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 A Bible Teaching Ministry of Galyn Wiemers
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September 21 - Morning
"“You have spoken arrogantly against me,”
says the Lord.
“Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’
“You have said: ‘It is futile to serve God.
What do we gain by carrying out his requirements
and going about like mourners
before the Lord Almighty?
But now we call the arrogant blessed.
Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they
put God to the test, they get away with it.
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name."
- Malachi 3:13-16
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| The Names in God's Scroll of Remembrance |
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Within a generation of returning from the Babylonian captivity the general consensus among the
Jewish people was that keeping the Law and living righteously was an exercise in vanity. It
made no difference the people said, because God was not going to bless the righteous nor
would he judge the arrogant. These people did not trust God and even accused their Lord of
being unfair. Their philosophy was that taking action and doing what an individual thought best
or that simply living by chance would give a better return. The basic premise for these people
was that righteous suffer (and, even more if they try to follow the Law while they are suffering),
but the “evildoers prosper,” “the arrogant” are blessed and those who “put God to the test,
they get away with it.” This generation would argue, “Why try to live the godly life? It fails
every time, plus, God isn’t paying attention any way.”
Yet, among the population of Jerusalem around 415-490 BC some believers thought differently.
They separated themselves from the false philosophies and spoke to each other concerning the
fact that they “feared the Lord.” The Lord listened to these people express their confidence in
God the Judge who punishes and rewards. The reality that God is paying attention is captured
in the statement that God was listening to this conversation and his angelic bookkeepers were recording not only the deeds, but even the conversation and the attitude behind the words spoken. The recording of these things on “a scroll of remembrance” indicates that God the Judge was
going reward these people at an appropriate future time. God is paying attention and, even,
recording the details. These written heavenly records will be used to justly balance the
accounts of each man before the Creator.
The Bible records several places where God records things in books. The idea of deities
keeping records is found in the earliest writings of the Sumerian cuneiform tablets and
throughout Jewish literature. At the time of Malachi (515-490 BC) the Persian kings had
scribes who recorded the worthy deeds of their subjects as is seen in the book of Esther when
her uncle Mordecai has his loyalty recorded in Xerxes (519-465 BC) chronicles (Esther 6:1). |
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“Before I preach love,
mercy, and grace,
I must preach sin,
Law, and judgment.”
– John Wesley
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In 1663 Puritan John Eliot translated the Bible into
the language of the
American Indians. Fittingly,
it was the first Bible
printed on American soil. |
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Asap (Hb) – Gather (Eng) – Asap means "to gather" or "to assemble." It is used twice in a row
in Micah 2:12 to emphatically assert in the strongest sense that God will
certainly regather his people. Isaiah 43:5 says the Lord will "gather" his people from
Babylon (539-445 BC), but Isaiah 49:5 says he will also "gather" His people in the future days.
In 2 Kings 5:11 a man is "removed" from leprosy to mean he has been set free from leprosy. |
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When Jericho was excavated in the 1930's/1950's it was discovered that last Canaanite civilization at Jericho:
1) fell quickly without facing a long siege to starve them out; 2) had not looted, but instead was burnt to the ground the way it was found by the conquerors.
3) the city fell at harvest time
This is the case because the city was found to have been destroyed at harvest time with storage jars still full of grain. This, of course, agrees with the biblical details that say:
1) the city was burnt after only seven days of being circled
by the Israelites;
2) the Israelites were instructed not to
plunder the city;
3) the attack came at harvest time (Joshua 3:15) |
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Do I think evil doers are getting away with something?
Do I think people who come
against God's ways have an advantage?
Today
I will consider obedience to God's ways and God's
will to be the most excellent way to live. |
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"Whoever loves pleasure
will become poor;
whoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich. "
- Proverbs 1:20 |
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| For joy |
Challenging sermons |
Environment
(click on Nation or World for daily updates) |
Nigeria - large scale corruption in state
and church |
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| Reps & Sets is a daily Bible devotional for Christians from Generation Word Bible Teaching used each morning and evening. |
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