Author: eejoseph

Abusing Goliath

eejoseph, ,

The phenomenon of a victorious life is a powerful attraction and believers are in a good line when they have expectations about deliverance and protection.  The narratives of the Old Testament deliverance and protection (D&P) are often not fully consistent with the Messianic signature.  In fact using many of the D&P situations can be shown to be fraudulent and deadly.  The extent to what extent financial or interpersonal adversity can be likened to Goliath or the walls of Jericho is negligible.  Comparing a thinking human being to an object or a common problem is a sign of mental decay or at least thoughtlessness.  I am absolutely certain that huge loads of debt, mental or physical illnesses, whatever their causes, are not openly defying the God of salvation and creation. There are are definitely no Davids adorning the 21st century with the iconic five smooth stones.

Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” 1 Samuel 17:36

The modern Goliaths are common problems; little things that do not change God’s expressed love for the miracle seeker. People insulting God with irreverent and uninformed logic are not giants of any kind. So the miracles of five smooth stones in waiting will fizzle like butter meeting a hot knife.

I shudder to think of the so-called entities that people call Goliaths and Jericho. People are often obsessed with annihilating adversaries and bypassing the common encounters with adversity, which we conscientiously conclude are experiences designed to teach and strengthen us.

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” Romans 8:36 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37

Believers with problems are blowing hot air into the refrigerator. Just suppose that conversion was a miracle we prayed for and working together was pure human genius, tell us how many of us are rank fools. We are not even healing a few sick individuals, much less performing the types of signs the Lord did, and did with such frequency that the world itself could not hold the books written to document them. So let us please spare ourselves the problem of being recognized as lacking courage.

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 21:25

J A M with Doctor J 285

eejoseph

Friday 11 October 2024

But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; (Acts 7:55, NASB)

It is wonderfully mysterious that we are introduced to God’s glory in the gospel narratives with the shepherds in the fields at our Lord’s birth.   The shepherds were terrified. There is no question that this was reverent fear this was terror.  This was a manifestation of God’s majesty accompanying his messengers, but God has his own brightness, majesty and significance.  The Old Testament has fire, loud sounds, earth tremors, and God’s character as well to report divine glory.  See the Sinai revelation. In Exodus 19

The wonder that grips me is that Stephen, being on trial by the Jewish high court,  sees God’s glory, and the  Risen Lord at God’s right hand, just when he is about to be sentenced to death.   He was such a committed witness to the Spirit of God that he declared what he saw.

and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56, NASB)

Love casts out fear

As the angry and evil men in that court railed against him he was empowered to copy perfectly the example of his Lord, pleading for forgiveness for those getting ready to put him to death.  What a witness!  Just like Yeshua on the cross.

Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:60, NASB)

Grabbing headlines with crime and cruelty

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Do not believe for a second that the world will ever see a credible accounting of who was killed in its war to annihilate a terrorist organization.  War is one thing the United Nations defines with precision and crimes against humanity have gone unpunished since 1948.  Jebusites, marked for extermination in the campaign to take possession of Canaan, lived to see the beating heart of the immigrant community rise with their commercial and reverent contribution.

Marked for death and dispossession

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, (Deuteronomy 7:1, NASB)

Survivors of divine decrees

Now as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day. (Joshua 15:63, NASB)

Prophet and king who know the truth

So Gad came to David that day and said to him, “Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” (2 Samuel 24:18, NASB)

The truth ignored with a racist policy

Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. (Ezra 9:1, NASB)

Exemplary cities in the reliable accounts

Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. (1 Kings 7:13, NASB), then a wave of unprecedented immigration takes place.  (Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire), then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. (1 Kings 9:11, NASB)

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22. “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. (Matthew 11:21-22, NASB)

Contrasts in neighbourly affairs

Compare the policies in the drive International relationships today with those of 2,000 years ago, and see that decency and high marble standards are no longer the priority of the inhabitants of the land flowing with milk and honey.

17. Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, 18. who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. 19. And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all. (Luke 6:17-19, NASB)

Bombs and air strikes may impress vengeful people but they solve no problem and undoubtedly corrupt good practice.  Violent crime  and mass murder self defence were never solutions to the human problem of greed, selfishness and idolatry.  So, what else is news?   Human propensity for violence has been growing steadily since the age of Abraham.  Divine judgment is not slack, neither is divine grace for those who respond to supreme generosity