American Loon

All Glory to God our Father

Let us turn to Isaiah 49 and go through this wonderful message of hope and affirmation to the people of Israel, from their Creator and God.

Salvation Reaches to the End of the Earth
1 Listen to Me, O islands,
And pay attention, you peoples from afar.
The Lord called Me from the womb;
From the body of My mother He named Me.

It was a Hebrew custom back in that day to call people from beyond the sea islands, for obvious reasons. Elohim (Hebrew for God) is bringing up 2 points here. He is not just talking to Israel here but to us Gentiles, in fact the whole world. And the Jews would wonder at this. We talked about this last week. Gentiles were not included in the Jews’ spiritual world view. They thought their Messiah would come and smash the Gentiles and they, the Jews, would then have the entire world as a “Promised Land”. They were so convinced of their Christ, which is a title not a name, as Christ is a Greek translation of Messiah. He would come as a King and military commander that would throw off the heavy hand of Rome and continue on from there. We are talking still about 600 years into the future so most of this message and what Isaiah had spoken of in the past, I am pretty sure went right over their heads. They had eyes to see, but did not, ears to hear, but would not. It is ever the same, then as now.
The second point is that our Messiah will be born of a woman, indicating that he would be born human. John 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

2 He has made My mouth like a sharp sword,
In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me;
And He has also made Me a select arrow,
He has hidden Me in His quiver.

We find another reference to this sharp sword in Revelation 19:15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.

God has given power to His Servant (Christ) to speak effectively and thereby to conquer His enemies.
I do love how this is stated “In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me”. Meaning that Christ was held hidden until the time He was needed. This is still the case, as with the first coming and now the second. We have prophecy pointing to about when, but not precisely so. The books of Daniel and Revelation give us clues but no one knows but the Father. That is found in quite a few places in the New Testament. We will use this one. Mark 13:32 But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
And yet, we argue about this endlessly. The hubris of Man.

3 He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel,
In Whom I will show My glory.”
4 But I said, “I have toiled in vain,
I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity;
Yet surely the justice due to Me is with the Lord,
And My reward with My God.”

This Servant, Israel, is still Christ. Verse 4 is referring to the first coming in which the Servant was met with rejection by his nation. It must have seemed to some as a failure because of his crucifixion and death on the cross. Only criminals died like that. But Christ defeated death, “and rose again on the third day, He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
We know this as the Apostles Creed.
The Lutheran Church always says it and the Baptist Church never does. You can add the Lord’s Prayer to that list also. And I believe it comes down to the idea that if you repeat something, so often, that it becomes something less than it was. It is no longer relevant, just part of the service. I would agree to that in regards to those “Christians” that go to Church because that’s what “good people” do. If the only reason you go to Church is to be seen and then go home and continue life without any evidence of Jesus in your actions, and there are many of these, well, REPENT SINNER! THE END IS NIGH!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist that. It seems everyday is just one day closer to me standing on the corner with a cardboard sign, shouting at cars.

5 And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him
(For I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
And My God is My strength),

It is the Servant’s mission to bring Israel back into the fold, where they will finally look up and see their Messiah, their King and think to themselves, OH! What have we done?

6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also make You a light of the nations
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Let’s go to Luke 2 and read this wonderful prophecy when Jesus was but a wee lad.

Luke 2:25-32
25 And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, 28 then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,

29 “Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace,
According to Your word;
30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
31 Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 A Light of revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel.”

There will be people, those who have not been snatched up in the Rapture, they will still come to Christ and it will be through the Remnant of those Jews that are left, after they have been winnowed down. 144,000 Jews will fulfill the role they were destined to have and be effective evangelists to the rest of the world.

7 Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One,
To the despised One,
To the One abhorred by the nation,
To the Servant of rulers,
“Kings will see and arise,
Princes will also bow down,
Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”

Christ was the Suffering Servant, as found in Isaiah 53, despised by all in power. That day will come when every knee will bow. Philippians 2:10 So that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

8 Thus says the Lord,
“In a favorable time I have answered You,
And in a day of salvation I have helped You;
And I will keep You and give You for a covenant of the people,
To restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages;

The Grace of God had been bestowed upon sinners and in that day to come, His Servant will accomplish the final deliverance of Israel.
Paul used the context of verse 8 to the Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 6:1-2 And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain— 2 for He says,
“At the acceptable time I listened to you,
And on the day of salvation I helped you.”
Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation”

Truly, now is the acceptable time for your salvation. If you have not accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, repented your sins, GET ON IT! God is waiting, with his hand held out toward you. And He knows absolutely everything of your life. Come to your Father, your life awaits you, not here, but in Heaven.

9 Saying to those who are bound, ‘Go forth,’
To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’
Along the roads they will feed,
And their pasture will be on all bare heights.
10 “They will not hunger or thirst,
Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down;
For He who has compassion on them will lead them
And will guide them to springs of water.
11 “I will make all My mountains a road,
And My highways will be raised up.
12 “Behold, these will come from afar;
And lo, these will come from the north and from the west,
And these from the land of Sinim.”
13 Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth!
Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains!
For the Lord has comforted His people
And will have compassion on His afflicted.

Those who are bound, those who are dwelling in darkness, and there are many of us afflicted.
Depression, pain from the body breaking down, yoked to whatever you have yoked yourself to.
Revelation 7:16-17 16 They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away.

Promise to Zion
14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And the Lord has forgotten me.”

