Home thoughts from abroad.wordpress.com

⁷ So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
⁸     do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
    during the time of testing in the wilderness,
⁹ where your ancestors tested and tried me,
    though for forty years they saw what I did.
¹⁰ That is why I was angry with that generation;
    I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
    and they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ¹⁴ We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. 

If we are going to keep going into God’s tomorrow, ”Today” matters. Each day matters. What we do ”daily” matters.

It is clear from this passage, which draws from Israel’s negative example in the wilderness, that we must persevere to the end if we are to be saved. This perseverance is the fruit of salvation: it is how it manifests, not how we earn it.

Note some vital keys to help us keep going:

• Obey what God says to you ”Today”. Cultivate a soft, sensitive disposition to God and His Word. Be quick to respond (7,8). ‘An evil heart of unbelief (v.12) will rob you of what God has planned for you in your Christian life, so pay attention to God’s Word.’ Warren W. Wiersbe.
• Guard your heart (10,12). The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. ‘People with hard hearts know the truth but resist it and refuse to obey it…They think they can sin and get away with it. The first step toward a hard heart is neglect of the Word of God (Heb.2:4), not taking it seriously.’ Warren W. Wiersbe.
• Daily encouragement (15). Who might you encourage this day? Who needs your encouragement to keep going? The ministry of encouragement is one open to us all.

So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
⁸     do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
    during the time of testing in the wilderness,

If, as we saw yesterday, we are to keep going in the Christian race, and not drop out (vv.6,14), we must remain open to all God is saying to us. Give God’s Word a free pass to enter every zone of your life; the keys to every room. Allow it (Him) access to all areas.

If God speaks to you ‘Today’ what will you do with His Word?

‘People with hard hearts know the truth but resist it and refuse to obey it…The first step toward a hard heart is neglect of the Word of God (Heb.2:1-4), not taking it seriously. It is either ”hearing” or ”hardening”. Take your choice.’ Warren W. Wiersbe.

PRAYER: Lord, please help me today to hear what you are saying to me, believe it, and bring my life into line with it – in every detail.

And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

As you read these words remember the context. These Hebrew Christians were in danger of going back to Judaism. They were being persecuted; they were under pressure for their faith. It probably felt like the safer option to return to the synagogue.

Whenever we read such words in the Bible (and we do find similar exhortations in other places), it is easy to get into a theologically academic debate as to whether it is possible to be saved and lost. But in the first place, I believe we should simply allow them to act as:

1. a spur to keep going;
2. a warning that things can and do come along to discourage us and make us want to give up. This is a reality of the spiritual battle.

Sadly, we probably all know people who ran well for a time, but we wonder, ‘Where are they now?’

Prayer: Lord, this is not an easy way, and you never said it would be. I know I am totally dependent upon your grace. Help me to keep going, without stopping, until I cross the finishing line.

 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. ² He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. ³ Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. ⁴ For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. ⁵ “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. ⁶ But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

‘Why does the writer compare Jesus with Moses? The reason is that these Hebrews to whom he was writing were about to turn away from Christ. Because they had originally been Jews, they were now about to turn back to their old Jewish religion. Therefore, the writer reminds them that Jesus is far greater than their old leader Moses. The writer is, in effect, asking these Hebrews: What advantage is there in turning from what is greater to what is lesser?’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied New Testament Commentary,’ p.852.

Jesus is greater than Moses.

Here is one of the reasons why we can say this: Moses’ place was ‘in‘ God’s house; Jesus is ‘over’ the house. Moses was a ‘servant’; Jesus is God’s ‘Son.’ Moses was a part of the house (as are all true believers), but God is the great house-builder. (Note that the repeated reference to the ‘house’ here is about the people of God and not a physical structure).

There is a clear inference of the divinity of Jesus in verses 3,4. If God is the builder of all things, and Jesus builds God’s house, then surely He must be God.

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 

In this first verse we see:

• Heavenly calling: We have heard and answered the call from heaven, and we are called to heaven;
• Heavenly cogitation: We are to ”fix” our ”thoughts on Jesus” (see also. e.g. Hebrews 2:9;12:1,2; Col.3:1-3; Phil.4:8)
• Heavenly confession: An older edition of the NIV describes Jesus as ”the apostle and high priest whom we confess.”

