For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
It is foolish to spend so much time working to gain wealth that you don’t have any time to spend the money. The proverb writer spends a lot of time warning us against laziness, here he warns us that the opposite is just as foolish. Being a workaholic is no wiser than being lazy. It is important to find a balance in life. If you spend all of your time working you will not have time to worship the Lord (even if your work is in some kind of ministry).
I have never been as depressed as the writer of this psalm. I have never felt so betrayed. Yet I have friends for whom the feelings of betrayal the psalmist reveals are a regular struggle. I struggle to convince them that the answer is that contained in this psalm:
and he will take care of you.
He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.
They do not want to hear it because they have become convinced that Christianity is nothing but a fairy tale. I know that if only they would follow the psalmist’s example from verses 16 and 17:
and the Lord will rescue me.
Morning, noon, and night
I cry out in my distress,
and the Lord hears my voice.
God would hear their voice as well and deliver them from their misery. However, that would require them to change their actions, which they do not wish to do.
Paul recounts being caught up to the third heaven (as an aside, it is interesting that he refers to the “third” heaven, implying that there is more than one). Other translations put this in the third person as if it happened to someone else, but the phrasing resembles that used when someone refers to themselves in the third person. After telling of this experience, Paul tells his readers that despite the experiences of glory he has had, he also has a weakness, a “thorn in the flesh”. There have been many theories about what that weakness was, but no one really knows. Some have theorized that it was bad eyesight, others that he had a problem with stammering. Personally, I have begun to believe that Paul struggled with some temptation which he found it hard to resist. Paul asked God to take this temptation from him, but God declined to do so. If I am correct, God did not remove the temptation in order to remind Paul not to become too judgmental of others who struggled with sin. There are other interpretations of the “thorn in the flesh” which fit the context. I believe that part of the vagueness here is intentional to allow each of us to see this as relating to our struggles.
When the kings of Damascus and Samaria had allied together to conquer Judah, Isaiah told the king of Judah that God would keep them from attacking. When the people of Judah saw that Assyria would conquer the Northern Kingdom, they rejoiced in Israel’s downfall. Isaiah told them that God would judge them for that. There is a lesson here for us, we should not rejoice at the suffering of others, not even those who have chosen to be our enemies.
This passage contains many Messianic prophecies which were fulfilled with the coming of Christ. However, my focus will be on the instructions which Isaiah was given. He was told not to call everything a conspiracy that others call a conspiracy. He was not to fear what others fear. Instead he was to wait for the Lord and put his trust in Him. I think these instructions apply to us as well. Let us recognize that not everything people thinks is a conspiracy is actually a conspiracy. Let us put our trust in the Lord, then we will not need to fear what those around us fear. Let us preserve God’s instructions so that we can teach them to those who will listen.