God be merciful unto us, and bless us; And cause his face to shine upon us; Selah. That thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God; Let all the people praise thee. O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: For thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. Psalm 67:1‭-‬4 KJV ¶It was the treasury of these Psalms that carried God's people through their exile in Babylon. Daniel was called before Babylon's king Nebuchadnezzar to give an explanation of the king's dreams and visions. Such a hymn as this of praise and petition Daniel might have remembered when he blessed the God of heaven for His power to change times and seasons, to remove and set up kings, to give wisdom and knowledge, and to reveal deep and hidden things. In the NT, Peter addresses his readers as exiles, a status the world continues to impress upon us. Nevertheless we pray the blessing of God's ...

He said, "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. He rescued me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. "The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight. "You delivered me from strife with my people; you kept me as the head of the nations; people whom I had not known served me. Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever." 2 Samuel 22:2‭-‬3‭, ‬18‭, ‬20‭-‬22‭, ‬25‭, ‬44...

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love. For you will render to a man according to his work. Psalms 62:1‭, ‬11‭-‬12 ESV   ¶Most of the time my soul's pinings are just to get me through the day. How am I experiencing God's presence? What should I be grateful for at this moment? Sometimes I just draw a blank. The attitude of gratitude is not a posture you can just assume. We golfers call that posing. Ending up at the right place depends on doing every previous step right. The steps lead you or pull you into the right position. So can we just mimic the steps? No, we would have to start again at the beginning. As much as we would sometimes like to return to the womb, and start again, would the result be any different? Our attitude can never be "Thanks, Jesus, I got this now". Every new beginning is just another...

You shall say, Thus says the Lord God: A city that sheds blood in her midst, so that her time may come, and that makes idols to defile herself! You have become guilty by the blood that you have shed, and defiled by the idols that you have made, and you have brought your days near, the appointed time of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mockery to all the countries. Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you; your name is defiled; you are full of tumult. Ezekiel 22:3‭-‬5 ESV ¶A nation that has no capacity to repent, a people that can only blame someone else for its problems, a world that lives under the bronzed sky of a closed heaven seem destined for the fighting, famine, fire, and floods which we are experiencing.

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. 2 Samuel 21:1‭-‬2 ESV ¶This story goes to what was at stake in the holy wars God fought on behalf of His people in occupying the promised land. God's people must remain holy, and covenant-breaking must have had consequences. A three-year famine was a small price to pay compared to the future complete destruction following Israel's wholesale unfaithfulness. David did what the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel would later enjoin all Judah to do: repent.


When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? 
Ecclesiastes 5:11 ESV 

¶Solomon used his wisdom and his high position to acquire beautiful and expensive things. People who live their lives "under the sun", and not "under heaven", are driven to surround themselves with beautiful and expensive things, even at the expense of those less fortunate than themselves. They have a need to be reminded of how attractive and valuable they are by comparison with other people. They extract their personal significance from the things with which they surround themselves. Of these things it is said "you can't take it with you", but there is a significant exception: the people, the men and women God has given us, to join us, to be with us, in eternity. Ask God for more of those riches.  

How can you say, 'I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals'? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done— a restless young camel running here and there, a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her. Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, 'It is hopeless, for I have loved foreigners, and after them I will go.' "How well you direct your course to seek love! So that even to wicked women you have taught your ways. From it too you will come away with your hands on your head, for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper by them.
 Jeremiah 2:23-25, 33, 37 ESV

 The kinds of things upon which Israel set its love, while easily available and deceptively easy, cannot be trusted. Our thirst for relationship can lead us astray. What we perceive as free love can be cons...


Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 
Matthew 18:7 ESV

 ¶Jesus will judge the evils that tempt us in this world. He promises to take care of that. We should be concerned that we could be a stumbling block ourselves, causing others to sin by our own words and deeds.

Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. 
Ecclesiastes 5:19-20 ESV

 ¶The wisdom God has given to Solomon is a sad wisdom, born of the experience of tremendous success. Saddest of all is the forgetting of the past while occupied with current "joy". Joy is complete when it takes into account all that has gone before, makes sense of it, and imbues it with meaning. For now, though, our goal is not complete understanding, but trust. Our current joy is derived from the eager expectation of the day when faith becomes sight. Then the past will not be forgotten, but finally, fully enjoyed.

