Sunday, September 1, 2019

GOD’S QUESTIONS?

Today’s Reading: Job 40

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).

 

It was in this area of the Jordan River that Jesus was baptized. Looking from the Jordanian side, you can see the Greek Orthodox Church in the distance. Five kilometres beyond the church is Jericho. Today’s reading says of the Behemoth creature, “The Jordan gushes into his mouth” (Job 40:23b). This may have been a description 0f a brontosaurus dinosaur who, so it is estimated, could grow to a weight of 30 tons.

GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.

 

Key Verse: Job 40:7-8

Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me: Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?

 

Some day at the final judgement, God will ask the questions. This may be one of those questions. It is often said, “If God is good and all powerful, why does He let people die in war, famine, and disease?” Our answer is found in the key verse. People try to justify themselves or our fellow humans by making God out to be the culprit. Take the current events in Syria and iraq for example. In order to make the killing stop, God would have to violate His own moral standards and rob Isis leaders of their free will. They pray unwittingly to Satan, and the result is that they become destroyers like Satan. Free choices, the very qualities that make us human, are ours to make, and thus we suffer the consequences. The 20th century saw the greatest number of people in human history murdered. Perhaps 10 million perished as a result of what was called National Socialism in Europe (Hitler), and as many as 100 million in Russia, the Ukraine, China, Cambodia and other countries through Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others (Communism). The undergirding belief common to them was that lower forms of life should be wiped off the earth so that more highly evolved people could thrive in a socialist paradise.

Dress the holocausts up however we will, it was the belief that we will never stand before God in judgment (either He does not exist or as one of the fathers of such thinking taught, “God is dead”), along with the belief in “the survival of the fittest,” which was the genesis of such tremendous evil!!! People who claim to believe that they are answerable to the great Creator of the Universe could not commit such atrocities without trembling in fear.

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Lord God, I pray that increasingly I will fear You in great awe and respect, so that I’ll live my life honouring You, Your creation, and all the people on earth. Because You, Lord Jesus, took judgment for evil upon Yourself as You suffered on the Cross, I am justified in Your sight, O Holy God. Thank You for changing everything, Lord Jesus! In Your Name, Amen!!!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

As a boy I was intrigued by dinosaur skeletons which we would visit in Canada’s national museum in Ottawa. When I made it clear that I believed God created these amazing creatures, I was ridiculed by my teacher. I felt like saying, “Pick on someone your own size,” but I did not believe I could defend my position at the time. I would have loved to have shown my science teacher our Crossroads Creation Series, which aired on television across the Soviet Union about 28 years ago. The set of 13 shows fell into the hands of the head of the Russian Academy of Science, and he in turn gave them to the head of Radio and Television Moscow. I received a fax asking me for permission to air them across all 15 republics. I faxed back to the effect that I could’nt believe that the USSR, the centre for the promotion of world atheism, would do such a thing. I asked for an affidavit and a formal contract before I would believe them and agree to their request. Within a week they complied and carried our series in prime time for 13 weeks from January through the end of March,1989. They were released as the first Christian-produced telecasts ever carried on USSR television. Forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but my mind is still boggled at the magnitude of this development. This resulted in my invitation to preach the very first ever conference of church leaders from all 15 Soviet republics in Moscow. A mobile TV production truck, which Crossroads donated to a newly created Russian ministry, covered the conference, but that is another story far too complicated for this blog (I think I covered it in my “This Far By Faith” book).

Yours for the greater glory of our great Creator God!

David

P.S. The descriptions of unusual creatures in today’s and tomorrow’s readings cannot be anything other than Dinosaurs. Today’s sounds like a brontosaurus (the Behemoth, Job 40:15-24). Dinosaurs are so exciting to children that my great-grandson, James Stowell, wore a dinosaur hat. I find it difficult to resist sharing such pictures with you. Here it is…

 

Apatosaurus, also known as the Brontosaurus, possibly fits the unusual description of the Behemoth in today’s reading.

 

7 thoughts on “Sunday, September 1, 2019

  1. It’s amazing to think that these large creatures existed alongside man but what else could God’s words be describing.(Reh.)I smiled at David’s words of the picture of his grandson.A loving grandfather should show off his grandchildren now and then,lol.
    Who can challenge God?We are given free will and Satan has used that against us all since the garden was ruined by Satan.We became our own worst enemies.For God to fix that He would have to take away our free will and make us robots.We can not serve Him best as robots.Yall have a great Sabbath and may God bless
    Our Father

    Oh God our Father you love us so,
    We are blind and can not know
    Just how great and kind you are,
    Content to love us from afar.

    We turn our backs and still you care;
    We close our eyes but you are there,
    But it’s You we rely on
    To lead us on back to Zion.

    We hurt you daily by endless sin
    But still your light guides us in.
    You could not know how weak we are
    So you sent us Jesus to bear our scars.

    We are a mixture of sin and praise,
    But still you lift our spirits to raise
    The love that you see in us still,
    A desire to follow your holy will.
    G W (Bill) Marshall /Oct 10,2011
    I was a baby Christian when I wrote this and I had an inexplicable
    urge not to read the bible (until I subscribed to this blog) so that the true source of my poems might be obvious to others (and many times they were,most of which are only on my FB page.)Blessings

  2. Thank you Bill for another great poem.
    We had a wonderful sermon at church this morning. It was about Jacob passing down his grace that was given him by God
    to Joseph’s sons. We should be doing the same for our children and grandchildren. God expects us to bless our families and others. Hope everyone is well and enjoying this Lord”s Day.
    PS 2 Cor:12 9 was one of the verses quoted, it expresses that God sometimes uses the the weak things of the world to accomplish what he wants done. We must become weak before we can come strong. Blessings to all Eleanor M.

  3. God bless you William, Eleanor and Irene; I don’t get to church anymore in the mornings;working on having some evening worship services; there are many, many people who cannot get up in the morning but would like to attend worship evening or late afternoon services somewhere. So I ask the Lord to make this possible.

    Let us continue to pray for our Prime Minister Trudeau and President Trump!These are two very powerful leaders and the world is looking and listening; we pray the Holy Spirit enter the hearts of these gifted leaders and bless their families; we thank You Lord in Jesus Name we Pray amen

  4. Agreeing with you in prayer SAH…For PM Trudeau and the upcoming election as well.
    May God’s will be done.
    Also praying for president Trump and their family’s.

    SAH keep on telling your story…..how God set you free from alcohol and cigarettes ..it never fails to give me hope for my dear son, thank you SAH…may God give you the desires of your heart!

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