The big emphasis we are going to see in this next section of the book is that Jesus is greater than Moses. (We have already been told that He is greater than the prophets and greater than the angels.) So a picture is building, showing Jesus to be greater than all those the Jews regarded as ‘greats’!

‘Whenever you are tempted to look at your circumstances or at yourself, look to Jesus by faith and rejoice in His faithfulness.’ Warren W. Wiersbe:’With the Word’, p.814.

PRAYER: As I walk through this year, dear Lord, make yourself known to me more and more, and draw me closer to you. I love you Lord, and I want to know and love you more. Help me to place my heart and mind where they truly need to be. Enable me to give my attention to heavenly realities.

¹² “Even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

¹³ Rend your heart
    and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
    and he relents from sending calamity.
¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn and relent
    and leave behind a blessing—
grain offerings and drink offerings
    for the Lord your God.

¹⁵ Blow the trumpet in Zion,
    declare a holy fast,
    call a sacred assembly.
¹⁶ Gather the people,
    consecrate the assembly;
bring together the elders,
    gather the children,
    those nursing at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
    and the bride her chamber.
¹⁷ Let the priests, who minister before the Lord,
    weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord.
    Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
    a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
    ‘Where is their God?’”

What to do in the face of the impending calamity – this threatened invasion of a great army (1-11)? In today’s passage God speaks directly through His prophet, and calls for a national prayer meeting in which all ages are to come together before Him in genuine repentance (12-16). He is looking for the reality of repentance, and not just an outward, symbolic, ritualistic expression.

The appeal to God is on the basis of the Lord’s character (13b,14). It is also for the sake of the Lord’s Name (17).

I was thinking, ‘When did we last have a national call to prayer in the UK?’ Also reflecting, with sadness, that it is hard to imagine there being such a thing any time soon; when I found an article which begins like this:

”Four days after he became prime minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill approved a national day of prayer. Roused by news of the German onslaught against the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in Belgium and France, people throughout Britain flocked to their local churches and chapels. Five days later, news reached the country of the successful evacuation of the British army from Dunkirk. Many laymen, as well as clergy, quickly attributed this as a ‘deliverance’ or ‘miracle’ to divine providence and to the day of prayer. Churchill himself became an enthusiast, approving two national days of prayer in each of the next three years. Then, in 1943 and 1944, he agreed to brief halts in war production so that factory and office workers could join in the BBC’s broadcast services.

This event is now probably the best known example of a custom that, in the British Isles, goes back to the tenth century when King Aethelred ordered prayers for God’s help to withstand a Danish invasion. Growing in number during the wars of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, special acts of worship continued after the Reformation and were soon to become a settled tradition of public fasts and days of humiliation or thanksgiving.

Between 1535 and the last national day of prayer in 1947, there were 544 English and Welsh or British occasions, as well as 170 separately ordered Scottish and 84 Irish occasions. These extraordinary moments of special national worship are a register of great moments of crisis, anxiety and celebration in Britain’s past.” (https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/praying-britain-national-day-prayer-history-when-deliverance/)

2 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
    sound the alarm on my holy hill.

Let all who live in the land tremble,
    for the day of the Lord is coming.
It is close at hand—
²     a day of darkness and gloom,
    a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains
    a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was in ancient times
    nor ever will be in ages to come.

³ Before them fire devours,
    behind them a flame blazes.
Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
    behind them, a desert waste—
    nothing escapes them.
⁴ They have the appearance of horses;
    they gallop along like cavalry.
⁵ With a noise like that of chariots
    they leap over the mountaintops,
like a crackling fire consuming stubble,
    like a mighty army drawn up for battle.

⁶ At the sight of them, nations are in anguish;
    every face turns pale.
⁷ They charge like warriors;
    they scale walls like soldiers.
They all march in line,
    not swerving from their course.
⁸ They do not jostle each other;
    each marches straight ahead.
They plunge through defenses
    without breaking ranks.
⁹ They rush upon the city;
    they run along the wall.
They climb into the houses;
    like thieves they enter through the windows.

¹⁰ Before them the earth shakes,
    the heavens tremble,
the sun and moon are darkened,
    and the stars no longer shine.
¹¹ The Lord thunders
    at the head of his army;
his forces are beyond number,
    and mighty is the army that obeys his command.
The day of the Lord is great;
    it is dreadful.
    Who can endure it?