We are ever ungrateful, God doesn’t listen to my prayers. Hmm. Have you repented your sins to Him, really? Is there something that you’ve done that you know is wrong, for we all know the right and wrong of things, that you’ve hidden from Him? Hidden? Did you miss the part where it is said that He knows the count of the hairs of your head. Luke 12:7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

To which God responds in the next verse.

15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

Because I’ve become sensitive to this, it caused me to do a search of which denominations or churches support Planned Parenthood, which is is a polite way of saying, which churches support abortion.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/

I was horrified at the result. It would have been better to have asked which churches don’t support abortion. Google has an interesting algorithm that even if you asked the negative of that question, you get the positive first and foremost. I ask all of you to investigate on your own to find out what your church does and does not support. If you don’t know where to start, I would ask the Pastor what they believe in. But you might say to yourself, “Well my church might support that stuff, but I don’t and never would”. Well done stalwart defender of the Faith (I say in my ironic voice). Did you know, that if a church or denomination supports Planned Parenthood, some of the money you give to the collection plate goes to Planned Parenthood.
Even if you don’t support what the church supports, and I would wonder why you would go to a church like that, your money is sent in support of whatever the church supports. Many of these churches have people that just can’t be bothered to cause a fuss, Swedes are like that, you know. They just want to go, have coffee with men or ladies, chat and laugh, sit through the sermon, sing a few songs and go home.

Jesus doesn’t want to cause a fuss at Judgement time either. He’ll just say, “I never knew you” and that’s that.

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

Remember last week when I asked how much satan in your life is too much? It’s up to you and God.

16 “Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.

There is Jewish custom, referred to in Exodus 13:9 And it shall serve as a sign to you on your hand, and as a reminder on your forehead, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth; for with a powerful hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt.

So they would puncture their hands with a symbol of their city as a sign of devotion.

17 “Your builders hurry;
Your destroyers and devastators
Will depart from you.
18 “Lift up your eyes and look around;
All of them gather together, they come to you.
As I live,” declares the Lord,
“You will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride.
19 “For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land—
Surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants,
And those who swallowed you will be far away.
20 “The children of whom you were bereaved will yet say in your ears,
‘The place is too cramped for me;
Make room for me that I may live here.’

After the faithful remnant is gathered in salvation and the Gentiles are brought to faith in the Kingdom through Jewish witnesses, millennial Jerusalem will not be large enough to contain all its inhabitants.

21 “Then you will say in your heart,
‘Who has begotten these for me,
Since I have been bereaved of my children
And am barren, an exile and a wanderer?
And who has reared these?
Behold, I was left alone;
From where did these come?’”

The Jewish perspective is too narrow and always has been. She has seen herself as a widow, abandoned by her true Husband, the Lord. God has not forgotten or abandoned her. While the symbolic Jewish widow was weeping and feeling sorry for herself, the Lord was preparing lasting legacy for her, preserving her remnant and bringing her back safely from Babylon.

22 Thus says the Lord God,
“Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations
And set up My standard to the peoples;
And they will bring your sons in their bosom,
And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.
23 “Kings will be your guardians,
And their princesses your nurses.
They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth
And lick the dust of your feet;
And you will know that I am the Lord;
Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame.

Those mighty men, Rulers and Princes that oppressed them will now serve and care for them.
Lick the dust from your feet and know that I am the Lord. And keep in mind that our Lord is judge over all. We have no part in that judgment. Sometimes we suffer to the Glory of the Lord.
1 Peter 5:10 10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

24 “Can the prey be taken from the mighty man,
Or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?”

25 Surely, thus says the Lord,
“Even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away,
And the prey of the tyrant will be rescued;
For I will contend with the one who contends with you,
And I will save your sons.
26 “I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh,
And they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine;
And all flesh will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior
And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

God’s deliverance of Israel will be so dramatic that the world will recognize that the Lord, the Savior, the Redeemer and Mighty One of Israel is the true God.
Ezekiel 39:7 My holy name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel; and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.

Habakkuk 2:14 For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.

Let us end with Psalm 115
Glory to God Alone
1 Not to us, Yahweh, not to us,
but to Your name give glory
because of Your faithful love, because of Your truth.
2 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven
and does whatever He pleases.

4 Their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.
5 They have mouths but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk.
They cannot make a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them are just like them,
as are all who trust in them.

9 Israel, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and shield.
10 House of Aaron, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and shield.
11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and shield.
12 The Lord remembers us and will bless us.
He will bless the house of Israel;
He will bless the house of Aaron;
13 He will bless those who fear the Lord—
small and great alike.

14 May the Lord add to your numbers,
both yours and your children’s.
15 May you be blessed by the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
16 The heavens are the Lord’s,
but the earth He has given to the human race.
17 It is not the dead who praise the Lord,
nor any of those descending into the silence of death.
18 But we will praise the Lord,
both now and forever.
Hallelujah!

All Glory to God our Father

Today we will go through Isaiah 48 and marvel that this chapter, written about 2,600 years ago, could be written for us today. We gentiles, through the ministry of Paul, after the Jews had rejected their Messiah and their role of ambassadors of Christ’s church unto us, we gentiles have now become sons of Abraham. And this would have scandalized the Jews of that day as we were reviled as pagans, idolizers and generally unpleasant people. Not that the Jews hadn’t worshipped a golden calf or 2 during most of their history. We are a different people, but God knew that and knew that the Jews would be obstinate, but gave them the free will to do what they would. And because the Jews played their strong suit, which for them was obstinently stupid over the patently obvious, God sent his Apostles to the Gentiles, which caused the Apostles to stumble around a bit until they got with the program

Here we find Peter had a dream from God:
Acts 10:9-16
9 On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.
10 But he became hungry and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance;
11 and he *saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground,
12 and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air.
13 A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!”
14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.”
15 Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”
16 This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.

