandyP comments: God causes us to triumph in Christ. He causes doors to open of the Lord and makes manifest the savour of His knowledge. To some that means life, to others death, to us sufficiency to speak forth. At times it requires strict obedience to those placed above us and at times it allows for forgiveness by proxy. There is great sorrow of heart and great joy as well, but, there is always thanks to God in all things.
kjv@Proverbs:22:7 @ @ RandyP comments: This is not to say that it shouldn't be this way. The majority of the poor are poor for the reasons explained here in the proverbs. They do not rule themselves so how should it be expected to rule well over others. The borrower rightfully owes the lender all that he has agreed to return else he would be a thief. It could be said that much of our nation's problem is not that we are overly compassionate but, that we are ruled by the poor and by debt that we have no intention of paying back. Debt and severe covetness have become our vision of entitlement and we blame the rich and the lender for our deepening woes.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Just days ago we had read kjv@1Corinthians:15 that the righteousness of God in putting us through this corruption was to break us down, have us die to ourselves that we might germinate to a spiritual plant/being (be born again). Here it says similarly the travail God has given the sons of men to be exercised with. From the observation from heaven it is a unnecessary and righteous thing and from our sense it is a grievous and sorrowful thing. This is because of the weight with which we invest ourselves into making something carnal out of this present corruption. We do not see the things under heaven as they were before nor the things as they will be. All is vanity, but, God submitted us to this vanity because of a much greater righteous hope kjv@Romans:8:20-23.
kjv@2Corinthians:10:3-6 @ @ RandyP comments: This is all one sentence. These items are connected as one. The idea of obedience coming before revenge is just as vital to the statement as the means of our warfare. tsk@2Corinthians:10:3-6 has some good links to look to.
kjv@Isaiah:8 @ @ RandyP comments: Imagine how the people reading and hearing this would feel and what they would be compelled to do. The obvious reaction would be to seek out confederate alliances with stronger nations, but even the stronger nations themselves will be overcome by Assyria like flood waters. They would seek out familiar spirits and the occult, the Lord then would completely hide His face. The fulfillment of God's righteous redemptive plan, the Messiah Himself would become a stumbling block, a rock of offense, they would be in the dark. Again, each and every word was fulfilled. And as for the 'rock of offense' it continues to be fulfilled even today.
kjv@Isaiah:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Should now we Gentiles glory that we have done better than Israel in obeying the Lord? No, no man shall glory except in Christ kjv@1Corinthians:1:27-31
kjv@Galatians:6:11 @ @ RandyP comments: I have heard theories that Paul may have been crippled or have a deformity in arm or hand. We have already summized that he could well have problems with his eye sight. We also know that he was beaten and stoned near to death on several occasions and therefore be severely damaged. The Galatians here would have been deeply moved by whatever this sentence points to; he does bear the marks of Christ.
kjv@Isaiah:19 @ @ RandyP comments: Let's not forget that the Lord has created all nations. The God of Israel is known by these nations mentioned after frequent encounters. Now He is making Himself obvious. Egypt to this day has a strong Christian presence.
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:50 @ @ RandyP comments: One that truly fears the Lord should walk in a confidence such as this. The Lord did not cause these things to happen but, His arm is not shortened that He can't get us out. He gives us the tongue of the learned, the ear to hear. He will be our help. If there is no light in us, He needs to be that light and that fire. BY this we will not be confounded and those that contend against us will not succeed for it is He that works through us. Fear the Lord, hear and obey His voice, walk in His light
kjv@1Thessalonians:1 @ @ RandyP comments: People do notice. There is not a particular individual mentioned here. The congregation is likely acting together as one, they are working and laboring doing things as a body that are being observed and talked about. One thing that stands out is that they are not doing what everybody else is doing, in this case having turned from idols. For this they suffered affliction yet withstood the pressure with patience and hope. Such things stand out and are talked about distances beyond our personal knowing and causing the gospel to be spread. Where can we stand out in our churches today?
kjv@Isaiah:62 @ @ RandyP comments: It may seem odd that there is such a focus on singular objects, Jerusalem and Zion in the age to come. Surely the focus will be on the Lord, but, the tangible proof of that focus will be these symbolic things. That the Lord has done this, that it is now viewed by others as He had said it would is the proof of His commitment. That we would come to do this in this manner is then proof of ours.
kjv@Jeremiah:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Signs of sin of the nation Israel here are refusing to be ashamed, adulterous idolatry, dealing treacherously, seeking salvation from hills and mountains, perverting ways, not obeying voice of Lord. In their division with Judah, which may have been rightful in and of its self, they had moved the their center of worship from Jerusalem to the two high places within their own borders to avoid having to go into Judah to worship. Which was a massive transgression. They were also fighting apparently over the possession of the Ark of the Covenant. The cure? Return from backsliding, acknowledge your transgression against the Lord and the scattering of your ways to strangers.
