Sunday 14th July
Read Psalm 65
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
To those who remember Scottish Psalm singing in Church this Psalm will be very familiar, “Praise waits for Thee in Zion Lord, to Thee vows paid shall be”, would often be heard, perhaps at the beginning of a service. It is a wonderful Psalm outlining why God is worthy of praise. It comes full of the wonders of creation, “the whole Earth is filled with awe at your wonders” (v8). But although the wonders of creation may cause us to praise God, the first things the Psalmist mentions are to do with ourselves.
“You who answer prayer, to you all people will come” (v2). The animals of creation may not be able to pray but we have that opportunity which is an amazing privilege. He goes on to say, “When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions” (v3). When we are aware of our sins but turn to him and receive his forgiveness we are amazed. When we are brought near to live with him we are blessed beyond measure (v4). Heaven on earth is to belong in God’s family both here and in eternity.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
So far we have been hearing about the kings of the Northern kingdom after the split from Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Jeroboam set up his capital in Samaria and we have followed his successors but now we return to the smaller Southern kingdom of Judah and to Jehoshaphat who succeeds Asa as king. The writer tells us that he followed in the footsteps of his father and “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord” (v43). He purged the land of the remaining male prostitutes although the high places remained. These special places of worship stubbornly continued throughout many generations even when the central cleansing happened.
We know that Jehoshaphat was rather simple and naïve in his earlier years in agreeing to go with Ahab in his battle against Ben-hadad but it appears he learned his lesson in that when Ahab’s son, Ahaziah, wanted to set up a trading agreement with him he refused (v49). Alliances with those whose affiliation is not to the Lord is always fraught with danger as he found out in the earlier battle in his royal robes.
Tuesday 1 Kings 22:51-53
As, so far, the kings of Judah have been closer in keeping the commandments of God, on the other hand the kings of Israel (the Northern kingdom) have departed further and further from the Lord. Of Asa and Jehoshaphat it was said that they “did right in the eyes of the Lord”, whereas when we look at the kings of Israel, from Jeroboam down to Ahab, we see the phrase repeated often that they “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” and this despite the fact that God sent prophets – most notably Elijah – to warn them.
The chapter finishes with Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, learning nothing but following in the footsteps of his father and mother, Jezebel, worshipping Baal as his forebears back to Jeroboam who started the split at the time of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.
It is a good thing to heed parental instruction but never at the cost of disobeying the word of God. Peter put it well before the Jewish Sanhedrin when told to be quiet and not speak any more of Jesus and his resurrection when he said “We ought to obey God rather than men”.
We shall leave the book of 1 Kings for the moment although the story of the kings (both North and South kingdoms continues in 2 Kings and turn to the New Testament aga in this time to the letter of 2 Thessalonians.
Wednesday 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12
This was Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonian Church written about 51/52 AD maybe around a two to three years after his first and it still refers to the second coming of Jesus which the Thessalonians were still concerned about and Paul felt he needed to expand a little more on the subject as it appears some had thought that Christ had already come.
In the opening verses Paul expresses thankfulness and praise that their faith has been evidently growing seen best in their love for one another. They have been enduring hard times and persecution yet they have remained steadfast. He assures the Church that their sufferings won’t be un-noticed and that in due course when Christ returns he will pay back trouble to those who troubled them (v6). He pictures Jesus’ coming in strong visual terms and the punishment of those who were their persecutors in terms of exclusion from the society of the saved. In other words when the End comes God’s people won’t be in a mixed economy like this world with good and bad jostling for control.
Paul says that he constantly prays for them that they would grow more and more and so God would be glorified in and through them. What a prayer for ourselves and our fellows in the Church.
Thursday 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
In chapter 2 here we find Paul getting down to settling the anxieties of the Thessalonian believers about the coming again of Christ. It looks as though some have been unsettling the Church by telling them, and supposedly on authority from the Apostle himself, that Christ had already come. Think what that would mean. The Thessalonian believers would be saying, well, if he has come, where is he, and, we are suffering various persecutions because of him why hasn’t he come to put things right. We don’t know what the intention of these false teachers was but Paul wants to say that he is not behind any of this and those who are perpetrating this idea are scoundrels who are just deceiving them.
It is so important for ordinary people in congregations to get to grips with the gospel and God’s Word in scripture themselves and not to just sit back assuming that whatever they are told is true and godly regardless of where it comes from. Paul wants to remind them of teaching he had already given earlier (v5) that the events they are seeing around them are not out of the ordinary.
The day of the Lord – Christ’s coming again and the day of God’s judgement – would not come until “the rebellion occurs and the Man of Lawlessness is revealed”. The Man of Lawlessness has been interpreted as Satan but with a human face. The rebellion could be a rebellion against evil and falsehood or the opposite. The Man of Lawlessness will put himself forward as the one to be worshipped as God.
Something is holding this Man of Lawlessness back such that he has not appeared in all his evil clothing. Many people would like to know what Paul is referring to when he says you know what is holding him back. The general understanding of this is that he is referring to the Holy Spirit or the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
Despite the fact that there is a restraining hand on this Lawless One, nevertheless his secret power is already at work in the world and thal will continue until the restraining hand is “taken out of the way” (v7). When that happens the Lawless One will be revealed but also he will be overthrown by Jesus ‘breath of his mouth’ and destroyed by the ‘splendour of his coming’.
How and when things will happen toward the end of time, the close of the ages, the judgement of God, or whatever phrase we want to use is given to us only in this mysterious way. We can see some present things happening such as the presence and work of evil in the world, it waxes and wanes, or so it appears, but never disappears and we are told that it will not disappear but on the contrary will move to a great denouement at the close which will be the return of Christ.
People often say, “What’s the world coming to?”, well as believers with faith in God, we know what it is coming to – it’s written here in this chapter – and we don’t need to be afraid for we know who is in control and he cares for us.
Saturday 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
Paul gives an indication of what this coming Lawless One will be like linking him to Satan and saying his works will be with displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie. We shouldn’t be taken in by amazing things because they can come from bad as well as good sources. Merely performing something astounding is no guarantee that God is behind it, check out the truth. In our present time the so-called gender debate has boiled down to what is the truth, is a woman a social construct or an adult female human. There are other issues of what is true/false though and like Francis Bacon’s essay on truth Pilate says, “What is truth, and stayed not for an answer”. Russia declares they didn’t start the war with Ukraine, China says it doesn’t oppress Uyghur Muslims.
Paul speaks of what wickedness does by saying that it deceives those who are perishing (v10). They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. What happens when people head down this road is that “God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie” (v11). This matches what the apostle says when he begins his letter to the Roman Church (Roms 1).