So what separates us from the Jews is circumcision and what we eat. But what is unclean and where did that idea come from? You have to go back another 500 years, when Moses was leading them out of Egypt to the promised land, God came to them, and he did that a lot back then, and told them what to eat and what not to eat.

Leviticus 11:1-8
1 The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them,
2 “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth.
3 Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat.
4 Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you.
5 Likewise, the shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you;
6 the rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you;
7 and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you.
8 You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

So you see, there were things they could eat and very specific things they could not eat. And I believe the whole “what you eat” thing came from wanting to separate them from what they had done in Egypt, the eating, customs and such. They had lived in Egypt for 430 years and the Egyptians were a Godless people. They had many gods of the small “g” variety. I believe God wanted to have a very clear separation between these 2 peoples, so they didn’t become Jews that acted like Egyptians in the promised land.
Also, sanitary conditions in the hot desert, with close proximity to around 2 million neighbors, made it necessary for God to spell out exactly what to eat and how to prepare it.
Exodus 12:37 37 Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children.
I have no idea why women didn’t get mentioned in this passage. It might be a Hebrew thing of you don’t state the obvious.

So food made us different from the Jews, and that got Peter in trouble with Paul. Peter came to Antioch while Paul was there. In fact that is why Peter and Paul were in the same place. Paul had just been officially accepted by the Apostles as one of them after 14 years of going out among the gentiles and preaching that Jesus is our Savior. This was a big relief to Paul, not that he needed to be justified by men when Jesus was his boss, but it’s nice to be accepted by whom you work with. Peter at this time had been hanging around with gentiles, living with them, eating with them and going native, as the saying goes. Then, some Jews who were labeled “so-called believers” because they were false ones, show up and give Peter the stink eye for living like a gentile. Peter, who had exhibited poor choices in his day, starts to shun the gentiles and act like the false believing Jews. Paul, with his brand new and shiny Apostle badge, decides that Peter needs to be publicly spanked back into doing the right thing.

Galatians 2:11-21
11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong.
12 When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.
13 As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14 When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?
15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles.
16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
17 But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not!
18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.
19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God.
20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

There is nothing in the Bible that stated how red Peter’s face became when this happened, but that’s probably a good thing, as we would still be arguing about it.

What I have done is separate out the Jews from ourselves. The Jews did not and still have not accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior and quite often had trouble accepting the Father, too. And we will see that in Isaiah 48. What we will also see is how this book not only speaks of the past but talks to us today. Keep in mind that people, unbelievers, will scoff at that idea.

A prime example of why you should not send you children to college these days.
William Dever, a professor of archaeology from Lycoming College. “I doubt that the miracles attributed to him ever took place. I don’t think he led three million Israelites out of Egypt in an exodus across the Sinai. This was on ABC online news from Dec 28, 2012.

Jude:17-20
“Dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ said before. They said to you, “In the last times there will be people who laugh about God, following their own evil desires which are against God.” These are the people who divide you, people whose thoughts are only of this world, who do not have the Spirit. But dear friends, use your most holy faith to build yourselves up, praying in the Holy Spirit.”

2 Peter 3:3-8
“First, you must understand this: In the last days people who follow their own desires will appear. These disrespectful people will ridicule God’s promise by saying, “What’s happened to his promise to return? Ever since our ancestors died, everything continues as it did from the beginning of the world.” They are deliberately ignoring one fact: Because of God’s word, heaven and earth existed a long time ago. The earth appeared out of water and was kept alive by water. Water also flooded and destroyed that world. By God’s word, the present heaven and earth are designated to be burned. They are being kept until the day ungodly people will be judged and destroyed. Dear friends, don’t ignore this fact: One day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”

Don’t get sidetracked with these boys talking about the “Last Days.” We are focusing on the here and now. Let us turn to Isaiah 48.

Israel’s Obstinacy
1 “Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are named Israel
And who came forth from the loins of Judah,
Who swear by the name of the Lord
And invoke the God of Israel,
But not in truth nor in righteousness.
2 “For they call themselves after the holy city
And lean on the God of Israel;
The Lord of hosts is His name.
3 “I declared the former things long ago
And they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them.
Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.
4 “Because I know that you are obstinate,
And your neck is an iron sinew
And your forehead bronze,
5 Therefore I declared them to you long ago,
Before they took place I proclaimed them to you,
So that you would not say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.’
6 “You have heard; look at all this.
And you, will you not declare it?
I proclaim to you new things from this time,
Even hidden things which you have not known.
7 “They are created now and not long ago;
And before today you have not heard them,
So that you will not say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
8 “You have not heard, you have not known.
Even from long ago your ear has not been open,
Because I knew that you would deal very treacherously;
And you have been called a rebel from birth.
9 “For the sake of My name I delay My wrath,
And for My praise I restrain it for you,
In order not to cut you off.
10 “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
11 “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
For how can My name be profaned?
And My glory I will not give to another.

