Psalms for today, last day in April: 30, 60, 90, 120, 150
"Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his might deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!" Psalm 150
I really, really don't understand how anyone could read that and believe that we aren't supposed to use musical instruments to praise God!
Apparently, our God likes a lot of noise!! Heh.
Seriously, as a worship leader, I believe more and more with all my heart that our God wants us to worship him recklessly! He wants us to praise him with wild abandon. Remember David? When the ark was brought back to Jerusalem? He danced so hard, he exposed himself!! His young wife criticized him for that.
She died childless.
Ponder THAT for a minute...
Jeremiah 28:10-17
I had to delve into the background of this passage by reading through chapter 27 and the first part of 28. It seems, here, that God has placed Israel under the authority of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The Lord has specifically said, "But if any nation or kingdom will not serve this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, declares the LORD, until I have consumed it by his hand. So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your fortune-tellers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, 'You shall not serve the king of Babylon.' For it is a lie that they are prophesying to you, with the result that you will be removed from from your land, and I will drive you out, and you will perish. But any nation that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave on its own land, to work it and dwell there, declares the LORD."
Then, in our passage today, Hananiah, the "prophet," has declared that the Lord has told him that he will smash the yoke of Babylon in two years. He illustrates this by taking the wooden yoke from Jeremiah's neck (God had instructed Jeremiah to make this as an object lesson) and smashing it.
God then gave Jeremiah a message...basically it said, "You smashed the wooden yoke, so now you get one made of IRON!"
Jeremiah went back to Hananiah and told him this: "You claim to be sent? I'll send you all right--right off the face of the earth! Before the year is out, you'll be dead because you fomented sedition against GOD."
The final verse of today's passage?
"Prophet Hananiah died that very year, in the seventh month."
What does God seem to be addressing here? I think the basic message is, if God is punishing you, you'd better sit back and take it. There's no worming out of it. This so-called "prophet" had begun to convince the people that the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar was about to be removed. God said, "No way." In fact, because of the ruse of this lying prophet, God made it even worse.
I think God dealt justly with Hananiah. He was a false prophets. According to scripture, false prophets deserved to die. In fact, they were, by law, to be stoned to death. Hananiah got off easy. Of course, we don't know how he died. It might not have been that easy. In fact, I suspect he lived the last few months of his life in absolute terror. You don't mess with God!
How does this make me feel about God? I have at least two answers to that. First, it makes me fear him. And, according to the entire message of scripture, I'm supposed to fear him, so that's a good thing. I need to fear his wrath. Even though I'm his child, I need to not play fast and loose with his love and his law. Yes, I am under grace, not law. But that is not a license for me to do as I please. Yeah, I do treat it like that sometimes. But when I do, I deserve punishment. And God never, ever punishes me like he could. He could, justifiably, take everything I own away from me. But he is full of grace and mercy. How can I say that after reading this passage? C'mon! This "prophet" got up and told a bald-faced lie in the name of God. What more could he expect? If you get up and say something in the name of God, you'd DAMNED well better be sure it's the TRUTH! And I especially say that to any man or woman who dares to get up in the pulpit and proclaim the gospel.
*whew* Sorry. Please forgive the cursing. But this is a hot topic for me. No man has any right to speak an untruth in God's name. Any such man deserves His wrath.
Oh, yeah...my second answer. Um...what was it? Ok. It gives me comfort (WHAT??), yeah, I said comfort, to know that God has my best interest at heart. If I'm being punished, it is to make me better, stronger. God will never punish me just out of anger. You know, like we do our children, sometimes? Don't you lie to me...you've done it, and you know it. Your kids make you mad, so you ground them. God isn't like that. His anger is always pure and justified. So if he metes out punishment, it is for one purpose only, and that is to make me stronger. Now that applies to me as one of his children. For unbelievers, it's a whole different ballgame, as evidenced by Hananiah's fate in this passage.
Grace and peace, friends.