kjv@1Timothy:3:10 @ @ RandyP comments: One is proven blameless and found to be of good report before being considered for the position of deacon; not afterward or by the process of. The job isn't up to anyone who thinks that he might be a good candidate, it is up to the few that have proven themselves to be in very substantial and difficult ways. The powers of deacon and bishop are too tempting otherwise for those who simply seek to obtain that power for their own glory.
kjv@Jeremiah:11:3-5 @ @ RandyP comments: It all sounded well and fine at the time. God promises all of this and all they had to do is simply obey. They did not though in that day nor did they in Jeremiah's. No where along the way did they, they could not. This is the nature of sin. Despite all the good intentions from both parties the sin nature will not do that which is in the best interest. It always works against that thinking that it alone is in the right/has it's best interest at heart. It may not always be a conscious decision as well but, more as an impulse of the flesh that is intellectually justified after the fact. The purpose of God's dealings are to prove to us this nature so that the necessity and redemption of His Son's blood may be depended upon.
kjv@Jeremiah:12 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord promises that He will do all this but, it will not be without purpose, they will be brought back into their inheritance for one more test. Should they not pass that final test, He will utterly pluck the nation out of the land. He did just that. For nearly two thousand years Israel had been plucked/scattered and destroyed. Even the land itself largely became a desolate place. So when He had said 'But if they will not obey...' we could have guessed what their response was when they came back from this first testing was going to be.
kjv@Jeremiah:15 @ @ RandyP comments: Remember again why this has come about. This is not just the Lord being mean. He has given them plenty of opportunity which they have in no way ceased. There is idolatry in the temple, there is a lack of any judgment toward the needy and oppressed, they have hired themselves their own prophets, there is insolence and hardness of heart towards God and they will not turn from it. He has proven Himself to be patient for their return yet they have not. How does one deal with such a people to turn them without such stunning and obvious force?
kjv@Jeremiah:18 @ @ RandyP comments: Instead of turning to the Lord they intend to take it out on Jeremiah. This is how the evil imaginations of the heart work. Will the message go away? Will God not raise up a hundred more prophets just like him? What can be hoped to be gained if this is indeed the word from God? This is the problem, there is no word of God so thinks the heart. The word of God is whatever we want it to be. God is intending to judge them, they are intending to judge God.
kjv@Jeremiah:30 @ @ RandyP comments: Interesting that Jacob is mentioned here with all he was put in subjection to. We know how Jacob was finally made to prevail; not against his masters but with and for his masters to the miraculous deliverance of his own people. When is this to come? Has this all ready come about? Or is this something yet in the making?
kjv@Titus:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Having been reading through Jeremiah of late it is plain to see that not much has changed over these hundreds of years with the zealous Jew (they profess to know, in works deny, unto every good work reprobate). Structure and backbone are being developed in the early church with a focus on Elders and Deacons, in part to be able to withstand the pressures of these self serving gainsayers.
kjv@Jeremiah:37 @ @ RandyP comments: Have you ever had someone do everything they could against you only to later come back to you for advice? Jeremiah asks the obvious "why do you come to me, where are all your prophets, why not ask them"? Did Zedekiah really think that Jeremiah for the sake of some possible friendship or for the chance of being released would have anything other to say than what had already been said?
kjv@Jeremiah:39 @ @ RandyP comments: What do all these men of Judah think now? Was Jeremiah the source of their downfall? Or were they? Or was he the lone prophet willing to stand forth and warn the peoples? Did Jeremiah hoot and howler and brashly reply I told you so? Many of these men did not live to be able to hear nor think at all. The ones that did live had too many problems of their own to be thinking of such. And as for Jeremiah, perhaps the saddest and most broken of them all... a call out to the far distant king of Ethiopia next on Nebuchadrezzar's list.
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@Hebrews:5:7-10 @ @ RandyP comments: Christ learned obedience by what He suffered and thus was made a perfect high priest. We similarly learn our obedience by what we suffer for Him. One might say "wait... I am not suppose to suffer... I believe in Christ... He suffered for me". Christ obeyed the Father in suffering for us. He suffered what we could not and even would not for we were not capable of obeying to that extent. Yet we are supposed to obey in our own measure and often the only way to learn to obey is to suffer. In this case we suffer for/because of Him; for the stance we take/defend in Him.