Deliverance Promised
12 “Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called;
I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.
13 “Surely My hand founded the earth,
And My right hand spread out the heavens;
When I call to them, they stand together.
14 “Assemble, all of you, and listen!
Who among them has declared these things?
The Lord loves him; he will carry out His good pleasure on Babylon,
And His arm will be against the Chaldeans.
15 “I, even I, have spoken; indeed I have called him,
I have brought him, and He will make his ways successful.
16 “Come near to Me, listen to this:
From the first I have not spoken in secret,
From the time it took place, I was there.
And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”
17 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,
“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit,
Who leads you in the way you should go.
18 “If only you had paid attention to My commandments!
Then your well-being would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
19 “Your descendants would have been like the sand,
And your offspring like its grains;
Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence.”
20 Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans!
Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this,
Send it out to the end of the earth;
Say, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.”
21 They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts.
He made the water flow out of the rock for them;
He split the rock and the water gushed forth.
22 “There is no peace for the wicked,” says the Lord.

Some things that caught my attention:

Verse 1: We swear by the name of the Lord – But not in truth nor in righteousness.
Yes, quite literally. I am talking about how we use the Lord’s name in vain. You say “that’s not the true sense of the term here.” Yes and no. If we are dealing with a strictly English translation of this term, I am going to interpret it as having 2 meanings. One, taking the Lord’s name in vain and two, swearing our dedication to God, falsely. I heard it a couple of nights ago, on the phone. A relative of mine, one that I had not seen in 45 years, had contacted me, wanting to chat and get back together. When asking about me, I gave her my now standard answer of my life really started in 2018, because I accepted the Lord and everything before was of no consequence, in fact bordering on garbage. I then dropped into a mini sermon, asking of course, has she accepted Christ? “Oh, I’m good” she tells me. She states that she’s not really religious, but she’s good with God. Oh really? How good is God with you? John 15:2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

You may have lived a charmed life, and by her account, she has, but all that is for naught if you haven’t accepted and repented with Christ. And that small matter of faith without works is not faith at all.

James 2:14-26
14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
18 But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;
23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.
24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

Verse 4: “Because I know that you are obstinate, And your neck is an iron sinew And your forehead bronze” – How stubborn of a people are WE? You all know the word of God or at least you know some of it. However, we are a fallen people, all of us. And as of the Saved, the Holy Spirit is within you. The Bible tells us not to associate with sin.The short version is 1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
I will also throw in Proverbs 13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

What am I getting at, you ask? Well, you rub up against evil and evil will cling to you. And if you continue to rub up against evil, willfully, a lot of times, not really even considering it to be evil, it’s just what I do, what I have always done. How can that be bad? I just want to be entertained, you say. At what cost, I ask? Our culture has corrupted us, dulled us with what it does, we don’t even feel the wrong of it. I am not going to point a gnarled finger at any one thing. I say gnarled as that is all my pointer finger is these days.
The Holy Spirit, that part of God that is in you will convict you if you have taken what I have said here to heart. Let me now warn you that I am no prophet, no apostle, nobody special at all. Just some shlub that got the nod to do Bible Study and you are free to completely blow off what I say. It is between you and God. But be warned again, that if you continually rub up against evil, “oh it’s just a little evil” you say. Can you be just a little pregnant, I ask? The Holy Spirit will back off, your prayers to God could wind up in the spam filter. And eventually the Holy Spirit will “give you up unto whatever you willingly persist in doing.

Romans 1:24
Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
This is God talking about lusts of the hearts, but God will throw his hands up and let you do your thing. Free will to honor Him or to walk away.

Verse 5: Therefore I declared them to you long ago,
Before they took place I proclaimed them to you,
So that you would not say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.’

We are not much on molten images these days, but we’ve pretty much replaced them with LCD screens or the big screen. I would call the entertainment industry our Babylon of today. We have a large segment of the population that have at least 3 generations trained through habituation and hooked on whatever comes across the boob tube. And then the internet comes along and boy howdy did that change things. Now we can instantly communicate with just about anybody without ever seeing their face. Back when a couple of boys from Israel made a program called ICQ, it allowed a user to chat with anybody around the world that was using the same program. My wife and I had friends from all around the world. Friends close enough that we thought we could travel and see them, all around the world and it revolutionized our concept of friends and what the internet was. This was around the late 1990’s. It was during this time that I was running my little slice of the internet. I managed a dial up service for around 1100 customers in Ruidoso NM. It was there that I started to see the dark side of what instant and anonymous communication meant on the Information Superhighway. Gambling, Porn, Cyber Theft, viruses that would infect your computer, you’d never know it, and steal all your information and then your computer would infect all your friends’ computers because that’s the way they programmed it. Even then, though I was not a Christian as I know it today, I was taken aback at what I saw.
I am pretty sure that the internet is how the final Antichrist will gather his followers so quickly. So let me change what I said. Hollywood used to be our Babylon and still has an attraction. The internet has now taken over as our Babylon.

Verse 13: “Surely My hand founded the earth,
And My right hand spread out the heavens;
I refer back to the university professor making claims of disbelieving the Bible. I have heard it from my own family. Disbelievers will claim that this world is the only thing that is real and the book you are quoting from is a fairy tale.
OK, buckle up, I am going to take another swing at this.
I hope you are aware that the entertainment industry that is so valued in our society is almost wholly composed of Godless people, and they are not shy about telling you that.
Whose master do you suppose they are serving? You might kid yourself and think, I can sit through all the cursing, innuendo, sex and killing and not be affected by it. Really? What is satan’s goal in all this? To dull your senses to sin, so that you are increasingly numb to what is paraded in front of your eyes. All in the name of entertaining you and keeping you happy. The command from Jesus was to love your neighbor as you would love yourself. This is in Mark 12:31. And how will you do this when you are so numb to sin that your neighbor is seen as more of an adversary to be wary of, than someone in need. There is evil in this world and it is in the form of keeping you happy and occupied. That is the supreme irony. What we comfortably consume would be the thing that keeps most of us out of Heaven.
Many people will dispute that. But then most “Christians” think of themselves as good people. I know I did. I mentioned in Sunday School at our Church that people want to turn off the television, because satan is its master.

