\o/ \o/~~~~~~~~(((( Hidup oleh Roh, Dipimpin oleh Roh, Gal.5:25 ))))~~~~~~~\o/
\o/
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
daily devotional
Evening ...
Psalm 102:13, 14:
Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea,
the set time is come. For Thy servants rake pleasure in her stones, and favour
the dust thereof.
A selfish man in trouble is exceedingly hard to comfort, because the springs
of his comfort entirely within himself, and when he is sad all his springs are
dry. But a large-hearted man full of Christian philanthropy, has other springs
from which to supply himself with comfort beside those which lie within. He can
go to his God first of all, and there find abundant help; and he can discover
arguments for consolation in things relating to the world at large, to his
country, and, above all, to the church. David in this Psalm was exceedingly
sorrowful; he wrote, "I am like an owl of the desert, I watch, and am as a
sparrow alone upon the house top." The only way in which he could comfort
himself, was in the reflection that God would arise, and have mercy upon Zion:
though he was sad, yet Zion should prosper; however low his own estate, yet
Zion should arise. Christian man! learn to comfort thyself in God's gracious
dealing towards the church. That which is so dear to thy Master, should it not
be dear above all else to thee? What though thy way be dark, canst thou not
gladden thine heart with the triumphs of His cross and the spread of His truth?
Our own personal troubles are forgotten while we look, not only upon what God
has done, and is doing for Zion, but on the glorious things He will yet do for
His church. Try this receipt, O believer, whenever thou art sad of heart and in
heaviness of spirit: forget thyself and thy little concerns, and seek the
welfare and prosperity of Zion. When thou bendest thy knee in prayer to God,
limit not thy petition to the narrow circle of thine own life, tried though it
be, but send out thy longing prayers for the church's prosperity, "Pray for the
peace of Jerusalem," and thine own soul shall be refreshed.
2 Kings 16:1-6
(1) In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of
Jotham king of Judah began to reign. (2) Twenty years old was Ahaz when he
began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which
was right in the sight of the LORD his God, like David his father. (3) But he
walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through
the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out
from before the children of Israel. (4) And he sacrificed and burnt incense in
the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree. (5) Then Rezin
king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to
war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. (6) At that time Rezin
king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drave the Jews from Elath: and the
Syrians came to Elath, and dwelt there unto this day.
II Kings 16:1-6 briefly summarizes one of the many wars between the
Kingdom of Judah in the south and the Kingdom of Israel to its north. Appearing
in this passage is the first occurrence of the word Jew in God's Word.
In the seventeenth year of Pekah, . . . Ahaz, . . . king of Judah,
began to reign. Ahaz . . . did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD
his God. . . . Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah, . . . king of Israel, came
up to Jerusalem to make war; and they besieged Ahaz but could not overcome him.
At that time Rezin king of Syria captured Elath for Syria, and drove the men of
Judah from Elath.
The King James Version translates "men of Judah" with the single word
Jews. During the military campaign outlined above, the Syrians captured the
port city of Elath from Judah, driving the Jews out.
The term Jew usually refers to a person from the tribe of Judah. In fact,
Jew is a shortened, or what semanticists call a "clipped," form of the word
Judah. Strictly speaking, a Jew is genetically a member of the tribe of Judah;
that is, the term Jew refers to a person who has descended from Jacob's son,
Judah. The Jews make up one tribe of the children of Israel, the tribe of
Judah, whose homeland was in the southern part of Canaan. The Jews, then, form
only a subset of a much larger group of people, the children of Israel.
Of course, the Kingdom of Judah had in it individuals descended from the
tribes Judah, Levi, and Benjamin. Today, Jews (for the most part) do not
differentiate between these three tribes. A modern Jew, more likely than not,
is descended from the tribe of Judah or the tribe of Benjamin or the tribe
Levi-few, if any, know specifically from which tribe. Moreover, few even give
the matter much thought, so irrelevant today have the tribes become as social
and political entities.
The term Jew is not interchangeable with the term Israel. While all Jews
are Israelites, not all Israelites are Jews!
There is an important distinction between them. Today, a Jew is an
individual descended through one of three tribes. However, the term Israel has
a number of broader meanings, all derived from the fact that Israel was the
name God gave the patriarch Jacob.
a.. The word Israel can refer to a person. When used this way, it
refers specifically to the patriarch Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel
(see Genesis 32:28).
b.. The word Israel often refers to all the descendents of Jacob.
Hence, "the children of Israel," a term much used in the Pentateuch, refers to
individuals from all the tribes-literally, all the descendents of the man Jacob
(Israel).
c.. After the fissure of the Davidic monarchy, the term Israel came to
have a more specific national meaning. Used in this collective sense, Israel
refers to those Israelites who were citizens of the Kingdom of Israel, the ten
tribes of the northern kingdom.
d.. Often, the Scriptures use the word Israel in a specialized, limited
way, where it refers only to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob,
remember, began his blessing on the two boys with the statement, "Let my name
be named upon them" ( Genesis 48:16).
