Month: June 2018

Morning Musings: Judges 1:19

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“And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Starting here and six more times in this chapter we see this phrase, “And he did not drive out…”  The command was to drive out completely or else you are going to pay for it, but they did not obey.  They did not obey, and as the rest of the story of Judges makes clear, they did indeed pay for it.  They stopped doing what the Lord had commanded, so He stopped helping them do it, so the peoples of Canaan remained in the land.  The Lord had told them that if the peoples of Canaan were allowed to remain in the land, they would trip them up and lead them astray.  If the people went astray, they were going to lose the blessings of obedience and gain the Lord Himself as their chief opponent.  And it all happened. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Kings 17:7

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“And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Do you remember this story?  Kings and Chronicles tend for me to be four books with lots of exciting stories to read, but not very much that sticks.  First Kings gets started with the transition of power from David to Solomon and all the court intrigue that surrounded that.  Then we get to the almost tabernacle-like detail of the building of the Temple and Solomon’s exceedingly long prayer of dedication.  Then his son, Rehoboam, blows it and sparks a civil war that leaves the nation permanently divided.  After that, it’s pretty much a list of various kings and how they blew it and the names, faces, and events all run together.  Second Kings is even muddier. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Joshua 23:12-13

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“For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever tried clearing a path for the first time?  I haven’t, but before we moved into our new house, we rallied some men from the church to come and help us clear the backyard.  No one had touched it for what was likely several years and it was a mess.  The patch of trees and branches and vines was so thick that you could just barely see through to the land behind us.  It took the group of us several hours, several chainsaws, a tractor, and two different days, but we got it done.  With all the mess and poison ivy (which I discovered the hard way I can get…twice) now gone, it’s well on its way to be a great space.  Eventually.  I can’t imagine how much work it would have been to have tried doing all that work on my own. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Deuteronomy 20:1

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“When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Reading verses like this in books like this is tough when it comes to the Scriptures.  Moses is about two-thirds of the way through his farewell speech to the people of Israel here.  And he’s talking about a hypothetical future situation and what the people should do if they are to face something like this.  The challenge is this: What on earth are we supposed to do with something like this?

Read the rest…