kjv@Hebrews:6 @ @ RandyP comments: The belief is that Jesus arose to the right hand side of God the Father. The hope is that we will see and be with them there; that we too will enter because of Him. This hope is our anchor, it is our strong consolation, we take refuge in it, it enters within the veil. Along with this belief and hope there are evidences that accompany this salvation, living works, works that He does upon us, works of obedience that lead us toward His perfect obedience with a similar obedience of our own. Many of these works that we obey Him in are toward the saints and the brethren. Some, having tasted of this goodness, have still yet removed themselves from this obedience, from this hope, their living works having become dead works deceive them into a complete apostasy. They become as briers and thorns whose only use is to be burned.
kjv@Jeremiah:52 @ @ RandyP comments: What does this completion of judgment mean in the grand scheme of spiritual things? Does it mean the the experiment is over? Israel is finished and we move on to plan B? Does it mean that God has learned from His mistakes and will start up in a different fashion again? Or does it mean that there is something vital for all of mankind to understand? Something of our depraved sinful nature that even with promises, even with miraculous deliverance and provision, even with tremendous blessing and tremendous cursing and every sort of intention revival and effort, none of this has any effect upon the true core nature of man's deceptive heart. The heart does not obey because it cannot. The heart cannot be spiritual because it is not. All that we intend and invent and contrive is but utter vanity. What is blind cannot see. In this unfamiliar light we sense that only by His grace and by His election are we separated from this wretchedness.
kjv@Hebrews:9 @ @ RandyP comments: The purging of the conscience from dead works is one of the more interesting phrases in this passage. kjv@Hebrews:6:1 was the other mention of these dead works and in the context of that seems to center on the obedient works of Christ having their work on us by means of our obedience.
kjv@Hebrews:10:1-23 @ @ RandyP comments: Nowadays, minus the temple, there is no way for Jews to perform their sacrifices. I am sure that they have used some of these same scriptural quotes to justify their position, that the sacrifices weren't really needed in the first place. The problem for them still would be that there is no remission of sins without the sprinkling of blood. The Christian followers have not ceased from the sprinkling of blood, it is that the blood now is the blood of God's chosen one, the sacrifice He Himself provided as with Abraham, Jesus Christ. His sacrifice is once and for all and complete.
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:11 @ @ RandyP comments: I have often look at this definition of faith as if it was me looking out into life's vastness and seeing the evidences of what I hope; if I looked hard enough and sincere enough I would see actual proof. Suddenly I have considered that it may well be intended to be the reverse. If I truly believe, the activities of my life will naturally become living proof that I believe; my faith will become evident. I have faith despite the appearance here of things, I live forward out of trust. Like Abraham, others can discern that I believe by the manner I proceed in trust and obedience, what I am willing to sacrifice, how and where I am willing to sojourn, what spiritual promises I am willing wait long past my physical death patiently for and how such waiting guides me. Faith is not a collection of scientific insight, it is a substance born of hope.
kjv@James:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The bulk of passage speaks of the power of the tongue and that it is impossible for both blessing and cursing to come from the same source. In context this is tied to leadership (be not many masters) and to righteous peacemakers. It is obvious to see the workings of the tongue in our own small scale circles, less likely that we are even watching it in the larger scope of our diplomats and peace envoys and national/world leaders. The statements here are just as true if not more so for the fiery tongues in the United Nations as it is on the Gaza streets. For us to know this is to radically alter our world view.
kjv@Ezekiel:22 @ @ RandyP comments: We know by reading how God feels about Israel. We know how Israel feels about God. There is a broad gulf between them. How do the people of the heathen nations feel? What have they observed? Are they not as disgusted with Israel as God is? When the dispersed of Israel in numbers take refuge amongst them recounting the terrible blood and carnage in Jerusalem do they not take notice and see it as a warning?
kjv@Ezekiel:35 @ @ RandyP comments: The descendants of Esau from the Seir mountains, the Edomites are to be judged. Esau and Jacob had reconciled, but, his seed had renewed the quarrel and become frequent enemies of Israel shedding their blood. They had supposed that both lands Judah and Israel would one day be their own and had taken strength in the desolation of Israel. I am unsure of the time frame for this judgment as it seems to be when the whole earth rejoices (which may refer to the Millennium?). The Geneva notes call the people mentioned Idumeans, I'm not sure if there is a link.
kjv@1Peter:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Again Christ is given as the absolute example. Not only how He acted, but, how He saw Himself in the role of obeying The Father. Having this mindset more naturally produces these particular actions and influences this certain outlook. The picture is complete in the symbolism of water baptism, the good conscience answers to God, dying to the flesh and alive to the Spirit, fully immersed in sanctification. In the same way, whether in marriage, or business, or fellowship, conducting all daily activity being willing to suffer unjustly for His good rather than be condemned for participating in their bad. To the hope of perhaps saving some of their souls along with.