These differences are more than "shades of meaning," or nuances. Readers
of God's Word need to keep a keen eye on both the words Jew and Israel,
ensuring that they understand their proper meaning in context.
Charles Whitaker
From Searching for Israel (Part Six): Israel Is Fallen, Is Fallen
.
==============================================
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
daily devotional
Evening ...
1 Kings 18:40
Let not one of them escape.
When the prophet Elijah had received the answer to his prayer, and the fire
from heaven had consumed the sacrifice in the presence of all the people, he
called upon the assembled Israelites to take the priests of Baal, and sternly
cried, "Let not one of them escape." He took them all down to the brook Kishon,
and slew them there. So must it be with our sins-they are all doomed, not one
must be preserved. Our darling sin must die. Spare it not for its much crying.
Strike, though it be as dear as an Isaac. Strike, for God struck at sin when it
was laid upon His own Son. With stern unflinching purpose must you condemn to
death that sin which was once the idol of your heart. Do you ask how you are to
accomplish this? Jesus will be your power. You have grace to overcome sin given
you in the covenant of grace; you have strength to win the victory in the
crusade against inward lusts, because Christ Jesus has promised to be with you
even unto the end. If you would triumph over darkness, set yourself in the
presence of the Sun of Righteousness. There is no place so well adapted for the
discovery of sin, and recovery from its power and guilt, as the immediate
presence of God. Job never knew how to get rid of sin half so well as he did
when his eye of faith rested upon God, and then he abhorred himself, and
repented in dust and ashes. The fine gold of the Christian is oft becoming dim.
We need the sacred fire to consume the dross. Let us fly to our God, He is a
consuming fire; He will not consume our spirit, but our sins. Let the goodness
of God excite us to a sacred jealousy, and to a holy revenge against those
iniquities which are hateful in His sight. Go forth to battle with Amalek in
His strength, and utterly destroy the accursed crew: let not one of them escape.
Matthew 24:6-7
(6) And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not
troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (7)
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there
shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
The wording implies an expected increase in conflicts due to the stresses
of the time leading up to the end. In other words, amplified contention is a
precursor of the end time. His comments specify wars between nations and
kingdoms, but John's description in Revelation 6:3-4 expands this out to
"people . . . kill[ing] one another." This suggests that this horseman not only
deals in mass destruction in civil, border, and world wars, but also in smaller
conflicts down to individual murders. Thus, the second seal also covers rising
violent crime, gang activity, mob hits, assassinations, family feuds of the
Hatfield-McCoy variety, and personal disputes that turn violent.
In saying "wars and rumors of wars," Jesus seems to be saying that some
wars will be threatened yet not fought. This is not the sense of the Greek,
however. The word translated "rumors" (akoé) is the common Greek word for
"sense of hearing" (in the active sense) or "report" (in the passive sense).
Jesus really means that we will hear the noise of war with our own ears and we
will also hear reports of wars occurring elsewhere. In other words, wars will
be taking place all over the world!
Immediately, He cautions us not to let such reports trouble us; that is,
He tells us not to let the constant wars cause us to panic. Typically, if a
person becomes panicky, his fight-or-flight response kicks in, and his brain
shuts down. Our Savior wants us to keep our wits about us because "the end is
not yet." Regrettably, war is a natural, human activity, so an abundance of war
and violence is not by itself a definitive sign of the end. Certainly, the end
time will be one of terrible warfare, but many other factors must fall into
place before we conclude that we are living at the close of the age.
Jesus then specifies that "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom." Looking at this from today's perspective, we might think He
is repeating Himself, but He actually makes a distinction between ethnic
warfare ("nation" = éthnos)-wars between different peoples-and political
warfare ("kingdom" = basileia)-wars between realms or nation-states.
Oftentimes, the former are civil wars within a nation comprised of various
ethnic groups, such as the former Yugoslavia. The latter, then, are what we
call international conflicts like the recent Gulf Wars. Jesus' distinction
tells us that war is the norm both within nations and between them.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
From The Four Horsemen (Part Three): The Red Horse
__,_._,___
o)----------------------[ Hapus dan Edit Pesan yang tidak perlu
]----------------------(o
Ganti Internet explorer anda dengan Firefox versi terbaru dengan keunggulan
lebih cepat,
lebih aman, dan lebih menyenangkan, untuk download dan info, KLIK
http://revival.or.id/firefox
o)---------------------------( Milis ini didukung oleh I-KAN
)--------------------------(o
http://rdsb.org ; http://beritasorgawi.com ; http://ob.or.id ;
http://revival.or.id
Berhenti dari Milis : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Langganan Milis : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Administrasi & Teknis : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
petunjuk nomail,mail,digest,gantiemail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Untuk info lebih lanjut kunjungi web kami di http://revival.or.id
