Tag: Judgment

Digging in Deeper: Ezekiel 9:9

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“Then he said to me, ‘The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great.  The land is full of blood, and the city full of injustice.  For they say, “The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see.”‘”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Ezekiel was prophesying during a hard season in the life of the people of Israel.  The good and faithful King Josiah had instituted incredible moral and spiritual reforms among the people.  But after his death, the people went right back to the paganism they had pursued before him.  This proved to be the final straw.  God sent Babylon to enact His judgment against the people. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Jeremiah 4:18

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“Your ways and your deeds have brought this upon you.  This is your doom, and it is bitter; it has reached your very heart.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Much of the judgment heralded in the prophets is tough to read.  It is gloom and doom that sometimes seems to roll on for pages without reprieve.  But, if there’s anything we can take from all of this today it is this: Our choices have consequences. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Psalm 103:8-12

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“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.  He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

For anyone who would argue that the God of the Old Testament is somehow different from the God of the New Testament by being much angrier and more focused on judgment, you have to explain away passages like this one.  And this is not the only time this characterization appears in the Old Testament.   Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Psalm 94:8-11

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If you noticed something different about that title, you are not mistaken.  In an effort to keep things fresh and to make sure you know what you’re getting into when you start reading, I’m going to introduce a new section of the blog.  I’ll call this new part, “Morning Musings” (with many thanks to Ron for the title).   Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (Part 2)

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“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people–not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. . . .For what have I to do with judging outsiders?  Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?  God judges those outside.  ‘Purge the evil person from among you.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

So in the last note, we talked about the fact that there are times and situations when it is right and appropriate for the church to remove an incorrigibly errant member from its fellowship.  I said at the end that there is another part to Paul’s argument here.  Verse 11 (the focus of part one) is surrounded by verses dealing with this other part.  The ratio is 4:1.  Why so much more on this here than that there?  Because Paul likely understood that our temptation would be to get his intention in v. 11 backwards (boy was he right!) and he wanted to try and keep us from doing that.   Read the rest…