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:5 @ @ RandyP comments: Though addressing church elders initially, the message here applies to each of us. Humbling ourselves, casting our cares, subjecting ourselves to one another, being sober and diligent to resist the Devil, suffering willingly to the ends of perfection. Peter, I feel, is driving the point home that these worthy things are brought about by the constant feeding the flock and taking oversight.
kjv@1Peter:5:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Peter's motivation by now should be clear. It should be our motivation as well. Peter considers himself a witness of Christs suffering and a partaker in the glory to be revealed. Peter is this in the truest sense perhaps like no other having been there with Him. Thanks in great part to His testimony/obedience we are/can be this as well. The sufferings of Christ are so crucial to our proclamation because they point to the hands of those for whom He willingly suffered for. The glory to be revealed is equally crucial because it tells us that this was no ordinary man that suffered these things on our behalf, it was the very son of God, the promised one of Israel, the name above all names, Jesus Christ and Savior the King of all kings. Those that are thus inspired and motivated will be partakers of both the sufferings of and later the Glory of.
kjv@Daniel:1 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord is always moving ahead with His plans. As a nation Judah has now fallen into Chaldean hands but through the obedience of four young souls He plans to move Israel forward through the seventy year captivity. He has gifted these four with the skill, the knowledge, the situation and the opportunity needed. They won't be the only ones that He builds up and moves into place.
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:5 @ @ RandyP comments: You can imagine Judah as it looks out to see what is happening to Israel. One would hope that the sight of such would sober them up but, it does the opposite. There is wickedness in the midst, and man's wickedness takes the opportunity to expand in disaster where man's righteousness tends to hide. The Lord withdraws Himself as is best until they can acknowledge their offense.
kjv@Jude:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Compare this with 2Peter. In kjv@2Petter:1:5-8 contenders for the like precious faith begin by adding to their faith virtue (valor towards excellence) knowledge (revealed, spiritual) temperance (against similar brute knowledge) patience (persistence) godliness (living forward, spiritual obedience) brotherly kindness (striving for the unity of the Spirit) and charity (Agape love).
kjv@Revelation:2:1-7 @ @ RandyP comments: The all important first love. The church of Ephesus is doing a whole lot right. They contend for the faith as Jude would exhort, resist evil and suffer for Christ's name sake as Peter. Their first love no doubt was for Him as a person and for each other as His friends. For as much as they are doing right, they still need to obey the great commandment kjv@Mark:12:30-31.
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:12:4-5 @ @ RandyP comments: The angel Jacob wrestled with is the Lord.
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@Amos:1:11 @ @ RandyP comments: The forth reason for the four judgments, this on Edom itself. Edom, the descendants of Jacob's brother Esau in their unrelenting wrath not only received all the Israelite captives from Damascus/Gaza/Tyrus but pursued more with vengeance.
kjv@Amos:5:26 @ @ RandyP comments: The Ammorite god of fire Moloch has had influence upon this nation for a long time. Solomon had even built a temple to it during his decline. Chuin is probably the Phoenician god Saturn to whom human sacrifices were being made. The mention of the star I will have to look into. I do not know when the traditional Star of David came into use, but, is curious if the two would be similar.
kjv@Amos:8 @ @ RandyP comments: A famine from the word of God. You would think that the word of God is exactly what they need, that the word of the prophets would increase or that the initial scrolls would be uncovered or something. The problem is that they've had the word all along and have chosen not to do anything with it. It is often true that you never really hunger or thirst for something until it is taken away. You don't realize how much you needed it until it is no longer there.
kjv@Jonah:1:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Tarshish is estimated to be a far west sea port perhaps in Spain or northern Africa. Though we don't know for certain where it was we know that it couldn't have been farther nor harder for for Jonah to get to. Jonah was going well out of his way in disobeying God.
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@Nahum:1 @ @ RandyP comments: The name of the country changes. The time changes. The name of the prophet changes. The problem with false gods and false imaginations remains the same. One might ask, really what can the Lord be so mad about? Gods other than Him. One might say, well this is Assyria, what are they going to know about some Hebrew God? Nineveh knows all about Jehovah (see: Jonah)(they have already turned to Jehovah at least once). There is not much by now that any nation should not know about Jehovah. Do you think that Jehovah would be so angered and jealous if they had not had plenty of knowledge and opportunity?