 Hope shall change to glad fruition,  
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise. 
 Henry Lytle, 1833


And as soon as the king of Ai saw this, he and all his people, the men of the city, hurried and went out early to the appointed place toward the Arabah to meet Israel in battle. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. And Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them and fled in the direction of the wilderness.
 Joshua 8:14-15 ESV 

¶When Jesus appeared to be beaten, and banished from the earth, the spiritual realm of evil rejoiced, not knowing that the resurrection was coming. We have the privilege of participating in the final victory over the enemy. Jesus and Joshua share a name that means "the Lord saves". Joshua was able to win for his people land and property, but could not secure for them what they needed to retain it: holiness before the Lord. He was able to win for his people a new land, but Jesus won for His people new hearts.

"Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness." "Behold, we come to you, for you are the Lord our God. Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. "But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God." 
Jeremiah 3:22-25 ESV

 ¶We have never loved God, until He first loved us. Not until God calls us to be healed, will we be healed. Here is what Jeremiah says it looks like:

 1. Recognize the delusion of false gods 
2. Admit our collusion in shameful practices
 3. Acknowledge the cost of our disobedience 
4. Feel the shame
 5. Remember Yahweh is God 
6. Receive Israel's God a...


He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." But he said to them, "Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it."
 Matthew 19:4-6, 11-12  

¶The term "eunuch" is a combination of two Greek words that mean either "well-minded" or "well-contained". Eunuchs were entrusted with the most intimate aspects of the king's affairs. Castration could create a eunuch, but Je...


 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
 Ecclesiastes 6:7-9 ESV 
¶In his search for a more lasting satisfaction, it seems that Solomon turned his desires from fine foods to objects of great beauty. His search succeeded, but did not satisfy. He tries to self-satisfy by comparing his position with that of others, but confronts death as the great equalizer.  


 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they on their part acted with cunning and went and made ready provisions and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wineskins, worn-out and torn and mended, And they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, "We have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us." So our elders and all the inhabitants of our country said to us, 'Take provisions in your hand for the journey and go to meet them and say to them, "We are your servants. Come now, make a covenant with us."' At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them. But all the leaders said to all the congregation, "We have sworn to them by the Lord , the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them. This we will do to them: let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of t...

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, "A hot wind from the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, a wind too full for this comes for me. Now it is I who speak in judgment upon them."
 Jeremiah 4:11-12 ESV 

¶Wind is useful to separate the wheat from the chaff. It illustrates the saying that "challenges are there to help us grow". This ill wind, though, is not growth-promoting. It is too full. These people are going down. But where does the prophet stand in the midst of this? Notice. He is among them. To bring the word of judgement, he must himself endure it. To validate the truth of what he prophesies, he stakes his life on it. To heal the traumatized people around us, God calls us to share with them the experience of their pain, the consequences of their poor decisions. When we do this, we follow the way of Jeremiah, and the way of Jesus.

"See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day." 
Matthew 20:18-19 ESV

 ¶The Son of God identifies himself as Son of man. He is one of us. He shares our fate. By rendering judgement upon Him, men of the earth condemn themselves. The priests were the ones who were tasked with overseeing the temple sacrifice, who certified the sacrificial lamb to be spotless, which lifted from the people the burden of their sin. Ironically the chief priests turn against their own great High Priest. The sacrificial system they oversee grabs Him up, processes Him, spits Him out, and deposits Him in the grave. Then what? Next sacrifice? Do we just go on looking for the next victim to process for the sake of our besetting sins? No! No to hell and no to guilt and shame. The food-process...

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. 
Ecclesiastes 7:8 ESV

 ¶The way of the fool is to be enthusiastic at the start of something, and then not stay to see it finished. Whether it is ruling a nation, or just rearing a child, it takes patience to see it through. Conceiving a child is usually fun, but what comes after that is a toil, requiring patience and consistency. But the child who grows up to follow us in loving and trusting God is an even better thing. Fathers, especially, stay, for the greater reward.


 Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her. "How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores. 
Jeremiah 5:1, 7 ESV

 ¶When Abraham interceded for Sodom, he based it on the finding of one righteous man among them. Just one man. That is literally all God is asking for. "Jerusalem, show me one person who does justice and seeks truth, and I will pardon all your sin." Jesus came calling Himself son of man, that One Man. For the sake of us His people, He took God at His word, offering Himself up as our Redeemer Head. Jeremiah's prophetic ministry is powerful because he never abandoned his people. Despite many sufferings and conflict, despite his own doubt, he stayed put. When Jesus dwelt among us, He staye...

Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.
 Ecclesiastes 8:11-13 ESV

 ¶Under the sun, the world is a cruel and merciless place, full of violent and cataclysmic events at every level. Whatever wisdom and understanding humankind gains to control these events, even that is applied unfairly and unjustly. What have we accomplished, if improving ourselves only makes us better competitors in the race for this world's resources? A new life, a different life, an abundant life, starts with "fear of the Lord", when we realize that everything belongs to Him. Then exploration bring us closer, not sets us apart, from each other an...


It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
 Ecclesiastes 9:2-3 ESV 

¶All who have confronted madness know that there is no reasoning your way out of it. The reason channel is closed. What Solomon mentions almost as an aside, the evil of the human heart, has gained for us madness, stuck in an endless loop of debasement and pride, unable to gain for ourselves redemption. Yes, it is a great evil that the good and evil men are rewarded equally. They both go on to the grave. But that evil originates in our own sinful hearts.  


 Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the Lord .
 Jeremiah 9:4-6 ESV

 ¶So many of our values are absorbed from our neighbors. We are merely adopting the things that the media and those around us say are important. And so we ourselves tend to present the facade that we think will gain the approval of others. We can see how this works: we are drawn in to being deceived by the world's measures of success, and then we reflect these same values back to the world from our own lives. We ourselves, and our neighbors, are pressed and oppressed by the world's deceitful values. "Natural selection", a gentle term for survival of t...


I will take up weeping and wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled and are gone.
 Jeremiah 9:10 ESV 

¶How far does the influence of our fallen state extend? All creation suffers, and we suffer as a part of it. But around the corner, on the other side of the cross, lies redemption.

 Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope  21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to ...


Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! 
Jeremiah 9:1 ESV

 How like Jesus is Jeremiah the prophet as he mourns over the city. 

Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”


Oh that I had in the desert a travelers' lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men.
 Jeremiah 9:2 ESV 

¶God speaks through the prophet of His own desire to leave His people, to separate Himself from sinful man. What makes Him stay? Despite the cost of judgement, because of His own covenant faithfulness, in response to the petitions of His own faithful Son, He remains among us.  How surprising it is to discover the harshness of this universe woven out of a fabric of love. Love is not a by-product of natural selection and a reproductive urge. It is what binds together the Trinity, and holds all things together, And Himself to us. 



For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
 Ecclesiastes 9:12 ESV 

¶God, what you truly offer, that pearl of great price, is not found in this world alone, but in the world with you in it, not with an exit from the world, but with your advent into it. Not even in you alone, but in the wedding of the Bride, is fulfillment. We seek out you alone because You seek out us alone. Not that we loved you, but that you first loved us.

  However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day but have been made to do forced labor.
 Joshua 16:10 ESV 

¶We know very little about God's relationship with these Canaanite people of the land, but we do know from Scripture the nature of God's relationship with Israel. It can only be described as strict. The consequences of unbelief and disobedience were harsh, and often dealt out by those from surrounding nations whom God raised up as enemies. The world in general is a harsh and unforgiving place, but the good news is that, through it all, whatever the difficulty, and unto the death, God never leaves us or forsakes us. Can we bring His abiding presence into the haunted and hurting places of our world?


 Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord , when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart."
 Jeremiah 9:25-26 ESV 

¶The Word of the Lord through Jeremiah cuts more deeply than even His own people imagined. It turns out that what sets them apart for the Lord and from the nations was not the presence or absence of a foreskin. It was what was in their heart. The broken and contrite spirit that is better than sacrifice. Those of us with a penis know how unruly it can behave at times. But nothing compares with the rebelliousness of the human heart. Moses knew it. Joshua acknowledged it. This people would not be able to find it in their nature to keep God's covenant requirements. Then why trouble them with it, God? Because God imparts to human hea...


 But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
 Matthew 24:36-37 ESV 

¶When I was a student, I knew when test day was coming. I could disregard as unimportant everything else and cram my brain with enough of the necessary information to pass the test. Sure, we had pop quizzes that were unexpected, but not the final exam! Everything depends on it, and you don't know when it will be? That is intense! Life is like that. Life gives us pop quizzes along the way, which we may or may not pass. But we always expect another chance. What if there were no more second chances? But suppose we had been living under the wrong set of rules all along, and we started living not under law but under grace. How would that change the way we live our lives, the things we value, and the things we disregard as unimportant?  

