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May 1



II Samuel 6-11

We are in the Nation Stream continuing the story of King David. We are reading from The Living Bible this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

6 – the stunning drama continues:  30,000 troops are in procession to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem where it belongs.  The man standing right by the Ark catches the Ark so to keep it from falling. The young man, Uzzah who touched the Ark falls dead instantly. Quick reminder: the Ark is nothing to be trifle with or light-hearted about. It is the most sacred item ever constructed on earth. No one was to touch it … so why was Uzzah less than an arm’s length away from it?  The Ark is then kept at a home nearby and that home is truly and deeply blessed. David, realizing this anew realizes it must be taken to Jerusalem so the whole city and nation can be blessed! David enters the city and the worship he triggers is most vigorous. His first wife, Saul’s daughter, resents all this excitement centering around God. So she is struck for her attitude and never has children.  Memo: when worship commences, it is better to join in than to sit on the sidelines and analyze it.

 
7 – David pauses to exclaim that a Temple be built to honor God. David had a good heart in stating this, but God has a better idea and tells him of it via Nathan the prophet. God is going to establish a throne for David that will make him among the most prominent men in history. David is going to shine above the rest for all time and indeed the Savior comes to the world by way of David’s line of descendants.  His response to God is most gracious and grateful and humble.  It reminds us of why God’s heart is after and upon David.
 
8 -10 – This starts David’s campaign of expanding the borders to the largest they had ever been. He is king, and operating 400 years after Moses he is taking the property lines to places no one ever thought they would be. God gave David success at every turn. He subdued the Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Edomites, Ammonites, Amalekites, and all neighboring nations. He brought home great wealth and his sons assisted him. The whole family has covering.
 
[ 9 ]- This is a touching chapter in that David pauses amid ‘endless’ battels to inquire of Saul’s relatives. David seeks out Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s crippled son, who was dropped as a child.  And he takes him in and takes care of him for life.  Mephibosheth dines with the king from then on.  The marvel of this is that it tells of David’s kind heart amid the conquests. The common practice of many in this region was to find any possible dissenters of a prior ruler who might in any way be disloyal to [you] the current king, and to wipe them all out. David does the opposite and honors this grandson of Saul [who hated him] and son of Jonathan [whom he was close to].
 
11 – This is the chapter that creates a great turn in David’s life. He had trouble all his earlier day but there was blessing and protection and provision for him.  This is where David procures wife #8 and he does so in an illicit manner. He already has 7 wives! The problem is that a set up like this trains a man deep in his soul [albeit even doing so unconsciously] that he can have whomever and whatever he wants whenever he wants it.  This is not good.  It also (multiple wives) merely proves to the heart of any man that “enough” is never enough. He sees BATHsheba taking a bath and wants her…now! It was all over, babe. He takes her, gets her pregnant, and in an effort to cover himself, arranges for her husband to be killed. Her husband, [you remember in the story] Uriah shows more ethics when he is inebriated than David shows when he is sober, btw! David did what he did and seemed to get away with it, legally.  But God was not pleased with him. He thought he had troubles before! … They worsen now and never let up the rest of the days of his life.  David ruined his own plight here. His penchant for women [polygamy] is what weakened him and brought this on however.  It reminds of the warning in Proverbs 31:2-3, “my son, listen…do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings.”  And remember this is not chauvanism – the warning comes to all men for all time – from a woman!
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April 30

 

Exodus 15-18

We are in the World Stream trudging through the desert with the Israelites. We are using The Living Bible this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord God of Heaven, you rescue in the mightiest of ways. Each salvation you grant is a rescue. The drama of this rescue is marvelous. May we too remain enamored with your power to save and let that spur us [also] to not be a complainer. Let us keep our eye and mind on your wonderful deeds and provision for us.  Amen.

15 – the song had to be overwhelming.  2Million singing immediately after being saved in the most fantastic way imaginable was over the top.  We’ve seen a congregation burst into cheering after a baptism or salvation announcement or a miraculous breakthrough. But here is 2Million singing, exultant after 600,000 soldiers in pursuit are stopped right behind them. God is marvelous indeed. The next three days was spent walking in the wilderness and water was not to be found. It’s easy to ridicule them as forgetful whiners, but take it easy on’em. A few hours without water in the wilderness will make one frantic. A full day or two will make one delirious. There is a nation of them and it’s been three days now! The water is bitter and God needed them to drink it for there was a remedial element in the water that God needed them to ingest to heal the intestinal problem that over 80% of all Egyptiank residences had. If they were not in a panic of thirst they would have not drunk it at all.  This set of incidences had them follow through with “taking their medicine”.

 
16 – The journey is in full and the Red Sea behind them is well out of sight. The manna begins and everyone has all that they need and the supply is going to last for 40 years. No one starved in the desert – not one. The food they had was good, nutritious, and sweet to eat. The Lord used this food issue to keep the Sabbath matter before them. On the sixth day each week, God sent double supply so they would not be sent out to gather on the seventh. They were to keep and remember the Sabbath. Those who hoarded, thinking God might stop feeding them, had rot and odor in their places. They wanted more food; meat, so God sent quail.  He sent quail here and again about a year later.  We’ll read that in the coming chapter later in Exodus.  God did not send manna on the seventh day. The people finally caught on to this pattern.
 