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: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@Haggai:2 @ @ RandyP comments: Every generation seems to have it's spiritual project; much larger than any one person. They must learn to rely on the Lord and clarify the will and resolve towards spiritual matters. It is never a side project, something to work on when other successes have left you the time. Things are constantly needing to be rebuilt or repaired or restored or re-established. Battles are to be fought and won and obstacles spiritually overcome. Often specific men are called upon to lead such efforts, but surely it is a group process. God is willing to shake the heavens to make such projects work.
kjv@Zechariah:1 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord was displeased with Israel/Judah and He used the Gentile nations to correct them. But the gentile nations He used displeased Him as well and He will use them against each other to correct them. We have the sense that He has sent forth watchers to keep close eye on the dealings of these nations. He knows all; it is for the remainder of the heavenly host and for us that these things are being observed.
kjv@Revelation:18 @ @ RandyP comments: It is interesting to see the draw of this Babylon over men tied to trade and commerce. Many are made rich in the supply chain of her delicacies. The power that she has over them in great part is the power of them trying to make a living under her economic systems. That and their sheer reprobacy toward God. Heaven, the apostles, the prophets should well rejoice for her destruction for they are avenged on her sudden fall.
kjv@Zechariah:13 @ @ RandyP comments: The question may come to mind that if the Lord can cut off the names of idols and lying prophets in that coming day why doesn't He just do it now? The answer may lay in the object of a process we are being brought through to be able to identify and desire this ourselves as well. It is one thing for Him to cut off when no one knows what He is doing and why He is doing it and many possibly be angry or taken back by it, it is another to have everyone on board and aware and even participants along with Him in cutting it off. We are told here of parents willingly striking their wicked prophet son through. We are told here of a refining fire. In effect, what good does it do for the Lord to cut something off if it grows right back again? If it means cutting off more people than already need be cut off? If it can serve a better purpose temporarily being allowed?
kjv@Revelation:21 @ @ RandyP comments: The glorious new heavens and new earth. Jesus said that He goes to prepare a new place for us. It took Him six days to prepare the place that we are at. He has been over 2000 years preparing the place upcoming. It is a place obviously much different than this place, for one thing it is a place where the internal beauty of man's cleansed and purified heart unites as one to commune with its Lord and maker. In another way, it is a place where there is no more death, no more fear of death, no more pain, no more sorrow. It is a place too good to be true from a God too good for it not to be true. Today then, it is a faith, a hope, a truth unseen that guides us through the darkness of this day, an evidence of the long time goodness and intents of our Savior.
kjv@Malachi:1 @ @ RandyP comments: After this many years and this much history, it can still come back to the Lords consideration of Jacob and Esau. Something about Esau He hated and his descendants alike. Jacob He loved even though it has been a constant struggle. The descendants argue with the Lord at almost every turn when He says that they are doing this or that. Then there are the gentiles who the Lord wants to look on Him honorably, but, the religious inconsistencies of His chosen alter that perception. If Esau be this way and Jacob be another why does the Lord even continue with them? I believe the answer would be the same no matter who He choose, it is a matter of the truest nature of sin, the spirit of man is at complete enmity with God in all cases. In fact, the best results obtainable may be from Jacob's seed. Remember that is not from these people that the Lord will be praised it is from the actions of Lord upon these people, His incarnation and redemptive plan. The gentiles may be the first to see and bring Him honor, but, the lines of the two brothers will someday wonder what it is that the gentiles see and begin to wonder and look into it themselves.
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:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Throughout this book we have been shown how religion gets twisted. The Lord says that that they are doing this, but they say how are we doing that. Their own self perception and self justification has over stepped the bounds of how God sees it. No doubt they want to be religious, but, not in the manner the Lord wants them to be. One way perhaps to demonstrate this is in our tithes. God says that 'you are robbing me'. We say 'you are God, what do you need with money'. Clearly the principal is not the money, it is in to whom the money belongs. It is a simple test of ownership and a test of willing obedience. In this and so many other areas we have justified our way passed the actual principal.
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@Genesis:2 @ @ RandyP comments: There must be purpose to the delay of Eve's creation. We do not know how long of a delay, but, it was long enough for Adam know the need for a help mate. The other beasts were created male and female from the start and reproduced after their own kind, Adam was no doubt observant of such. Eve is taken out of Adam by a rib which makes her creation unlike any other. She was not taken directly from the dust.
kjv@Genesis:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Many liberal interpretations have been made of this story as to what the forbidden fruit might have been. The fruit however is not the import object here however, it is the transgression. The fruit could have been anything, the fact is that they were told not to do it, the transgression that they did it anyway. Some see the freedom of choice given Adam/Eve as broad as their own, and hold the freedom of choice as essential to sin. The fact is that because of the sin of these two all of mankind has been cursed and quarantined, the choice not to sin removed, not one man escaped. This is why the prophecy of a particular seed of Eve against the seed of the serpent.
kjv@Genesis:6 @ @ RandyP comments: Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God was not a 'what if' to him, He was a 'what was/is/will be'. As crazy as it might have sounded, Noah pushed forward with the obeying the command. No doubt he was aware of everything going on around him. No don't he sensed God's satisfaction. Notice that in this case Noah wasn't called to preach/deliver all who would believe?
