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. Until then, we humans have lots of questions for God. This one is often one of those… “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 long for this blog (I think I covered it in my latest book THIS FAR BY FAITH.
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.
SEPTEMBER
Speak, Lord, in the Stillness
Author: Emily Crawford
“While I wait on Thee;
Hushed my heart to listen
In expectancy.
Speak, O blessed Master,
In this quiet hour;
Let me see Thy face, Lord,
Feel Thy touch of power.
For the words Thou speakest,
They are life indeed;
Living bread from heaven,
Now on my spirit feed!
All to Thee is yielded,
I am not my own;
Blissful, glad surrender,
I am Thine alone.
Speak, Thy servant heareth,
Be not silent, Lord;
Waits my soul upon Thee
For the quickening word.
Fill me with the knowledge
Of Thy glorious will;
All Thine own good pleasure
In Thy child fulfill.
Amen.”
Author: Emily Crawford
Emily May Grimes Crawford is described in the author index of the Book of Common Praise (Toronto, 1938) as a Canadian Anglican [as author of “The Master comes! He calls for thee], which she altogether was nor was not. The hymn was first published in London by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1890, before Emily May Grimes had ever left her native England. In 1893, she went to South Africa under CMS sponsorship to work among the Pondo tribe; then, in 1904, she married T.W.W. Crawford, M.D., and went to work with him among the Kikuyu of Kenya. Her career thus far is outlined in Julian (1907), p. 1712. The mission station at which the bride arrived had indeed been started by the CMS, but had been turned over to the newly-formed mission
department of the Church of England in Canada (MSCC); most of her colleagues were Canadian-born like her husband–to add a grace note of confusion–his brother! Both hailed from western Ontario, where Thomas had trained in medicine at the University of Western Ontario (London), while Edward took theology at Huron College. Thus all three of them were working under Canadian sponsorship until 1913, when Thomas and Emily left for England, she in quest of treatment for arthritis, he for further medical training–which perhaps he needed, if he thought the English climate would help anybody’s arthritis! Rev. E.W. Crawford continued on in Kenya; his subsequent career can be traced through Crockford’s Clerical Dictionary.
Whatever plans for their future they may have made were necessarily altered by the outbreak of World War I, which found, and kept, them in England. They may have intended to come to Canada when they could, but in fact they never did: they were still in England when Emily died in 1927. She wrote, and the British Museum Catalogue lists, under her maiden name, all the books she published after her marriage.
Although at the time a woman automatically acquired the citizenship of the man she married, Emily was never a Canadian citizen: no such status existed until twenty years after she died. Although she and Dr. Crawford hailed from different parts of the Empire, they were both British subjects by birth, and remained such. Therefore her connection with Canada was never more than indirect, though this may not have been what she intended.
–Hugh McKellar, DNAH Archives
Interesting read, Beverlee.
Praying for Judy today and a heartfelt prayer for world peace. God bless you Anne.
Thanks Beverlee , the family said she had the surgery & the valve is working well. Recovering will take some time and strengthening physically & emotionally is needed I’m sure. Thanks for prayers.
Praise God Judy’s surgery went well Doreen. Amen.
Beautiful poem…..it feels like my heart’s cry, but I’m ashamed to say it has not always been that way.
I am so grateful that we can always keep on learning and growing to become the person that God intends us to be!
I spend way to many years struggling and fretting and trying to control what I felt should happen!
God’s classroom of life is at times humbling …but thanks be to God, He is patient and kind and never gives up on us!
May we all rest in the Lord today and may He hear our heart’s cry!
Amen,Anne.
Thanks for you’re honesty Anne, I am sure we all have moments in our lives that we have regrets about. But our Lord is so amazing that he forgives us when we confess our sins. God Bless you and all on this blog.
Ps. So glad that Doreen mentioned that Judy’s operation is over. I will continue to pray for her recovery.
I’m so glad we don’t have such creatures around today. Just imagine what that would be like!! Wow! My friend Judy is having a more serious surgery today. I pray for God’s Hand upon her and, knowing He will be with her is so comforting. Blessings all on a more comfortable day (temperature wise).
I have her on my prayer list too,Doreen.Today is still hot and humid and tomorrow we endure the rains from the tropical storm.
Thank you,Beverlee.Another interesting bit of history.(herstory?).I suspect you are highly qualified academically.
There are videos on Youtube which support a ‘young earth theory’.Ken Ham may be the most well known proponent,Here is one video which will lead to more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNmuB9EF_vk
Could it be that God deliberately provided evidence to mislead the arrogant as an exercise for the believers faith?I know that God does not lie.
God bless everyone connected to this blog.Please pray for Israel and the people in Afghanistan.
So glad to hear Judy came through her operation well. Praise God.