17 – The two great events of this chapter are water coming from the rock and the initial battle against Amalek.  The water situation is not a perplexing matter to the locals even today. The porous rocks of this area become infused with water during the infrequent flashfloods. Shepherds then tap on rocks and are able to determine whether there is water inside it. Moses had done this during his shepherding years here [Exodus 2]. It must have been simpler for Moses to do this for bleating sheep than for quizzical and cantankerous people. The army of Amalek shows up and this calls the nation of Israel to battle. The progress toward victory happens when Moses held up his staff and Aaron and Hur supported him.  And the opposite happened when Moses did not uphold his staff. This is symbolic for us today that we need to be upholding our leaders in His Kingdom that God has brought forth. Prayer and support is needed in this area. Complaining is not!
 
18 – It was a rich and warm reunion when Moses met up with Jethro his father-in-law. They brought his wife and two sons to him as well. Word of the Exodus and the miracles in Egypt had reached Jethro (as it did everyone else for hundreds of miles).  Soon Jethro noticed Moses expending entires days – day after day – settling disputes like a judge before the people. Moses felt it was his duty to do so. Jethro knew better and could see that it was taking Moses to exhaustion. Jethro advised him to set up a delegation of assistants to handle these judgments and disputes. This spread the work to thousands of others who were honest, willing and able.  This landmark chapter has affected the discipline of administration and management the world over.
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April 29

 

Romans 10-12

We are in the Church Stream today reading with the International Standard Version this week.

 

Lord, the issue today is salvation. We are grateful that you are mighty to save. Amen.

10 – Paul is continuing on the same thread of salvation and his longing for the Jews to understand the greater picture; that the salvation they have been hoping and “working” for for 1400 years and more is now here … and they are fighting it tooth and nail!  The middle of chapter 10 spells it out. We believe in our heart, and confess with our mouth and therein salvation is granted. This is what Abraham did and was counted righteous for. And Abraham (whom they revere) was “saved” 600 years before the Law was given to follow. This is proof positive that salvation comes by faith.  It’s strange, but this is all so obvious to the “old guard” within Judaism that it is staring them in the face – thus they can’t see it.  Paul’s quoting of Isaiah, and Moses, and David in Psalms, and the Prophet Joel is proof positive that what was going on now is what God has been planning for salvation to become and that be accessible to all nations. –> and It’s happening now – but the old school Jewish leadership is disturbed by it and vehemently against it.

 
11 –  Despite the Jews’ open rejection of the salvation that is now found in Jesus, God still loves his Chosen Ones. Granted, the Jewish rejection of Jesus was not universal. The original believers and converts were mostly Jews. The growing young church was majority Jewish is culture and its overtone.  It was the Jewish leadership that had rancor for the Christians, and their proselytes turned agitators were the ones who brought the most harassment to the burgeoning Church. But in this chapter [11], Paul talks of salvation for all the Jews.  The interplay of the Jewish and Gentile relationship has a tone of sibling rivalry as Paul describes it. The symbolism and illustrations of yeast and bread and the affect each has upon the other and the tree metaphor of the trunk and the branch gives such clarity to what Paul is so impassioned about. He REALLY wants these spiritual concepts to be understood. Paul closes by exclaiming the wonders of God’s processes by working out our salvation in a myriad of ways. It’s a marvelous and endless topic, isn’t it?
 
12 – This is a banner chapter about our life that is dedicated to God and transformed for living unto God and honoring Him with our service. This life is filled with grace and gifts and productive activity that blesses, spreads cheer, and love, and hope, and serves others so to spread that love.  The finale~ is exhortation that is vital for dealing with tension, deviance and deviant people. It is a paragraph that is unique to Christianity.  Interesting that the pagans and the other religions of the world refer to Christians as “the nice ones”, the “happy ones”, the “ones who share”.  My husband and I have been in over 70 countries and we’ve seen this first hand.  It is a marvel how Christians are everywhere and spreading Good News, even to those who currently despise Jesus and His followers.  And it is this ministry in the Holy Spirit that is resulting in millions of new Christians coming into the Kingdom of God each week!
 

The week walked us through much Preparation for Big Changes

~Moses relayed the plans for Passover, for leaving Egypt so to institute a new faith and how it would be lived.

~David is now king – this is a big change: he “farewells” Saul/Jonathan, though he is in Hebron, he names Jerusalem the new capitol and national worship will be instituted there. Worship will be done according to what David says – vibrant and energetic.

~In Psalms DAvid prays for deliverance [35] and then revels in his relationship with God. What better way to prepare for deliverance than to pray for deliverance?
~Isaiah is basically telling us to prepare for a whole new world and Jeremiah is told to prepare to follow the Call of God.
~in Hosea, we all wish he had something more pleasant to say but he, because of Israel’s behavior, he is saying, “you better prepare yourselves to be destroyed – the way you are carrying on…”
~Mark teaches, “here comes Jesus, prepare yourselves to be blessed.”
~Paul in Romans 10-12 is saying, “prepare to be saved. Jews first then Gentiles.  Wait, no Gentiles are more readily receiving him, so Gentiles more for now, then Jews will follow in because of envy.  Oh well, all of you are going to be saved!”