jewellpage.com

This poor man cried!  Men crying seems out of style these days. Men are to be brave tough and stoic. "Real men don't cry" is the battle cry, so to speak.  Yet we all know that crying is a natural reflex for either of the sexes. If you don't believe me, then just let a man watch a good "dog-rescue" video and you will see what I mean. There is a trigger point in every one of us, whether male or female, that when sprung, makes the tears flow.  However, in Psalm 34:6, David is talking about another type of crying. There he's speaking about a desperate call for help. It is the type of shout that we hear Peter squeal as he began to slip beneath the boding waters of the Sea of Galilee in Matthew 14. David was in deep doo. According to the suspect, title of this psalm, he was brought before a pagan king and accused of treason. An act that would bring instant death in most cases.  The title is suspect because this lovely psalm it doesn't fit that weird circum...

Both Jeremiah chapters 15 and 16 are shocking, curt and devastating to the land of Judah. Blood would fly and carcasses would be left to the dogs and other wild beasts. Children would be punished for their father's sins and all because they had abandoned their God. I have withdrawn my blessing, my love and my pity from this people," declares the Lord (Jeremiah 16:5b).  God's blessing had promised success in crops, healthy families and dread in enemy hearts. His love was enduring, protective and satisfying. His pity saw the helpless and poor and aided both. For God to withdraw these fundamental elements from his people would be devastating. And it's happened to us.  Why? Because we've abandoned him.

At times we haphazardly use the Bible. We try to prove a point or one of our long-held beliefs, and we yank a verse out of thin air to confirm what we mean. This practice is called "Taking a verse out of Context." One classic example of this practice follows. The Bible teaches that smoking is OK. If Rebecca did it, we could do it. How do we know that Rebecca smoked? Look up Genesis 24:64. There you will find these words - And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. Of course, this is a ridiculous illustration. However, it is no more silly than many so-called theological "proof text" to absurd arguments these days.  When studying the Bible, we must remember the age-old adage that says context is king. If we don't know the context of a single verse, we will err in its interpretation. Theologian Dr. D. A. Carson attributed his father, saying, " A text without  a  context is a pretext  for a proof  text . I bring up this s...

Jeremiah 15:19 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: " If you repent, I will restore you... " If you repent, I will restore you ."  Wow! I often think of the prophets as supermen. First, they received their call from God, and that was that. Then, they did according to the Word of the Lord from then on. However, pausing to think about it, we will remember that Moses, Elijah, and Hoseah got discouraged and wanted to quit.  The " discouragement   prophet " would have been Jeremiah. From his initial call in chapter one until the end of his book, he is a weeper. And, seemingly, rightly so. But, my word, his message was a downer. Who wouldn't get disheartened if he had to take bad news to the public every day? Jeremiah had no wife and seemingly no friends but his amanuensis Baruch. Yet over and over, his message was a bummer.  Chapter 15 brings a startling conversation between Jeremiah and God not only about the people's rejection of, and by, God but near th...

Reading Jeremiah 14 today, I found interesting some parallels occurring in our world. For example, one study app had this cheery title, Drought, famine, and sword. The chapter starts with God describing a current drought. Every living thing was suffering from the lack of water. In his desperation, Jeremiah cried out to God, "Although our sins testify against us, do something, LORD, for the sake of your name. The prophet went on to call on the Hope of Israel, the Savior, and LORD, to not be like a stranger, surprised man, and powerless warrior. Why? Because He was among them! They bear His name. Therefore he should not forsake them. However, the LORD did not accept that designation. Because the people love to wander from him, their pretended spirituality would go unnoticed. And instead, he would destroy them with sword, famine, and plague. The prophets, the intercessors between God and the people, were low-down liars. They talked about the good that was to come and how God would bl...

God sent Jeremiah on a seeming fool's mission in the early verses of chapter 13: He was to purchase some linen underwear and wear them next to his body without washing them. It sounds like a boy's dream! After a while, he was to go and hide that garment under a rock. Wow, the dream continues. Sometime later, the prophet was to go and dig up the duds to see what had happened to them. Surprise, surprise, the things were rotten, wasted, worthless.  This illustration, however, was not the end of the story. It was, in fact, the beginning of a new and terrifying tale that would last seventy years. The soiled Pampers showed the people how they had been in an intimate relationship with God. God had bound Judah and Jerusalem close to his body, and it was a personal bond of love and protection. The people had prostituted themselves before other gods, and thus there would be no pity nor protection in their future distress. Other illustrations used in this chapter are: The wineskin - the p...

What I think is enough.  I grew up with "enough" in a happy home defined by a mom and dad who loved each other and my sister and me. Thus, even though we didn't have much money, we had "enough."  What also helped us know that we had enough was our relationship with Jesus Christ. My parents taught my sister and me that we could be satisfied with a love for the Lord and little else. That didn't mean that we never did anything fun because we did many fun things. My dad liked to travel, and we visited many states and provinces. However, our church life was the most significant part of our social life.  Dawn and I carried this same philosophy into our family life. I worked as a painter for twenty-two years at GMC Truck and Bus, and Dawn cared for our three girls. We also traveled as a family and even visited places like the Dominican Republic and Brazil. Those trips were with the idea of helping the less fortunate.  I am now sixty-eight and nearing what most call...