In a dream last night, I was given this sense that, in addition to the One Year Bible program readings which I re-started today, I also ought to read Acts 17. Besides the super-important Bereans passage (Acts 17:11b, “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so”), I noticed this (Acts 17:21, 30-31). It seemed timely:
Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. [Many today are also consumed with following the latest news, as if from it, eternal truths might somehow emerge.]
Paul tells the Athenian crowd that:
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
When they don’t take the message to heart, but ask to hear more (for entertainment and endless debate), he simply leaves. Other items that stood out to me this morning:
And on every lofty mountain and every high hill [i.e., every nation and principality] there will be brooks running with water [i.e., churches, providing living water], in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow. Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire; his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.
I found Isaiah 31:2c,d & 3c,d,e particularly challenging/convicting given my corporate consulting:
[The Lord] will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity… When the Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.
Three other quick hits that hit me:
Isaiah 31:6 (a command): “Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.”
Psalm 1:5a & 6b (a fact): “…the wicked will not stand in the judgment… the way of the wicked will perish.”
Proverbs 1:7 (a classic, tying back nicely to where we started, in Acts): “For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.
(Jude 1:3-16 KJV)
[link added -ed.]
By: Tigger23505 on July 1, 2009
at 10:51 am