2nd November
Read Psalm 133
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
A funny little Psalm this is, isn’t it? Well, not on what it says but in the illustration. It opens with “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity?”. Absolutely true and lovely but the illustration that is given is that it is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard of Aaron, the great High Priest. Precious oil was used in the anointing of the High Priest and would have brought a pleasing odour in the place of his work – the Tabernacle. All coming there would smell it. When God’s people (us in the Church) are bound in unity with one another, others coming amongst us will recognise it and know that something special and pleasing binds us together.
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Peter says that in both his letters he has been writing to stimulate wholesome thinking, the word comes from the sun’s rays which show everything up clearly. He wants their minds to be ‘open to the sun’ and thus pure and clear. He reminds them of what was said in the past by the prophets of the Old Testament and also by Jesus as the apostles testified to. This is why believers must always check out their thoughts, words and behaviour by what is written in the scriptures of the Bible.
He tells them that in the last days scoffers will arise mocking those things and challenging the believers by asking them when the Lord was coming. However in so doing they were forgetting what was written in the past about the flood and saying that the final judgement will come suddenly like that but that the reason God holds back is because he doesn’t want any to perish. (v9)
Tuesday 2 Peter 3:10-13
Though Peter says God holds back his judgement so that people may be saved he still says that people shouldn’t imagine there will be no judgement because of the delay. When that day arrives it will not come with warning but suddenly and then he tells of all the elements of creation going up in conflagration, nothing escaping it.
This being the case Peter challenges them that they need to live holy and godly lives as they look forward to that day coming. He describes the day quite fiercely in v12 but also reminds them that according to his promises God will bring a new heaven and a new earth to birth, one in which righteousness dwells.
Wednesday 2 Peter 3:14-18
In view of what Peter has said about the end that is coming he says that they need to make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Christ remembering that the Lord’s patience, that is the seemingly long time before he returns, is meant for salvation. He refers to some of the ;etters of Paul which he knew about. He may be referring to Galatians, Ephesians or Colossians but whatever it displays a later date of writing.
He refers to them as scripture in v16 obviously ranking the writing of the apostle as equivalent to the prophets of the Old Testament and says that he is aware that contemporaries are distorting what Paul has said but in so doing they will be doing so to their own destruction.
In closing he reminds them again not to be carried away by “the error of the lawless” (v17) but to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. All in all his message is as pertinent today as it was then that we need to hold fast to the truth as it is given us in the Word of God, the scriptures of the Old and New Testament.
Isaiah
We turn to the Old Testament now and to one of the principal books of the prophets – Isaiah. Isaiah lived in the 8th Century BC in Jerusalem where he was a prophet and statesman during the reigns of a number of Kings. In chapter 6 he says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. Uzziah died in 733 BC and Isaiah’s prophecies continue until the time of Hezekiah at the end of the 8th Century. His messages contain words of warning and judgement but also hope about the far future.
Thursday Isaiah 1:1-9
The book of Isaiah begins with the voice of God speaking to a rebellious nation which God pictures as a child reared by him but gone astray (v2). He asks the people why they have spurned him and turned their backs to him. This is always a question that needs to be put to any and all who turn away from God.
The situation with the people hadn’t turned out for the good but for the worse as they have been beaten by foes and their country has been trampled over. They were in a bad situation but not abandoned by God and they say that “Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors,
we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah” (v9) who, of course, had suffered complete destruction. In the present day it would have been like picturing our country as being like Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The summons is therefore to turn before it is too late.
Friday Isaiah 1:10-17
In v10 Isaiah is not speaking to rulers in Sodom and Gomorrah, they had gone long ago, but he is speaking to the leaders in his own country as examples of the past rulers of those godless cities. What is it he is speaking of? It is not the immorality, the violence, the lack of justice in the courts, though he will come to that, but their temple worship, their many sacrifices, that God is disgusted with. God’s Word is that they should stop bringing their meaningless offerings and their incense, symbolic of their prayers, because they are detestable to him.
Imagine that being said about us. Imagine God’s message that all our religious practices in Church he wouldn’t acknowledge and would hide his eyes from our prayers. Strong language but that is what Jeremiah uses of the people in Jerusalem at the time.
He tells them in v16,17 to amend their evil deeds, to learn to do right, to make sure they defend the oppressed and to support the fatherless and the widows. In other words the passage tells us it is no use performing our religious practices if we ignore right living.
Verse 18 is a precious verse often referred to by Christians – “though your sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow”. It is about the forgiveness of sins which God promises those who are “willing and obedient” It is a message about the willingness of God to wash and cleanse even the vilest of sinners if they turn to him but the present situation is not one where the people are turning to him, on the contrary he says “see how the faithful city has become a prostitute” (v21).
The rest of the chapter is a statement of judgement but behind that a promise that he will change things – “I will restore your leaders as in days of old and afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City”. This is not something they will do, on the contrary they will be ashamed of their past but it is something he will do. It is the background of all who put their trust in Jesus, the past is shameful but the future in Christ is all new.