Category: Joshua – Esther – Old Testament History

Old Testament History lessons: Joshua – Job

scriptures from Old Testament history. (Many lessons for a 21st c. world.) SHARE history’s lessons with your SOCIAL ‘Friends’ who think the TV News is ‘new.’ What is your WITNESS for Christ Jesus?

  • Saints & Martyrs; Bishops & Pawns

    Saints & Martyrs; Bishops & Pawns

    I want to tread this holy ground carefully, for some of you may be offended; yet please hear me out.

    911-vi911 NY TimesWe begin with the martyrs of 9/11/2001, a group of men determined for a religious cause, followers of radical Islam with a jihad vision of a Kingdom for Mohammed on earth, an angelic vision given to a prophet and a heavenly reward of intercourse with virgins given to martyrs for the glory of a prophet.

    911 fireman and people escaping tower911 fireball from groundHow easily (and for a short time) do the enemies of this earth remember the heroic actions of their dead. 911 defeated firemenHow quickly we forget the god whom we praised or the God to whom we cried out.

    Mankind knows no limit of evil nor glory forgotten by the sacrifice of human life.

    Yet to what end?  And for what reward?

    Are the rewards of heaven the same as those we crave for the desires of this flesh?

    We dismiss the passions of young men living lives of hopelessness, worshiping a past which glorifies war – a past which promotes culture of enforced righteousness on this evil place, a false hope of conquering peoples for the glory of the conquerors. It is nothing new under the sun.

    God is sovereign. God allows a time of evil to refine or humble mortal man. God allows the crumbling of mortal dreams into parched dust in need of the Lord’s cleansing life.

    Looking back: before America, before England, before Rome, before David and Israel; looking back to cultures of conquest and times of evil:

    Judges 4:

    And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. 2 And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 3 Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.

    4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time…

    [Read more of this story of war unfamiliar to me, (probably you), most Christians and most Jews. I point now to the song of the spoils of victory you will not hear preached in our ‘family sermons.’]

    Judges 5:

    Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day:

    2 “That the leaders took the lead in Israel,
    that the people offered themselves willingly,
    bless the Lord!

    19 “The kings came, they fought;
    then fought the kings of Canaan,
    at Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo;
    they got no spoils of silver.
    20 From heaven the stars fought,
    from their courses they fought against Sisera.

    28 “Out of the window she peered,
    the mother of Sisera wailed through the lattice:
    ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
    Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’
    29 Her wisest princesses answer,
    indeed, she answers herself,
    30 ‘Have they not found and divided the spoil?—
    A womb or two for every man…

    ‘A womb or two for every man’: the expected spoils of war. And how have the women of other lands become the concubines of conquering kings and warriors? The answer you know; for in the desires of the troops and warriors burns the lust of the flesh for the rewards of this life.

    Though some would explain away the motives of the victors (be they crusaders, knights, soldiers of the war we won or draftees into the foreign lands we lost), let’s be clear about the Biblical text.

    Have they not divided the prey?

    Plunder, spoil, booty, gain. (Does a young man not continue to refer to the desirable parts of a young woman as her ‘booty?’ The meaning here and still considers the sacrifice of virgins once protected by their defeated fathers, even the wives of slain husbands – a dividing of the gain of war.

    ‘A womb of two for every man’ is translated in some versions as: a damsel, a girl, a woman, a maiden, a female, ‘two ladies to every man.’

    The motive is clear. And is this not the same motive and false promise of heaven made to the men who commandeered these planes to fly into the buildings of the city on 9/11/2001? Nothing is new under the sun.

    Read the account of the battle. Sisera had not won the battle of the day. allahu akbarHis reward was same as those who shouted, “Allahu akbar,” as their plane martyred the lives of innocents at work in New York City and Washington D.C.

    Yet to what end? And for what reward?

     

    Sisera’s reward was no different than that of IS [or ISIS], who take spoils untold of young girls as they conquer the lands of the Middle East in 2014 for the kingdom of the devil and his prophet; young men with the weapons of atheists in hand, marching against the sovereign borders of their own Muslim brothers.

    And the Lord has allowed it.

    To be continued…

  • … your heart turns away …

    … your heart turns away …

    “But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. – Deuteronomy 30:17-18a NLT

    Thus says the LORD:
    “Cursed is the man who trusts in man
    and makes flesh his strength,
    whose heart turns away from the LORD. – Jeremiah 17:5

    1 Kings 11:

    Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love…

    4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done…

    9 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.

    11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you.”

    solomons jerusalem14 And the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. He was of the royal house in Edom.

    23 God also raised up as an adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada…

    25 He was an adversary of Israel all the days of Solomon, doing harm as Hadad did. And he loathed Israel and reigned over Syria.

    26 Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow, also lifted up his hand against the king.

