In today’s blog I would like to focus on the Book Amos. He was a prophet who earned his living as a shepherd and tending sycamore trees (Amos 7:14). He was from the village of Tekoa which was located 12 miles south of Jerusalem. He was from the southern kingdom of Judah but was called […]
Living the Kingdom on Earth
Posts from May 2013 (Page 2)
As we near the end of our readings in the prophetic Books of the Old Testament, our respect grows for the integrity and sacrifice of the true prophets of God. In Daniel 10 and 11, Daniel received a prophetic vision which left him mourning and unable to eat for 3 weeks (Dan. 10:2,3). In the […]
One of my favorite biblical characters is Daniel. This man not only loved the LORD but he also knew how to serve his God in the royal courts of a pagan nation. In fact, Daniel served both in the Babylonian and in the Medo-Persian kingdoms for approximately 60 years. Daniel and his 3 friends (Shadrach, […]
Our reading today contains the great chapter of Ezekiel 37 which declares that the LORD will make again His people, Israel, to take root in the Promised Land of Canaan. Even though the Israelites have experienced a devastating judgment at the hands of God through their defeat and exile by the Babylonians, and their Land […]
One of the foundational beliefs of the Jewish people was that the God they worshiped was the Creator of the whole world. It was their conviction that Yahweh, their covenant LORD, made everything through His spoken word. As a result, the wooden and metal idols which were made by the hands of men and worshiped […]
Ezekiel is a master communicator of God’s prophetic word. He uses a variety of images and object lessons to reveal the state of Israel’s spiritual condition before Yahweh, the LORD. For example, Ezekiel compares the wood of a regular tree with a vine in Ezekiel 15. The wood of a vine is useless for building […]
Israel’s classical prophets had many things in common with each other. One of those things was suffering. They all paid a steep price for carrying God’s burden and message to His people. For example, we read these words of Jeremiah in Lamentations 3 after the exile of Judah: “I am the man who has seen […]
All of the major Old Testament prophets proclaim messages not only to the Jewish people but also to the surrounding nations. Israel was God’s chosen people who were in a special covenant relationship with the LORD. But God was also concerned about the other nations as well. The primary reason why the LORD had chosen […]
In our reading today, Zedekiah, the last king of Judah before the final destruction of Jerusalem and exile to Babylon, is the focus. His reign came to a tragic end. King Nebuchadnezzar killed his sons before his very eyes and then he plucked out Zedekiah’s eyes before sending him shackled into exile (Jeremiah 39:5-7). The […]