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  • SHAKEN 2 “Think carefully about your ways

    SHAKEN 2 “Think carefully about your ways

    SHAKEN 2 of our 4-post series is an update of commentary on the January 6th crisis of 2021 following the insurrection and assault on Capitol Hill - a lingering malignancy which not-so-amazingly continues to shake the very foundations of freedom of WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES of America who must agaub think carefully about our ways.

    Think back carefully: Do YOU remember this recent history correctly?

    Capitol dome behind gate
    Trump State of the union address with Speaker Pelosi tearing up the President's speech text
    inciting disrespect for Government
    We hold these truths to be selfevident..
    “So help me God.”

    GOD & Government

    Although this series points to current events of the United States and the world, SHAKEN! is not a partisan political post, but a fleeting glace at government and the role of God in the leadership of nations.

    Our next post will point back to God and government at various times including this Prophet’s writings. So here’s the setting and time, NOT the US in A.D. 2021, but Persia in about 521 B.C., some 2500 years ago.

    Darius the Great was the third Persian King of the Achaemenid Empire

    About 50,000 Jews returned. In 536 B.C., they began to rebuild the temple (cf. Ezra 3:1–4:5) but opposition from neighbors and indifference by the Jews caused the work to be abandoned (cf. Ezra 4:1–24) – source: Commentary of John MacArthur

    • Where is the great City of David or the expansive Empire of Solomon of five centuries before?
    • Where is the rebuilt Temple of the Lord from the Book of the Law uncovered during the reign of a previous administration (of Cyrus and the Governor Nehemiah)?

    Prophecy of Aggeus (Haggai)

    In the second year of King Darius..

    בִּשְׁנַ֤ת שְׁתַּ֨יִם֙ לְדָרְיָ֣וֶשׁ הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ בַּחֹ֨דֶשׁ֙ הַשִּׁשִּׁ֔י בְּיֹ֥ום אֶחָ֖ד לַחֹ֑דֶשׁ הָיָ֨ה דְבַר־יְהוָ֜ה בְּיַד־חַגַּ֣י הַנָּבִ֗יא אֶל־זְרֻבָּבֶ֤ל בֶּן־שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל֙ פַּחַ֣ת יְהוּדָ֔ה וְאֶל־יְהֹושֻׁ֧עַ בֶּן־יְהֹוצָדָ֛ק הַכֹּהֵ֥ן הַגָּדֹ֖ול לֵאמֹֽר׃

    Thus saith the Lord of hosts, saying: This people saith: The time is not yet come for building the house of the Lord.

    Aggeus (Haggai) 1:2 DRB

    Darius the Great

    King of Kings
    Great King
    King of Persia
    King of Babylon
    Pharaoh of Egypt
    King of Countries

    Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider your ways!

    Haggai 1:5 NASB

    6 You have planted much
    but harvested little.
    You eat
    but never have enough to be satisfied.
    You drink
    but never have enough to be happy.
    You put on clothes
    but never have enough to get warm.
    The wage earner puts his wages
    into a bag with a hole in it.”

    7 The Lord of Armies says this: “Think carefully about your ways.

    WHY has this happened?

    Are theirs not the same questions as our political and religious leaders ask in these days of desperation?

    WHY has God allowed this?

    9 “You expected much, but then it amounted to little. When you brought the harvest to your house, I ruined it. Why?”

    This is the declaration of the Lord of Armies.

    “Because my house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.

    So on your account,
    the skies have withheld the dew
    and the land its crops.

    Haggai 1:9b-10 CSB
    esile to babylon


    11 I have summoned a drought
    on the fields and the hills,
    on the grain, new wine, fresh oil,
    and whatever the ground yields,
    on people and animals,
    and on all that your hands produce.”

    What is the PEOPLE’s response?

    12 Then..

    • Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,
      • governor of the Achaemenid Empire’s province Yehud Medinata led the first group of 42,360 Jews who returned from the Babylonian captivity in the first year of Cyrus the Great, the king of the Achaemenid Empire. – source: Wikipedia
    • the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak,
    • and the entire remnant of the people

    .. obeyed the Lord their God and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him.

    So the people feared the Lord.

    That was their response to the Lord God.

    Yet what answer now from ‘the entire remnant .. of the people’ from US?

    Washington DC mall

    God responds to righteous fear

    Haggai 2 – Encouragement & Promise

    3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Doesn’t it seem to you like nothing by comparison?

    Remember Zerubbabel their governor, the high priest Joshua and all of the people obeyed the Lord their God and therefore ‘So the people feared the Lord.‘

    The Lord’s declaration:

    • 4 Even so, be strong, Zerubbabel
    • Be strong, Joshua
    • Be strong, all you people of the land..

    Be strong, all you people of the land—this is the Lord’s declaration. Work! For I am with you—the declaration of the Lord of Armies.

    5 This is the promise I made to you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit is present among you; don’t be afraid.’”

    The LORD Who Leads

    Can you imagine WHY the LORD God would restore a broken nation whose LEADERS OF GOVERNMENT AND WORSHIP had not led ALL of the PEOPLE to repentance?

    In fact, Zerubbabel, Joshua and all the remnant of Israel once again bowed down in awe to the LORD, the God who had led them from Egypt and once again from Babylon.

    Yet hear the word of the Lord to US — for WE THE PEOPLE are a stiff-necked and rebellious people led by winds of wantonness and words of wrath which stand upon our own strong wills.