Crickets…

You know that smile you get from people that says you are a weirdo, one to be tolerated but not listened to? Yeah, I get that and yes, I am a weirdo. This Sunday School is populated by most of the Elders and stalwart Believers of our church, the core group. And I love these people. But satan has done his work all throughout our Land. If you cannot get this core group of Believers to acknowledge that satan is in charge of what entertains them, well, what else will they find acceptable satan is in charge of? How much satan is too much satan?

They thought they were all armoured up and a little bit of evil slipped through a chink in their armor and has clung to them, rendering them unwilling to remove it from their lives. That’s absurd you think. I do too. Something or someone has persuaded them. Was it God, saying “It’s OK, I understand, I don’t mind a little idol worship”?

Definition of an idol: a person or thing that is greatly admired, loved, or revered. Or, an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship.
Definition of worship: the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.

I say to “get rid TV”, they say “nope, they don’t see the harm and it keeps them entertained.”  And/or, “No way! What would I do with my time?”

I am as guilty as the rest. I use the internet for my entertainment and research. I have changed how I use it, my entertainment is mostly people building things. My rules are they cannot curse and that limits the vast majority of what’s out there. I have another rule that I will not look at anything that has the female form in it. Women dressed chastely are not a problem, but you don’t see much of that online. So, those are my rules and this is not about me. I have asked the Lord for some heavy duty discernment and armour and now I use approximately .003% of the internet.

The biggest threat to me online is people that profess to be Believers, but are not. Much like the Jews that were so-called believers, but were false. And that is where my brothers in Christ are very valuable. I have a couple of them that I bounce things off of and they correct me when I am wrong. Your friends in Christ are as important as going to Church.

This was a lot to talk about today. As I said before, you are under no compunction to listen to my message. Listen to the Holy Spirit within you. Read your Bible, talk to your friends in Christ.

And remember:

2 Timothy 3:16
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

All Glory to God our Father

Let us start out with a bit of Thanksgiving.
Philippians 4:6-7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Now turn to Isaiah 47, where we find God focusing on Babylon. Babylon today is just a ruin, as prophesied in Jeremiah 51. Jeremiah was a fellow prophet with Isaiah at about the same time and lived in the small village of Anathoth which today is called Anata. It is located 3 miles NE of Jerusalem. This prophet lived through the invasion and exile of his people to Babylon and had this prophecy about the fall of Babylon.
Jeremiah 51:1-4
Thus says the Lord:

1 “Behold, I am going to arouse against Babylon
And against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai
The spirit of a destroyer.
Leb-kamai is a cryptic name for Chaldea; or the heart of those who rise up against Me.
2 “I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her
And may devastate her land;
For on every side they will be opposed to her
In the day of her calamity.
3 “Let not him who bends his bow bend it,
Nor let him rise up in his scale-armor;
So do not spare her young men;
Devote all her army to destruction.
4 “They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans,
And pierced through in their streets.”

Babylon was a very ancient city. Mentioned first in Genesis 10. Founded by Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, who we know was a son of Noah. So Babylon was founded not too long after Noah’s boys got off the boat.
It seems probable that the name given to the city actually supplanted the original name at this time, and this incident contributes to the long history of Babylon as a center of religious significance, and as a source of false religion and rebellion against the true God.
Genesis 10:10
10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
And from here we can turn to Genesis 11 and find out why it was called Babel.
Genesis 11
Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

This city was known far and wide for its splendor and wonders. I have read, in doing research for this chapter, current day writers wistfully stating that Babylon was a great city, as great as San Francisco or New York. And I thought to myself, truly, nothing is new under the sun and that can be found in:
Ecclesiastes 1:9
That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.

Whoever wrote that really nailed it. And in looking into that, because I couldn’t resist chasing down another interesting factoid in the Bible, it turns out that they, the people who translate, interpret and ponder such things in the Bible, think that Solomon wrote it. Figures. Smartest guy ever, blessed good and hard by God and he writes something that turns out to be an eternal truth.

Now, I will carefully step back out of the rhubarb and continue my original point. You have a modern unbeliever, pining for an ancient city, destroyed by the Judgement of God, comparing it favorably to a couple of modern and equally godless cities. And none of them sees the irony.

Babylon back then was a wondrous jewel of the desert, now currently in a permanent state of ruin and inhabited only by jackals and owls, about 700 miles from Jerusalem with a prime slice of desert separating the 2 cities.

We round out our Biblical smack down of Babylon by turning to
Revelation 18:1-10
1 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory.
2 And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”
4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;
5 for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.
7 To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.’
8 For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.

Lament for Babylon
9 “And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning,
10 standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’

I am spending a bit of time with Babylon because it is a major theme and subject in the Bible and the life of the Jews. There are 113 verses in the Bible that refer to Babylon. That in itself is quite amazing. And in those 113 verses, it is mentioned in the beginning, in Genesis, in the middle, the exile, which is a major topic of Jewish writing and where we are at right now, and the end of the Bible in Revelation. I think perhaps that in Revelation, the city’s name is being used symbolically, because the place is just a ruin now. Saddam Hussein tried to rebuild the city in 1983, building on top of the ruins with bricks with this inscription: “This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq.” It didn’t work out though, I think he was hung in or near Babylon and there is quite a bit of Jewish online talk of having old texts that predicted this event, but there is a code that only certain Jews understand. That’s nice and all but if God wants the place to stay rubble, it will stay rubble.