     

    29 And at that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the road. Now Ahijah had dressed himself in a new garment, and the two of them were alone in the open country. 30 Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces. 31 And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes 32 (but he shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel)…

     

    I remind us that we are a rebellious people since the days of Moses. As Israel turned against the LORD under the leadership of Moses, so too did Israel turn against the LORD under the leadership of Solomon (and more-so under Jeroboam after the Kingdom was torn away).

    As the crowds would later desert Christ Jesus when His teachings called for faithfulness in the shadow of the Cross, so has the church fallen away to worship the gods of the flesh and spirits of the age. You with ears to hear, hear the voice of the Lord.

    For as God had warned Israel through Moses’ words — as God had warned in the days between the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of Herod — God had also warned Solomon and Israel BEFORE they turned away.

    1 Kings 9

    As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

    And the LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

    And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’

    But if you turn aside from following me,

    you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,

    then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

     

    Did it not happen, as the LORD said He would do?

    burning temple

    And this house will become a heap of ruins.

    Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say,

    ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’

    Then they will say,

    temple rubble‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them.

    Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.’”

    prayer at wailing wallDo you wail and lament what the LORD has done?

    Do you look to only to the salvation promised in the past and not to the redemption which the LORD has done?

    Do you pray for a Savior you will not obey?

    Do you long for this world and not the next?

    What high broken wall of disbelief stands between you and Christ Jesus, the One Lord and Savior of your soul?

    Matthew 23:

    Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples…

    • 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.
    • 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.
    • 10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.

    11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

    16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say,

    ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’

    17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?

    18 And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’

    19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

    20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.

    21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it.

    22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

    Christ Jesus IS Lord!

    God accepted His Holy Sacrifice for your sins.

     

    …but if,

    your heart turns away…

    Remember you are dust…

    Remember the resurrection to the Judgment of all souls…

     

  • But if…

    But if…

    “But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. – Deuteronomy 30:17-18a NLT

     God’s love for us is unconditional; yet God’s blessing is conditional – dependent on our obedience to His command.

    God speaks: in Person, through Christ, through scripture, through the Spirit — God shows us his will. We are free to choose. What will it be?

    God makes a covenant, God confirms a promise, God confers a blessing and what does it imply?

    Will the LORD not surely do what He has said?

    Yet we have a part to do. We have an action in the agreement. We have a choice.

    We sometimes pray for blessing, while we often live for curse. For we act knowingly against the will of God and the promise of our own mouth. We stand before heaven and earth making our vow, giving our word and pledging our allegiance before the Living and loving God and human witnesses. Then we sin and would hide from heaven and earth and witnesses the sins of our disobedience.

    We may even say (on Sunday occasion): Jesus is Lord.

    Yet is Jesus YOUR Lord?

    When will we repent and return to the Lord our God? It would seem by some of our witness on many occasions that we are no different than our Chosen forefathers.

     

    Deuteronomy 30

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Repentance and Forgiveness

    30 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, 2 and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you…

    11 “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off…

    14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

    15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

    If you obey… by loving the Lord your God…, then… the Lord your God will bless you…

    17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.

    You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.

    19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

    Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

    God charges Moses, as the Lord has charged His leaders – His Kings and His Priests, His Prophets and His angels:

    This is the will and word of the LORD.

    Will you not do it? For IF you do, I will bless you.

    BUT IF you refuse to obey, I must curse and not bless the one I would love.

    Moses once more sets before us the blessing and curse:

    Follow the LORD or perish without blessing.

    We know how soon God’s own chosen ones did turn against the Lord even after many reminders of blessing and cautions of consequence.

    Years later… 

     1 Samuel 1:3 Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord…

    1 Samuel 2:12 Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.

    27 And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him,

    “Thus says the Lord, ‘Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of Pharaoh?

    The Lord speaks here of Levi as Eli’s ancestral father of the house of the priests of the Lord.

    28 Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel…

    30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed…

    31 Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house… 34 And this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you: both of them shall die on the same day… ”

    Then Samuel faithfully spoke the word of the Lord to Israel as had Moses generations before.

    Hear his witness as Priest  anointed in place of his Eli’s two evil sons. Samuel would anoint Israel’s Kings; Saul here and David later.

    1 Samuel 12

    6 And Samuel said to the people, “The Lord is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

    7 Now therefore stand still that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that he performed for you and for your fathers. 8 When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place.

    9 But they forgot the Lord their God…  11 And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. 12 And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king.

    13 And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you. 14 If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well.

    15 But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king.

    Now both Priest and King are representatives of God’s chosen people before the LORD.

    20 And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. 22 For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

     Two generations (& 3 Kings) later

    1 Kings 9

    The Lord Appears to Solomon

    6 But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,

    7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8 And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”

    To be continued