kjv@Genesis:7:11 @ @ RandyP comments: It was water from below earth's surface perhaps super heated that broken through the crust that flooded the atmosphere raining doing heavily as it cooled. Much of the life that was was drowned in the instant and place where it stood. Geologic and fossil records today can be read if willing to suggest the same, something traumatic, catastrophic and global. If gap theory is believed this then would be the second lesser event of this type.
kjv@Genesis:9:5-6 @ @ RandyP comments: It is very common throughout civilizations that when a beast takes a man's life that the beast is put down. It is feared that once a beast has a taste for human blood, it will return for more. There is a common wives tale that once a man has crossed the line and struck his wife he will back for more. It is not always true, but true in enough situations that at least in the case of murder there is reason to expect more murder. If there is enough logical concern of human nature justifying capital punishment on civil terms (not just for discouragement to others), add to that it is God's express judgment as well, then just and thorough courts have every right/obligation to insist upon capital punishment for the murderous few.
kjv@Genesis:12:7 @ @ RandyP comments: This is the first of three times that the Lord appears to Abraham (kjv@Genesis:17:1 kjv@Genesis:18:1). If no one can look upon the Father and live the Lord must be the Son or else this is figurative. Jacob also has an appearance but, specifically states that he saw the Lord face to face kjv@Genesis:32:30 .
kjv@Genesis:13 @ @ RandyP comments: Lot choose his land selfishly and yet unknowingly his choice was the same as the Lord had already made. We often make the same seemingly obvious choices based upon appearances also. The wide open fertile land is not always the best choice just as the wide open door of opportunity. This choice turned out to be a big problem for Lot.
kjv@Genesis:20 @ @ RandyP comments: Remember that Sarah is an older women now and yet her beauty is still much desirable by kings. The king knows that he acted out of the integrity of his heart, the Lord knows it as well and warns him, but, the whole thing has the appearance of a threat and the functionality of a curse. How many other things might there be in our lives that are ways of warning us about grave danger that are likely perceived as threats? The Lord is protecting His chosen man as well who fears the unrighteousness of others, fears for his life the possible consequences of the obvious beauty of his wife. This event must have taken place over the amount of time for it to become noticeable that the kings maidservants were not birthing.
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 @ @ RandyP comments: Two nations... The elder shall serve the younger. Rebecca knew this from the Lord, but did Isaac? Isaac's love and preference for Esau is based on the taste of his venison. Did Isaac's love necessitate Jacob and Rebecca into having to commit trickery behind the father's back?
kjv@Genesis:27 @ @ RandyP comments: It amazes me how far some people have to go to pull off a deception. Wouldn't there have been a better way? Had Rebekah all along told Isaac the Lord's desire, had Rebekah this time confronted him soon as she heard, had Jacob petitioned his father to seek the Lord in this all important matter. Really, ask yourself, was the Lord's will ever in danger of being crossed up by the verbal blessings of Isaac? Why not then just trust, pray, fast if you have to, be honest and open and vocal, prove yourself worthy of a father's blessing.
kjv@Genesis:29:31 @ @ RandyP comments: Having children wasn't going to change Leah's situation with Jacob. She may of thought so, may have wished so, may have prayed for it to be so; for one reason or another it was just this way. Though the Lord had granted her children, they may have been more for her own good than for her marriage; that is one way to look at it. Perhaps the Lord wanted Jacob to change his heart, but, the decision was still all his; that is another take. Maybe this growing conflict between sisters is a sign of the internal tension amongst the tribes latter on. Either way, the Lord was moving on to begin his establishment of the twelve tribes starting with Leah's four sons. There may be design and will for each of us individually, but, there is also the overall plan/will as well. She may have come to this honest and sober conclusion by the time she had Judah. To have children in order to save a marriage is a huge burden for children to have to bare.
kjv@Genesis:30 @ @ RandyP comments: Some fun at the Jacob household huh? In the context of a single chapter I am sure our lives would sound pretty crazy as well. This home however? This is reality television material here! Seriously, life is what it is. God has to work in it and on it and through it and around it and somehow by the end make it work to His purposes. I am just glad it is Him that does it. I'm just saying!
kjv@Genesis:31 @ @ RandyP comments: In our day, we would have legal documents written and the weight of our legal system available to enforce such an agreement (whatever weight that be). In Jacob's day what was there beside a heap of rocks, an oath between men of questionable pasts, and a suggested threat of God's judgment? The Lord had made Himself clear to both men to this regard. It seems to me that this pact was an exercise of manly oneupmanship cloaked in necessary compromise. Maybe I am seeing it wrong!
kjv@Genesis:33 @ @ RandyP comments: Jacob had left the land previously in fear of Esau for his life. Now he returns cautiously by order of God. Esau seems surprisingly willing to accept him. The two jostle for gifting favor to each other. The Lord may want us sometimes to do something though it may be uncomfortable, though we may not feel the timing is right. Think if Esau had not been so cordial; would it still not be important for Jacob (us) to proceed forward anyway?