Let us turn back to Isaiah 47 and read that.

Lament for Babylon
1 “Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon;
Sit on the ground without a throne,
O daughter of the Chaldeans!
For you shall no longer be called tender and delicate.
2 “Take the millstones and grind meal.
Remove your veil, strip off the skirt,
Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.
3 “Your nakedness will be uncovered,
Your shame also will be exposed;
I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.”
4 Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name,
The Holy One of Israel.
5 “Sit silently, and go into darkness,
O daughter of the Chaldeans,
For you will no longer be called
The queen of kingdoms.
6 “I was angry with My people,
I profaned My heritage
And gave them into your hand.
You did not show mercy to them,
On the aged you made your yoke very heavy.
7 “Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’
These things you did not consider
Nor remember the outcome of them.
8 “Now, then, hear this, you sensual one,
Who dwells securely,
Who says in your heart,
‘I am, and there is no one besides me.
I will not sit as a widow,
Nor know loss of children.’
9 “But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day:
Loss of children and widowhood.
They will come on you in full measure
In spite of your many sorceries,
In spite of the great power of your spells.
10 “You felt secure in your wickedness and said,
‘No one sees me,’
Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you;
For you have said in your heart,
‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’
11 “But evil will come on you
Which you will not know how to charm away;
And disaster will fall on you
For which you cannot atone;
And destruction about which you do not know
Will come on you suddenly.
12 “Stand fast now in your spells
And in your many sorceries
With which you have labored from your youth;
Perhaps you will be able to profit,
Perhaps you may cause trembling.
13 “You are wearied with your many counsels;
Let now the astrologers,
Those who prophesy by the stars,
Those who predict by the new moons,
Stand up and save you from what will come upon you.
14 “Behold, they have become like stubble,
Fire burns them;
They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame;
There will be no coal to warm by
Nor a fire to sit before!
15 “So have those become to you with whom you have labored,
Who have trafficked with you from your youth;
Each has wandered in his own way;
There is none to save you.

Some verses that stood out to me.
Verse 4 – I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.
Verse 6 – “I was angry with My people, I profaned My heritage
And gave them into your hand. You did not show mercy to them.
Verse 10 – “You felt secure in your wickedness and said, ‘No one sees me,’ Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you.

Let’s talk about this. Our society is rife with this very thing. Have you ever done something and thought “Nobody knows or has seen this, so it’s OK.”
Think about it and how we can change our lives to what our Lord Jesus wants them to be. To be righteous, or as righteous as we can be.

Verse 11 – “But evil will come on you which you will not know how to charm away.

Let us now turn to 1 Kings 11 and see what’s up with our boy Solomon.

It was bound to happen. So much wealth, wisdom and women. The first verse in chapter 11 tells the story.
1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,

The Old Testament allowed polygamy, but did not encourage it. Then the Romans took over and said it was disgusting and immoral. They allowed the Jews to continue practicing polygamy in Palestine, but everywhere else, the practice was prohibited. Rome is quite a few hundred years off into the future, so in Solomon’s day many people did have more than one wife. And it is not always a bad thing. Women that could not be married for whatever reason would be added as wife and now another widow is not begging on the streets.
I am not sure anyone could have told Solomon to restrain himself when it came to wives. Let’s read on and find out how this plays out.

2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not follow the Lord fully, as David his father had done.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
8 Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
9 Now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was 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 observe what the Lord had commanded.
11 So the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant.
12 Nevertheless I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
13 However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

God then raises adversaries against Solomon. You have to remember that during Solomon’s reign, things were unusually calm, within his government and without. An Edomite named Hadad, who was in the royal line of Edom, had a long time grudge with David, Solomon’s Father. Actually, it was Joab the Commander of David’s army, well let’s just read it in Verse 14:
14 Then the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the royal line in Edom.
15 For it came about, when David was in Edom, and Joab the commander of the army had gone up to bury the slain, and had struck down every male in Edom
16 (for Joab and all Israel stayed there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom),
17 that Hadad fled to Egypt, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, while Hadad was a young boy.
18 They arose from Midian and came to Paran; and they took men with them from Paran and came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house and assigned him food and gave him land.
19 Now Hadad found great favor before Pharaoh, so that he gave him in marriage the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen.
20 The sister of Tahpenes bore his son Genubath, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the sons of Pharaoh.
21 But when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Send me away, that I may go to my own country.”
22 Then Pharaoh said to him, “But what have you lacked with me, that behold, you are seeking to go to your own country?” And he answered, “Nothing; nevertheless you must surely let me go.”

And so it went. More adversaries, more problems to deal with and most importantly, God was angry with him.
God then uses a prophet named Ahijah that happened to have a new cloak when he met Jeroboam, the soon to be new king of Israel. They were walking down the road together and suddenly Ahijah tears his new cloak into 12 pieces. He hands Jeroboam 10 pieces of cloak and tells him this represents the 10 tribes he would rule over. As God had said, He would tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hands but let Solomon have 2 tribes, (Judah and Benjamin) for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel. God would allow Solomon to rule his pieces of the cloak all the days of his life. Which was pretty generous considering how Solomon had been acting.
Look at Verses 39 and 40;
39 Thus I will afflict the descendants of David for this, but not always.’” 40 Solomon sought therefore to put Jeroboam to death; but Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt to Shishak king of Egypt, and he was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

I guess Solomon was not feeling real grateful for God letting him keep his much diminished kingdom and his life.
Let’s finish this out and read verses 41 to 43;
The Death of Solomon
41 Now the rest of the acts of Solomon and whatever he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon? 42 Thus the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. 43 And Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David, and his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.

