Morning Musings: Judges 2:14

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“So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them.  And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The Lord is a father and the people of Israel were His children.  (He’s also a bridegroom and they were His bride which is kind of an odd mixing of metaphors, but both are nonetheless appropriate at different times to describe our relationship with Him.)  When they refused to stay on the path down which He was leading them, He disciplined them.  What this summary description of how the rest of the book of Judges is going to go reveals is that once the people were settled in the land they struggled mightily with faithfulness. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 30:18

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“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The people of Israel were in a pretty hard spot.  They had turned on the Lord.  In fact, they had been turned away from the Lord for a long time.  They had been turned away from the Lord for a long time and it was beginning to show.  Their world was teetering on the edge.  Some of them had started to realize just how dire their situation really was.  They could read the international tea leaves.  They saw the Assyrian army moving steadily in their direction, gobbling up nations in their path and spitting out nothing but ruin and destruction.  But, instead of heeding Isaiah’s call to return to the Lord for their hope and salvation, they were running everywhere but to Him. Read the rest…

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…