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:35:10 @ @ RandyP comments: His name is being changed from Jacob (supplanter) to Israel (he will rule as God). It not only marks a change in the present perception but, in the goal or direction spiritually for him to follow. Name changes were more common in that day and notated the turning over of a new leaf.
kjv@Genesis:35:22 @ @ RandyP comments: Leah's first born Ruben is sleeping with Rachel's handmaid Bilah who bore Jacob Reuben's brothers Dan and Naphtali. This is like sleeping with his stepmother, a woman that his dad has already slept with. Not good at all. The incident is noted here but, the consequence not fully discussed.
kjv@Genesis:37 @ @ RandyP comments: The harder we work against something at times, the quicker it comes to be. Did anyone stop to think that the dreams Joseph was dreaming might be from God? Did Jacob? If anyone did, their judgment was clouded by the image that they had of their brother/son. It is one thing to dislike a sibling but, to dismiss that God could work through them is another. Some brothers became uncomfortable with outright murder; that would have been a good place for them to check their intents, but to substitute murder with slavery and forgery not much different.
kjv@Genesis:39 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord's favor is always good even though it may not at present be observed as so. How other people react can cause the recipient trouble. Not only has his jealous brother sold him into slavery, his masters wife has sold him into prison. Joseph takes it all in stride believing in the Lord, thankful for the favor. Again he receives the Lord's favor in prison but, notice that the favor does not deliver him immediately from prison. Where His favor is leading us may be a lengthy process start to finish and involve tests of courage, obedience, and or patience. It is tremendous favor none the less.
kjv@Matthew:5:31-32 @ @ RandyP comments: mFaithOfJesus kjv@Matthew:5:31-32 BUT I SAY UNTO - The common understanding again falls short. The purpose of a writ of divorce isn't only to protect the wife, it is to curb the effectual adultery that would result. If either spouse is unchaste then adultery is made. If both spouses are being chaste but have grown tired and loveless therewith adultery will be made should either take a new partner. We are not released from an eternal vow just because we want it to be unless the defilement of the vow by the one has forced the God fearing decision of the other. We are seeing the weakness of the Law in that it is interpreted and implemented by the human heart that is already deeply influenced by sin. The human heart at it's sincere best is searching from the inside out to see what God may have meant by the commandment. The faith of Jesus is looking from the outside in, knowing as the Father would know, looking in on the injured and entrapped heart knowing it's faulty logic and reprobate reasoning.
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: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:47:30 @ @ RandyP comments: God had as much as promised Jacob this kjv@Genesis:46:4.
kjv@Exodus:5:2 @ @ RandyP comments: They are testing the waters of Pharaoh's with a much smaller thing, a three day prayer fest in the wilderness. Pharaoh's decision is not only based upon the request of the Hebrews, but, his image and perception of their God. In a sense he is absolutely right to ask who is this god and why should I obey him.
kjv@Exodus:7:2-5 @ @ RandyP comments: Because Moses and Aaron had obeyed in the first step even in apparent failure their knowledge of what God intends is being broadened further. Had they not obeyed previously they probably would not be coming to this next step. I would have been better for them to have started out knowing this additional information no doubt but, often we don't come by that knowledge unless we obey right off.
kjv@Exodus:9 @ @ RandyP comments: It concerns me how we might perceive how that the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart. Is the condition of the heart caused by the Lord or was it known that he would react in this way? Was Pharaoh created or coerced to be so? One almost gets the impression that with each plague that the heart relaxes and then hardens again. How much harder successively can the heart get? Other than the bricks and straw Pharaoh has not really lashed out, he simply has resolved not to let them go. I do believe that the choice of heart has been Pharaohs all along. The Lord knows his heart well enough to know how he will react and knows just how far He will be able to go in showing the rest of the world mighty works without immediately tipping Pharaoh's hardness over. It is a testament to just how hard and oblivious the human heart can be.
kjv@Exodus:10:7 @ @ RandyP comments: I think of some of the people that I have come across whose lives are utterly destroyed at yet seemingly they are oblivious to it. The mind/heart has a shrewd way of justifying itself even in the midst of desolation. Men that have lost absolutely every thing to drugs and alcohol living drink to drink behind a dumpster thinking that they are somehow better off this way, that it is everyone else that has the problem. God's mighty works are not simply finding ways to show off but, illustrations of just how far the human heart will go to avoid/disobey Him and His call.
kjv@Exodus:11 @ @ RandyP comments: Think about now how far we've come. From Moses being embarrassed and chided even amongst his own people, thinking that he had done the Lord wrong, to a spot where everyone but Pharaoh sees what is going on. Remember that Israel has done nothing of it's own. It is not by their good works nor even a pressing faith that this is done; they have not been called by a proven obedience. This has been done solely by God to fulfill a promise made to Jacob/Joseph centuries ago. Moses has played a role as has Aaron but not even they knew what to do or how much that it was going to take. Not one of these works could anyone have done themselves.