All Glory to God our Father

Let us turn to Isaiah 46

1 Bel has bowed down, Nebo stoops over;
Their images are consigned to the beasts and the cattle.
The things that you carry are burdensome,
A load for the weary beast.

2 They stooped over, they have bowed down together;
They could not rescue the burden,But have themselves gone into captivity.

3 “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
You who have been borne by Me from birth
And have been carried from the womb;

4 Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you.

5 “To whom would you liken Me
And make Me equal and compare Me,
That we would be alike?

6 “Those who lavish gold from the purse
And weigh silver on the scale
Hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;
They bow down, indeed they worship it.

7 “They lift it upon the shoulder and carry it;
They set it in its place and it stands there.
It does not move from its place.
Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer;
It cannot deliver him from his distress.

8 “Remember this, and be assured;
Recall it to mind, you transgressors.

9 “Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,

10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;

11 Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man of My purpose from a far country.
Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it, surely I will do it.

12 “Listen to Me, you stubborn-minded,
Who are far from righteousness.

13 “I bring near My righteousness, it is not far off;
And My salvation will not delay.
And I will grant salvation in Zion,
And My glory for Israel.

So what are we talking about here? Idols? Again? This has been a near constant theme when God is talking through Isaiah to his people. To bring this home just a bit, go back to a time when you were young and raising kids. I believe all of us here have had children and now grandchildren and some of us great grandchildren. Any time you are dealing with a kid, there’s going to be a bit of frustration imparting our wisdom into those small resistant packages that insist on just having fun and doing it their way. You tell little Johnny no, don’t put the cat in the toilet, but since Johnny has already done this once and it was grand fun, he considers your request as optional. 

You laugh at that reference, but my son tried that very thing out at Reflection Farm. Tried to put a kitten in the porta potty. Seemed like a perfect fit to him, where it seemed like a stupid thing to me and therein lies the problem. I told him no, don’t do that. He considered it and disregarded it, ‘cause what fun is it to not put a kitten in the toilet.  

I am using this as an analogy to God and the Jews. He creates his people. Well just one of them at first in Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

God put man into the garden of Eden and told him to keep it and cultivate it. You see the problem don’t you? No mechanized equipment to “cultivate” that virgin ground. Not an oversight on our Lord’s part, how do you build character if you don’t struggle some? But our God is a merciful God.

Genesis 2:18
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone;
I will make him a helper suitable for him. 

And I am sure some of us are thinking then,the next thing we expect to see pop into existence is a big shiny John Deere dealership.
I did say some of us, not all. 

Drop down to verse 21 of Genesis 2

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

Imagine Adam’s surprise when he woke up and saw that sitting there. Keep in mind John Deere was well off into the future and he didn’t have any preconceived notion of it, thereby could not be disappointed by a woman sitting there rather than a big green monster parked in the shade with the keys in it. 

Yes, I am being a bit mirthful, but in a Greek tragic comedy sense. Adam and Eve had it all. They walked and talked with God and had dominion over all the earth. Verse 26 says to “let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

And because of their innocence, they did not know evil, and in that, they were much like children, who don’t know right from wrong. We don’t know why Adam did not follow Eve when she encountered a smooth talking serpent. And here we come to the difference between Men and Women. A man sees a snake, and I am talking a manly man, not a girly man that sheiks at snakey things. So Man knows that he has been given dominion over all, sees a snake, says cool until it starts talking and then smashes it with a rock, because none of the other animals had started talking to him, but mostly ‘cause talking snakes just ain’t right.

Women’s brains are wired differently. They are built to make personal connections. They are ruled by emotions. These are things that help them rearing children. But when it comes to talking serpents, they can be swayed by emotions or feelings more than logic. You may argue with that, but if you are honest you felt it yourself, it you are a woman. You can be swayed by feelings. You know something is wrong, but it feels right, therefore it makes sense to you.

Eve got talked into something. She was told by God that they should not eat from that certain tree. They would die if they ate from that tree. That’s a hard and fast rule, a law. She got persuaded to break that law, because what the serpent told her sounded good. Good enough to circumvent the logic of following the Law because it’s the Law. The snake used their innocence against them. And because Adam was not with her to stomp the snake, here we are left with pining for that John Deere Dealership.

The end result is that they were both cursed by God. Man was consigned to toil in the earth and eat of the plants of the field. Dust you are and to dust you will return.

Genesis 3:15-16
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Genesis 3:15 is important as it is where theologians have pointed to this verse as the Protoevangelion or “the first gospel.” This verse is the first promise of redemption in Scripture. The He is Christ in “He shall bruise you on the head” and satan could only bruise Christ’s heal, symbolic for causing Him to suffer. The seed of woman will defeat the seed of satan.

To the woman He said,

“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”

Sin had changed the dynamic between Man and Woman. The harmonious system of God-ordained roles into struggles of self will. Lifelong companions, husbands and wives will need God’s help to get along. The woman’s desire will be to lord over her husband, but the husband will rule by divine design.

Ephesians 5:22-23
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.