 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.  And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ …  Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’  But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’  Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. MATTHEW 25:6-8, 11-13   At the time of his coming, five of the ten virgins had left their posts to get more oil. By the time they had returned, the time for lamps and oil had passed. Here's what remained: do you know the lord? How much oil will we need in our flasks to be ready for the day of His return? No one knows. But we can know Him. Know the Lord. That is all.

If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5 God called Jeremiah to be a prophet among his people in Jerusalem. As a prophet he was treated badly by them. But his struggles with them were small compared with the shared trials they were facing. This is a call to endurance. We too need to focus less on worldly concerns, and prepare for the spiritual struggle which is at hand. Be reconciled with our neighbors. Persevere in prayer. Jeremiah must first understand, and then deliver the message to his people, that there is no peace and safety apart from the will of the Lord.


You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified." for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 
Matthew 26:2, 28 ESV

 ¶Let it never be said that God did not do everything sufficient to preserve the covenant, even the broken covenant, between Himself and us. That the Son of God refused to abandon the title Son of Man, even unto death on a cross, shows the extent to which reconciliation must go to be reconciled. While father Abraham slept, God came to him and cut a covenant with him, representing in Himself both parties, God and man. it remained for Jesus to keep the faith, and to preserve the promise.

Can man make for himself gods? Such are not gods!" "Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord ." 
Jeremiah 16:20-21 ESV

 ¶All Israel's disobedience, rejection, and suffering comes down to this: that we of all nations that know Israel's story might see the lies and the false gods we ourselves live for, and instead know the power and might of the one true God. Echoes of Jeremiah's wisdom in 9:23-24: "let not the wise man..., the mighty man boast..., but that they truly know me."  

Heal me, O Lord , and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.
 Jeremiah 17:14 ESV 

¶This prayer of Jeremiah's invites us to explore a mystery. What is the healing which truly heals, not just temporarily, not just made better, but truly and permanently healed? What is the salvation which permanently saves us from our enemies, not just makes us feel better? Beneath all the hurt of our current circumstances, what is it that ultimately troubles us? What are the salves we seek to apply to just make us feel better? We take pride that we no longer worship idols. At least heathen idol-worshippers had the good sense to look outside of themselves to objects of worship. Nowadays all things outside of ourselves are mere props at the altar of our own self-esteem. It indeed all comes down to whom we worship, where we direct our praise. When we praise God, when we figure out what it means to truly worship Him, when we receive enough truth to refute the lies of th...


Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, "I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 
Judges 2:1-2 ESV 

¶Whatever the cost, God stands by the covenant He made with His people. Yet they made covenantal arrangements and agreements with the people of the land, invoking their false gods and idols. Instead of possessing the land, they became possessed by it. They were on their way into the very kind of serfdom out of which God had delivered them. God's response is a poignant question: "What have you done?" His people had no idea what they had done. Before we scorn them, let's think about how often we disobey, thinking "what harm will it cause?" Because of th...


If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
 Jeremiah 20:9 ESV

 ¶Jeremiah's fear of speaking out is matched only by the aching in his heart should he remain silent. This man is on the same pathway as the Holy Anointed One of Israel who is to come, yet he seems unaware of the cloud of glory that surrounds him in his struggle. God is still making incursions into the fallen world. Is there comfort in our struggles as we live out the obedience 5 days ago


As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle. Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads. And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
 Ezekiel 1:10, 22, 26, 28 ESV

 ¶The surrounding nations would depict their dieties in ways that reflected some aspects of the heavenly beings seen by Ezekiel: The human-headed sphinx. "The lion-heade...

When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me." For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. 
Luke 8:27-29, 33 ESV

 ¶ Jewish law said that the unclean person was to be driven out, but instead Jesus cleanses the person, separates him from a legion of unclean spirits, and drives them out instead. He expels the evil from the person. He doesn't expel the person. ...

  
 But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies. You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoil. You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations. Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
 Psalm 44:9-11, 22 ESV 

¶I am grateful that Paul helps us make sense out of this experience of abandonment with his usual good humor in the face of suffering. He quotes this passage in Psalm 44 and then expresses confidence that "neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38-39).

But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies. You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoil. You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations. 
Psalm 44:9-11 ESV

 ¶What might for them have seemed like a curse was in fact God's plan that His people would be scattered so as to become a blessing to all the peoples of the earth.

And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
 Luke 9:60 ESV

 ¶Among those who may still be walking about are those who are already dead, who just don't know it yet, and those who by faith are raised up to newness of life in the kingdom of God. An indication of how Jesus sees us when we are still dead in our sin before God raises us up by His grace.


Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Psalm 90:11-14 ESV 

¶There is no answer to the power of His wrath. No greater power challenges His decrees. All our petty fears of wars and plagues, famine and pestilence will be displaced by His fearsome presence on the day of His coming. But here's the good news: love is His gracious choice. He loves not out of necessity, but out of essence. Love is not demanded of Him. No greater power requires it. All our weak appetites for pleasure and possessions will be displaced by His loving presence in the day of His coming.


Now the end is upon you, and I will send my anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, and I will punish you for all your abominations.
 Ezekiel 7:3 ESV 

¶An abomination is not just another way of saying something is really bad. If it is an abomination, it is an abomination to someone. It separates us from God. In Deuteronomy, idol worship, for example, was called an "abomination," for it "is an abomination to Yahweh thy God" (Deuteronomy 7:25-26). It is something that makes us worthy to be shunned by God.

And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.'" 
2 Samuel 7:16 ESV

  We tend to think of our Judeo-Christian heritage as a set of free-standing ethical principles. In fact what we have inherited is a place in the covenant relationship of God to His people. This verse introduces the Davidic covenant. He has graciously shown us how we can maintain a good relationship, and reflect back to Him the love He has shown to us.

 CHARITY IS LOVE
 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
Luke 11:41 ESV

 ¶We might think of charity (alms-giving) in several ways. We may think of charity as establishing our name, paying our dues, doing our part to get off the hook. We may be virtue-signaling ourselves as "social justice warriors" making restitution for past injustices. We can consider at least a portion of our "charitable giving" as a tax write-off. We may think of charity as proof of our salvation. We can think of charity in investment terms, laying up for ourselves treasures in heaven. We may think of charity in utilitarian terms as a way of making the world a better place for ourselves and our loved ones. We may think of charity in evolutionary terms, as that which contributes to the survival of the species. None of these motives originate from within. But consider... 

Romans 13:8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for the one wh...

 
And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 
Luke 12:10 ESV 

¶Jesus is irreducible and irreplaceable. Upon His departure from among us, there is none among men or women to replace Him. For this He has given His Holy Spirit. We can blaspheme The Holy Spirit by denying His work, but also by trying to do in the flesh what can only be done by the Holy Spirit. Our greatest question, therefore, the one that challenges our integrity down to its core is "by what authority are you doing these things?" If the Holy Spirit is there, then we are comfortable truthfully saying "I am not my own, I am bought with a price."


Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.
Luke 12:51-52 NASB 

¶We are encouraged not to expect to be under a "Christian consensus" that will protect Jesus-followers from conflict and persecution. Jesus reaches from the past through the Bible's historical record and presents to the modern world an unlikely combination of exclusivity and implausibility. We are increasingly unmoored from traditions that have anchored us in the past, and that have kept cultures and households from drifting apart. The question the chief priests and elders of the temple asked of Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things?" remained unanswered by them then, and so it does for the world today. People have forever been willing to cede authority to the most powerful man among them, but never have they done so with so little justifica...



 But to the wicked God says, “What right have you to tell of My statutes And to take My covenant in your mouth? For you hate discipline, And you cast My words behind you. “Now consider this, you who forget God, Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.”
 Psalms 50:16-17, 22-23 

¶There is One who judges and disciplines. We would all like to be that judge. I have seen two-year-olds hit and slap when they think they are being treated unfairly. I have also seen how quickly they back down and become happy and calm when an adult intervenes and establishes peace. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of the place of the "übermensch", the over-man who would drive us forward and establish order by the exercise of his will. He even had a cool name for him. He called him "Zarathustra". But Nietzsche also recognized the risk of complete anni...


 O God, save me by your name, and vindicate me by your might. O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth. With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies. 
Psalm 54:1-2, 6-7 ESV

 ¶The freewill offering was just that. It was voluntary. It was not paid out of any obligation. It was part of a virtuous cycle of thanksgiving, petition, and fulfillment, leading to further thanksgiving. There was no schedule given for performing the freewill offering. In fact here's the schedule Hebrews 13:15 gives for it: "Through Jesus, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God". There is a place for freely given praise anywhere any time on the praise/thanksgiving/petition cycle. Hebrews 10:25 calls us to "not forsake the assembling of ourselves together". Leviticus calls the freewill offering a "fell...

Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God.
 Ezekiel 14:14 ESV

 ¶The righteousness of God cannot be bestowed upon another, borrowed, or bought from someone else. What is required of the sinner is that he die. Then we can be delivered by the power of the resurrection,    "In order that I may gain Christ, to be found in him,  not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,  but that which comes through faith in Christ,  the righteousness from God that depends on faith"  (Philippians 3:9).