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:14:31 @ @ 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:15 @ @ RandyP comments: In this the Song of Moses it is easy to see the overwhelming jubilation and sense of God being able to do absolutely anything for the Israelites. In the very same chapter however we see that there yet remains a work that the Lord will have to do on them. Having the knowledge and the experience and the faith exhibited in this jubilation is one thing, having the heart to change from one's sinful nature and the heart to submit to His authority and obey quite another. The fact that it will take another 1500+ years before Christ arrives testifies to the gravity of the sin nature we possess to be exposed. We will see many a revival (many in recollection of this singular event) and we will see many similar jubilations, but, the weight of sin will in every case quickly blanket the spiritual exhilaration with grieving and bondage. Thus the need for Christ.
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@Exodus:16:35 @ @ RandyP comments: Not to get ahead of ourselves, but, it was forty years of Manna only because of their disobedience and lack of trust. Since the chapter began with God wanting to prove whether they would obey or no, we should know that almost immediately from outset onward the answer was no. For the manna obedience was somewhat locked in, it would spoil overnight and not grow on Sabbath. For the many other things God was doing the obedience was more voluntary. You have to remember also that these people were in a desert isolated from foreign influences and still had these disobedient tendencies. Is our nature any different? Where do we stand in our proving yet today?
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.
kjv@Exodus:19 @ @ RandyP comments: I don't think we have been told that there were priest be fore this. These were probably the priests Israel had before in the captivity. Moses must confuse their physical proximity to God on the mountain (which had been forbidden) with their spiritual proximity which is always encouraged. This third day must had been a fearful day.
kjv@Exodus:20:10 @ @ RandyP comments: It is easy for one to honor the Sabbath personally by setting all one's employees out to continue the work. The commandment applies to your use of them as well. One can disobey the commandment even when personally honoring it if the others that serve you are not included. Respect should be shown to those corporations today that follow the entire commandment not just the half.
kjv@Matthew:13:20-21 @ @ RandyP comments: From whom does the most pressure/persecution come from? Those just described as the wayside. Those here now without root expect peace and pleasantry. If the gospel is obvious to them it should be obvious to others they presume, and yet it is not obvious, ridiculed, divisive, persecuted against, even deadly. The young fledgling becomes disheartened, embarrassed, offended. A process - sunlight that is supposed to bring about growth instead kills off the plant. Though passive from ther out typically by number they are used by the wayside (therefore Satan) to increase the pressure on the remaining believers.
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.
RecentComments @ kjv@James:2:21 @ RandyP comments: Justification can be thought of on two scales, one being made right with God overall (this is by faith and faith alone), the second as proof one to another of our pre-existing overall faith (the faith that I have can be proven to you by the works that this faith has executed on/through me). If faith has not produced demonstrable works, one must wonder if that having been made right with God actually exists. For, the "made right with God" faith will unalterably cause corresponding demonstrable proofs. The larger scale justification is all important first and foremost, each of us must be made right with God by the imputation of Jesus' own righteousness covering over us. This is the justification Paul largely speaks to us of. The smaller scale justification then (and only then) is inevitable should this first condition be met. This is the obvious point James here in chapter 2 furthers.
So many unbelievers today look at Christian faith as a dead thing. One response is that they (unbelievers) want that to be. The opposing response might be that perhaps on an observable scale it indeed is dead is if we (Christians) have not the works to counter their disbelief with. Dead in this inference is to mean unprovable or yet to have tangible effect, not necessarily that the faith in some smaller but saving form does not exist.
RecentComments @ kjv@James:2:21 @ RandyP comments: Justification can be thought of on two scales, one being made right with God overall (this is by faith and faith alone), the second as proof one to another of our pre-existing overall faith (the faith that I have can be proven to you by the works that this faith has executed on/through me). If faith has not produced demonstrable works, one must wonder if that having been made right with God actually exists. For, the "made right with God" faith will unalterably cause corresponding demonstrable proofs. The larger scale is all important firt and foremost, each of us being made right with God. This is the justification Paul largely speaks to us of. The smaller scale justification then (and only then) is inevitable should the first condition be met. This is the obvious point James furthers. So many unbelievers today look at Christian faith as a dead thing. One response is that they (unbelievers) want that to be. The opposing response might be that perhaps on an observable scale it indeed is dead is if we (Christians) have not the works to counter their disbelief with. Dead in this inference is to mean questionable as to whether the first scale has actually been met.
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