This interpretation of Genesis 3:16 is based on identical Hebrew words and grammar used in Genesis 4:7 where we find God counseling Cain over his unacceptable offering. 

7 If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

Not being a Hebrew scholar, but trusting in Godly men who are, I am thinking that “sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” is what they are talking about. Specifically the word desire. That is the word they focused on in both passages, 3:16 and 4:7 that leads Hebrew scholars and Theologians to believe that women will struggle to be over their husbands.

You’ll note that Adam gave in pretty quickly to Eve’s request to eat of the apple, and that also has a consequence in the scheme of things.

Conflict will be between Man and Woman on who will be the head of House and God makes the call.

These passages in Genesis and in Ephesians are what women will struggle with, specifically their self-will and what the feminist movement has written off as Nope, God didn’t mean that. Did you know that many of the women that were leaders of the original feminist movement in the United States were Jewish. That serpent is still playing that same old game.

You’ve probably wondered if I have wandered too far off into the rhubarb. How does this relate to idols? Well, you can’t have idols if you don’t have sin and it is mentioned in the Bible how women have led men off into the sin of idolatry. 

Numbers 25:1-4
While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab.
2 For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.
3 So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel.

Another good example is our boy Solomon and we’ll get to that. But let’s pursue the idols that God is talking about in this chapter of Isaiah.

In verse 1, Bel and Nebo are Babylonian gods. Bel means lord, probably referring to Marduk, the most powerful god in Babylonian folklore. Nebo was the god of wisdom, which I am sure they did not use in an ironic sense, but if they had any sense at all, they should have. 

In verse 2, when Cyrus came, even these 2 gods were taken into captivity.

Listen to me Oh Jacob. God is imploring them to pay attention to what he is saying. Versus smiting them where they stand. A Merciful God, who is angry at his chosen people, because He is Holy and that is a concept that they don’t seem to get, nor do we.

God’s Holiness is unlike any other, Hosea 11:9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

his Holiness is essence of otherness, James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Hebrews 6:18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which lit is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

He is high above any other, and no one can compare to Him Psalm 40:5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

His very being is completely absent of even a trace of sin. God’s holiness pervades His entire being and shapes all His attributes. His love is a holy love, His mercy is holy mercy, and even His anger and wrath are holy anger and holy wrath. These concepts are difficult for humans to grasp, just as God is difficult for us to understand in His entirety.

We were raised in His image. We, meaning by extension Adam, used to walk in the cool shade and talk with God. After satan had done his work, we got kicked out of paradise, our innocence was gone. God in His Mercy had a plan B all along. This book, from the very first, talks of the coming of Christ and redemption. What troubles me when reading this is God has to remind them, and us, where we came from, who we are. 

12 “Listen to Me, you stubborn-minded,
Who are far from righteousness.

13 “I bring near My righteousness, it is not far off;
And My salvation will not delay.
And I will grant salvation in Zion,
And My glory for Israel.

His righteousness and salvation is the coming of His Son. And His Son came and was rejected by his people, was crucified and suffered what was the hell of His Father pouring out His Holy Wrath on Him, Jesus. He then gave up his Spirit and was buried. He then rose again and now it’s a brand new ball game. The old Laws have been eclipsed by Love and Faith. What is missing in this world is that Love and Faith. We are sinful creatures, have been since Adam. What I want you to think about is how much Love you have in you heart. Not hand wavy stuff they bandy about now, but Love that Jesus spoke of.

John 15:9-17

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends

John 13:34

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Romans 13:8: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-5: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

1 Corinthians 13:2: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

1 Corinthians 16:14: “Do everything in love.”

That type of Love.

Let us now turn to 1 Kings 10

The Queen of Sheba

10 Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with difficult questions. 

2 So she came to Jerusalem with a very large retinue, with camels carrying spices and very much gold and precious stones. When she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about all that was in her heart. 

3 Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was hidden from the king which he did not explain to her. 

4 When the queen of Sheba perceived all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, 

5 the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers, and his stairway by which he went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her. 

6 Then she said to the king, “It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. 

7 Nevertheless I did not believe the reports, until I came and my eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. You exceed in wisdom and prosperity the report which I heard. 

8 How blessed are your men, how blessed are these your servants who stand before you continually and hear your wisdom. 

9 Blessed be the Lord your God who delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel; because the Lord loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness.” 

10 She gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a very great amount of spices and precious stones. Never again did such abundance of spices come in as that which the queen of Sheba gave King Solomon.

I wonder what might have happened if the Queen of Sheba had not found Solomon so smart. I do think she was coming with the thought of possibly dominating Solomon and who knows how that would have gone.

11 Also the ships of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir a very great number of almug trees and precious stones. 

12 The king made of the almug trees supports for the house of the Lord and for the king’s house, also lyres and harps for the singers; such almug trees have not come in again nor have they been seen to this day.

13 King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire which she requested, besides what he gave her according to his royal bounty. Then she turned and went to her own land together with her servants.

What happens next is basically Wealth, Splendor and Wisdom. The scripture goes on to list all the things that Solomon had. Gold, horses, horsemen, ‘cause horses without horsemen are just expensive lawn mowers. He had 1,400 chariots and so on. 

I hope you can, in your imagination, see how all this stuff, even for a Godly man, could be a very great temptation. And we will leave that right here until next week, when the God speaks to Solomon.

Let us finish with Psalm 8

1 O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

2 From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength
Because of Your adversaries,
To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

4 What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?

5 Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!

6 You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,

7 All sheep and oxen,
And also the beasts of the field,

8 The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth!