For today, One Year Bible Online links here. This coming weekend I am going to be away Friday night through Sunday (October 16-18). I am going to try very hard to have my studies for the weekend done in advance. My plan is to publish Saturday’s and Sunday’s studies Friday evening before I depart. I hope this does not cause anyone a problem/
Timely advice and justified criticism are more beautiful and valuable than gold and silver art objects to those who are willing to listen to them. Don’t make the mistake of dismissing such advice and criticism. Instead listen to it and change your behaviors accordingly.
The psalmist reminds us that there have always been those who form alliances for the purpose of destroying God’s people. Those alliances are often among groups who seem like natural enemies of each other. However, God has always destroyed such groups and will continue to do so in the future. God is faithful and will protect His people.
Let us strive to have patience and endurance in whatever hardship or persecution we suffer. Remembering always that God will provide us with rest when Jesus returns. In the meantime, we can pray for those who are suffering more than we. In the face of persecution, let us seek to good things so that perhaps some of those who are persecuting us will repent of their many sins (the persecution of believers probably being among the least of their sins) and turn to God. I will pray for believers suffering persecution, that they may remain faithful, and I will pray for their persecutors, that they may repent of their sins and avoid God’s coming judgment.
Jeremiah prophesied to the final kings of Judah that they should do what was right and just, promising that God would sustain them and their descendants on the throne of Jerusalem if they did so. He then prophesied about and to the final three kings telling them that they would face destruction because of their refusal to turn from injustice and oppression. Rather than do God’s will, they chose to commit injustice and pursue their own pleasure. As a result, God destroyed them. Such is the fate of rulers and leaders who pursue selfish pleasures rather than God’s will for the good of the people they rule and/or lead.
Jeremiah goes on to condemn those spiritual leaders and prophets who tell people what they want to hear and refuse to warn them of God’s coming judgment for their sins. God will punish them and cause them to suffer. Jeremiah goes on to warn people against trusting such prophets.