    For the Lord of Armies says this:
    “Once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.
    I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of Armies.

    Haggai 2:6-7 CSB
    To be continued... Shaken 3 - surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses

  • Looking Back – Nations in the eyes of the LORD

    “So nation was destroyed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every adversity. – 2 Chronicles 15:6 NKJV

    History from an eternal perspective

    We have begun this year of our Lord, 2018, in consideration of eternal time. Time beyond years and measurement shows a perspective of man peering beyond the beginning and ending of our mortal history.

    The Lord’s voice resounds through those God chooses in both spoken and written words. Therefore books of the Bible also relate stories of the Lord given to mortal men. 

    We occasionally hear God speaking through Prophets of events which the Lord will cause in the future. They speak of Israel and of nations familiar and forgotten. True prophets warn of the consequences of men and nations opposing the will of Almighty God.

    A few Prophets like Ezekiel, Daniel and John reveal events beyond the mortal timeline of all mankind, even to an apocalypse of the heavens and earth!

    Christ Jesus boldly proclaimed not only what was, but the unseen of time before man, now, and forever more.

    This Nation (U.S.) – Looking Back

    Without looking back Americans might not acknowledge some divergent views of actual history of our 17th century founding. (500 years, so long past; yet passes so quickly)

    Notice a Pennsylvania only east of the Alleghenies. You likely haven’t read how a George Washington surrender to the French may have led to the French and Indian War. 

    At the time of the U.S. Constitution, Colonial states claimed lands for future expansion.  America has always been a land of immigrants.

    We the people, while opposing fading European empires, conquered a new world from native nations. Then we the new world people defended it against immigrants from foreign lands of origins other than our own.

    Spain, England, France and other empires expanded then diminished, even to the point of America coming to their aid in the great wars of the twentieth century.

    Yet who remembers the fall (or even existence) of empires besides Rome?

    A Lesson for the Nations from Israel

    What does all of this have to do with the Bible, you may ask?

    Deuteronomy 9:

    “Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven..

    4 “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you.

    Israel would not only ignore the voice of the LORD though its Prophets, God’s own chosen people would ignore the Law given for their own holiness. A people of tradition has rejected its own traditions of the Lord their God.

    And empires to follow, including Spain, Great Britain and now the United States of America, which sometimes make claims to new lands of milk and honey, reject the rule of the Righteous One.

    The Lord God brings nations to renewed hope and crushes wickedness in the wilderness of the unknown.

    History beyond claims of conquerors & contentions of analysts

    We the people of the Lord really must hear more than quick sound-bytes of this hour. Godly men and women should seek more than a 60 second headline to the crowds.

    Even now, a boisterous tyrant or reasonable king may proclaim in an instant his partism message of good or evil. Will the world look beyond the agendas of mortals to the written word of Almighty God? Rarely, only the faithful.

    The Lord will lead a remnant of all the nations to eternal life. God has revealed His plan and chronicled events of the past for our understanding.

    Moses did not write the Books of the Law as the events unfolded. The LORD revealed the Beginning, the generations of Noah & Joseph, a great leader of Egypt. God gave instructions to priests, elders and common men and women. In addition to prophesies of the failings of Israel and other nations, the Bible records events for the discovery of God’s will in later generations. Yet will you read God’s word and claim its cautions?

    Looking Back

    “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’… 

    This caution to a new conquering empire (Israel) might well serve as a lesson of history to many 21st century nations.

    This series will continue with scripture written or chronicled as historic evidence of events for others to read later.

    Stay tuned and read your Bible. It’s all there – history, that is; but we just give a headline glance to most of these pivotal events. For after all, it was a long time ago. What could that matter to a 21st century Christian?

    To be continued..,

     

     

     

     

     

  • A Temporary Throne – 22

    A Temporary Throne – 22

     And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. – Genesis 6:5 KJV

    CHAPTER 22

    THE LORD confused the men who would make a name for themselves. Their babble was unintelligible to me (but I have never had understanding of other languages). When they confused the meaning of one another, they began to bicker and ultimately go their own ways. (Is it not also true of those of the same language?)

    Yet I saw that men traveled to the ends of earth to ‘make a name’ for themselves.

    God had remedied the result of the sin of the moment, but God could not cure the root of our original sin, that ‘the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.’

    And I saw their names and their aspirations on the tops of buildings and stadiums and on images of man, carved into stone and erected for the glory of men and not the glory of GOD.

    The buildings gathered men to glorify men like Pharaoh and Caesar. Men gathered to worship idols and colossus of men great in their own eyes: men who are not GOD. Statue and structure, large and small, glorified man and beast and the desires of every imagination of man’s heart, which is only evil.

    Buildings grew and strengthened with the knowledge of men, from the dust and water baked in God’s sun to the sand and ore of the earth forged in the heat of man’s own desire – desire to glorify the evil workings of his own sin-forged heart, which is only evil.

    I saw names of men, and not GOD, men like: Washington, Eiffel, Rockefeller, Sears, Trump and many more. I saw buildings standing in pride to the glory of men I do not know; buildings for companies of men invested in speculation of empire of riches taken from men, the imagination of whose hearts is only evil.

    The Lord showed me rise and fall of empire and building: from ancient Babylon and Thebes; to beyond London, New York, Taipei, and Dubai. All built to the glory of mankind, by secretive men and women, whose desires of their hearts from youth are only evil.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved by the author.