 NO "TREASURY OF MERIT"
 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God.
 Ezekiel 14:14 ESV

 ¶The righteousness of God cannot be transferred to someone else, or borrowed or bought from one person to another. What is required of the sinner is that he die. Then we are invited to live again by the power of the resurrection,  "gain(ing) Christ and be(ing) found in him,  not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,  but that which comes through faith in Christ,  the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection"  (Philippians 3:9-10).

  
"Son of man, how does the wood of the vine surpass any wood, the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest? Behold, it is given to the fire for fuel. When the fire has consumed both ends of it, and the middle of it is charred, is it useful for anything? Behold, when it was whole, it was used for nothing. How much less, when the fire has consumed it and it is charred, can it ever be used for anything! Therefore thus says the Lord God: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so have I given up the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 15:2, 4-6 ESV

 ¶Like any good preacher, Ezekiel draws a picture from the world around him. The twisted grape vine vivifies the predicament of his people. I can see him looking into the fire that cooks his food or warms his home as it burns, and wondering "What else could have been done with such a tough, fibrous, gnarled piece of wood? I could pull it from the flames, but then it wo...

  
Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"
Luke 17:15-18 ESV

 ¶Jesus commends the Samaritan leper for observing Leviticus 7:12, the sacrifice of praise. While other Temple rituals were corporate remembrances of deliverance, the sacrifice of praise was a remembrance of personal deliverance. While the other nine went their way, he remembered. This Hebrews encourages us to do, continuously offering a sacrifice of praise.

 And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
Luke 17:6 ESV
 ¶Such faith is not faith in faith. It is faith in God. It operates under the authority of God's timing, and according to His supervening will.

Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different.
 Ezekiel 16:33-34 ESV

 ¶In the ways of the world, women who resorted to prostitution did so because of the extremity of their need. When the Lord has surrounded us with blessing and met our every need, and He has given Himself to be our Companion, Guide, and Friend, why is that not enough? Why would we desire to be like the nations? Why would we still desire the things we know this world cannot give? Why would we wander into licentiousness and infidelity not out of any unmet need, except that of our own wanton desire to decide for ourselves, to be free of Him, to take His place? 

Hast thou not seen 
How thy desires all have been
 Granted in what He ordaineth?
...


 "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee a nd the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
Luke 18:10-11, 13-14 ESV 

¶The presence of God affirms not the confidence of our own righteousness, but the awareness of His holiness. 

 Destitute, despised, forsaken, Thou from hence my all shall be.
 Perish every fond ambition, all I’ve sought or hoped or known;
 Yet how rich is my condition! God and heav’n are still mine own.
  Henry Lyte, 1833


 Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly. All day long they injure my cause; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They stir up strife, they lurk; they watch my steps, as they have waited for my life. For their crime will they escape? In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
Psalm 56:1-2, 5-7 ESV  

¶To those who for the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ are oppressed, injured, and literally trampled at the gates, be gracious. In the midst of the darkness, give them an eternal perspective. Those of us who live in our comfort are more at risk of losing the eternal perspective than the most unregenerate heathens. Their god is still something to be feared, our god is just something to be used. Set eternity in our hearts, that we might run to you not just for reward, but for refuge.


 But if he says, 'I have no pleasure in you,' behold, here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him."
2 Samuel 15:26 ESV

 ¶David's prayer is in line with Eli's, Mary's, and ultimately Jesus's: let it be unto me according to your will. This is true faith.

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.
Psalm 57:9 ESV  

¶David's poetic psalmody elevates us to heights of praise and worship of God. It is said that "music hath power to soothe the savage beast". So it was for David with Saul when he was distressed. But is it the transcendental power of beautifully crafted words and poetic images that anchors our faith? What did David base his faith upon? "Hesed", "steadfast love", covenant faithfulness was secured for us with God by God himself on behalf of all those promised to Abraham in Genesis 15. We worship God through beautiful art, powerful music, or profound poetry. We are given them as markers to point us to God. Can we see through them to behold the Giver?

The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. Mankind will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth." Psalm 58:10‭-‬11 ESV    There is a gradient that impels us all toward righteousness. We all strive to be right. Nobody strives to be wrong. Awareness of the gap that separates us from true righteousness prepares us to abandon our own striving, and to receive the alien righteousness God provides in Christ.