In an introduction to Joel in ‘With the Word’ Warren Wiersbe writes:

‘God’s ”army” of locusts (2:11, 20, 25) was but a picture of a future army that would invade the land in the last days. Joel called the nation to repent (2:12-17) and promised that the Lord would forgive and bless them (2:18-27). He also promised blessings in the last days when Israel’s tribulation would be ended (2:28-32; 3:18-21). God’s message of judgment is not without a promise of hope’ (p.578).

G. Campbell Morgan wrote: ‘It is always the day of the Lord.’ Whatever calamities may befall people and nations, God is ultimately in control, and these things remind us of the greater judgment (the Day of the Lord ) yet to come.

Some people also see, in verses 2-11 in particular, an ideal picture of a united and victorious church, irresistible in strength, under the Headship of God. Perhaps the key thought for us here is that ‘He is Lord.’

A Call to Lamentation

¹³ Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn;
    wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
    you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and drink offerings
    are withheld from the house of your God.
¹⁴ Declare a holy fast;
    call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
    and all who live in the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
    and cry out to the Lord.

¹⁵ Alas for that day!
    For the day of the Lord is near;
    it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off
    before our very eyes—
joy and gladness
    from the house of our God?
¹⁷ The seeds are shriveled
    beneath the clods.
The storehouses are in ruins,
    the granaries have been broken down,
    for the grain has dried up.
¹⁸ How the cattle moan!
    The herds mill about
because they have no pasture;
    even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

¹⁹ To you, Lord, I call,
    for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness
    and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Even the wild animals pant for you;
    the streams of water have dried up
    and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

It is true that we ”should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1)…

But there are serious times that demand especially serious and sacrificial prayer.

It starts with the leaders of God’s people who must set an example visually and issue a call verbally.

Let the leaders call the people to serious prayer, and let the people come. There are two sides to this equation and both are entirely necessary.

‘Even so, to our knees, O Christians! Desist the folly of sprinkling today’s individual and international iniquity with theological rose water! Turn loose against this putrefaction those mighty rivers of weeping, of prayer, and of unctionised preaching until all be cleansed.’ Leonard Ravenhill.

The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

An Invasion of Locusts

² Hear this, you elders;
    listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
    or in the days of your ancestors?
³ Tell it to your children,
    and let your children tell it to their children,
    and their children to the next generation.
⁴ What the locust swarm has left
    the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
    the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
    other locusts have eaten.

⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
    Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
wail because of the new wine,
    for it has been snatched from your lips.
⁶ A nation has invaded my land,
    a mighty army without number;
it has the teeth of a lion,
    the fangs of a lioness.
⁷ It has laid waste my vines
    and ruined my fig trees.
It has stripped off their bark
    and thrown it away,
    leaving their branches white.

⁸ Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth
    grieving for the betrothed of her youth.
⁹ Grain offerings and drink offerings
    are cut off from the house of the Lord.
The priests are in mourning,
    those who minister before the Lord.
¹⁰ The fields are ruined,
    the ground is dried up;
the grain is destroyed,
    the new wine is dried up,
    the olive oil fails.

¹¹ Despair, you farmers,
    wail, you vine growers;
grieve for the wheat and the barley,
    because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
¹² The vine is dried up
    and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree—
    all the trees of the field—are dried up.
Surely the people’s joy
    is withered away.

Joel lived and spoke God’s Word at a time when drought and a plague of locusts had devastated the economy. He ‘joined the dots’ between sin and judgment, but also held out the hope that there could be restoration if the people would sincerely repent. Eugene Peterson writes, in his introduction to Joel in ‘The Message’: ‘He used a current event in Israel as a text to call his people to an immediate awareness that there wasn’t a day that went by that they weren’t dealing God. We are always dealing with God.’

In today’s passage I am particularly struck by the repetition of the word ”my” (verses 6,7). The land belonged to the Lord, not to the people who were infecting it with their sin. Similarly, we need to recognise today that the church is Christ’s. Whatever people may be doing to the visible church with their doctrinal and moral infidelity, the invisible church of Jesus – the true church – is on the building site. It is going up, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

The church is the Lord’s. This understanding can bring peace to our heavy hearts when we mistakenly start to think it’s all on our shoulders. It most certainly isn’t.

But it should also warn us sternly:

 ”Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16,17).