Author: arevans

The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.

The Lord’s plans all are about us—you and me.  He would not have brought us (mankind) into existence without a plan in mind.  His heart-felt plan for each of us is that our lives be filled now and forever with the love and goodness of God.

LORD, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.

How is this verse, and many others like it, to be understood?  Certainly the foremost desire of the psalmist is for the LORD to step into our world and shake things up, bringing justice for all who are in such desperate need of it.

But when the LORD actually steps into our world, rather than executing justice on the oppressors, he becomes one of the oppressed.

Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities—for his anger flares up in an instant.  But what joy for all who take refuge in him!

His anger flares up in an instant.  But this cannot mean that God is short-tempered, for the scriptures declare everywhere that God is longsuffering. Perhaps this verse serves as a counter-balance to an exaggerated understanding of God’s patience. God is patient, to be sure, but his patience will not last indefinitely. The Judge of all the earth shall judge.

But not the wicked!  They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly.

They will be condemned at the time of judgment.  There is a time of judgement ahead for all of us. The Scriptures clearly reveal this, again and again. We will be judged by the decisions we’ve made. Whether our lives—our hearts—have opened up to God, or have closed to God. Salvation is all of grace. It is not earned by our good works.  It is a gift that is received, but receiving is a decision we make.

“In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, Evil-merodach ascended to the Babylonian throne. He was kind to Jehoiachin and released him from prison on April 2 of that year. He spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and gave him a higher place than all the other exiled kings in Babylon. He supplied Jehoiachin with new clothes to replace his prison garb and allowed him to dine in the king’s presence for the rest of his life.”

Here a wicked king of Babylon shows kindness to Jehoiachin.  Why?  His predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar had gouged out the eyes of Zedekiah after forcing him to watch as his sons were slaughtered.

The Lord is sovereign even in the midst of the most dire of circumstances.  And even in judgement, the Lord does not forget to show mercy.

“These things happened because of the Lord’s anger against the people of Jerusalem and Judah, until he finally banished them from his presence and sent them into exile.”

The LORD God is longsuffering, but He won’t hold back His anger forever.  If He didn’t care, He wouldn’t be angry.  If He didn’t love Israel, He would not have said, “I am a jealous God”. So God’s anger – His wrath – flows out of His love.

“Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since.

While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, went to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah and his army marched out to fight him, but King Neco killed him when they met at Megiddo.  Josiah’s officers took his body back in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land anointed Josiah’s son Jehoahaz and made him the next king.”

Life’s events are not random, although at times they seem for all the world to be. Josiah served the LORD with all his heart.  There was no other king like him. And yet his death seems almost a tragic accident.

Men and women are free moral agents, and yet God’s kingdom rules over all.

So Hilkiah the priest…went…to consult with the prophet Huldah.  She said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken! Go back and tell the man who sent you, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this city and its people. All the words written in the scroll that the king of Judah has read will come true. For my people have abandoned me and offered sacrifices to pagan gods, and I am very angry with them for everything they have done. My anger will burn against this place, and it will not be quenched.’”

The wrath of God is like a fire. My anger will burn… The early church fathers understood this fire to be the intense expression of his holy character, an expression that brings torment and destruction to the wicked, both in this life but much more in the next, but likewise joy and life to the righteous, both now and forever.

Then the LORD said through his servants the prophets: “King Manasseh of Judah has done many detestable things. He is even more wicked than the Amorites, who lived in this land before Israel. He has caused the people of Judah to sin with his idols.”

Hezekiah would have rolled over in his grave to hear of the wickedness of his son, Manasseh. It is very difficult to understand how such a wicked man could be the son of such a godly man.  Each of us must choose, and God has given us that freedom of choice.  But choices have consequences, both temporal and eternal. We are free to choose; we are not free of the consequences of those choices.

But before Isaiah had left the middle courtyard, this message came to him from the LORD: “Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people. Tell him, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you, and three days from now you will get out of bed and go to the Temple of the LORD.'”

The God of heaven and earth is an amazing God! This story illustrates that He hears the prayers of His people, and that He is able to respond instantly if need be. I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. Because the LORD is an infinte personal God, our now is His now; He is always in sync with us, so to speak, whether or not we are in sync with Him. Living in sync with God is the essence of eternal life.