Category: Old Testament

2 Chronicles 6:1-2 Thick Darkness

2 Chronicles 6:1-2 (KJV)
Then said Solomon, The LORD hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.
But I have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy dwelling for ever.

Solomon must have meant by “thick darkness” the heavens.

We know that God dwells in the heavens and, when we look into them we see two distinct things – darkness and depth (thickness) By dwelling in this “thick darkness” we realize immediately:

The vastness of God
1 Kings 8:27 says,
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?

What awesome thoughts conjure in our heads when we think of the greatness of God. He is:

  • Too high for us to comprehend,
  • Too big for us to contain and
  • Too powerful for us to capture

The invisibility of God
We cannot understand Him. We come short of His glory. The natural man is hidden from the view of God and the saved man sees only through a glass darkly.

But then there is,
This gracious condescension of God
Though the heavens cannot contain Him, He chose to dwell in the house Solomon built for Him.

This is a type of the grace of God who, though separated from man by sin, became a man to take away our sin. He who dwells in the thick darkness, lighted the world with His own glory in Jesus Christ.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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2 Chronicles 6:1-2 Thick Darkness

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Jeremiah 14:10-12 When Grace Is Used Up

Jeremiah 14:10-12 (KJV)
Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the LORD doth not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.
Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.
When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.

Jeremiah 15:1 (KJV)
Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.

There is a theme beginning here and running into chapter fifteen that is terrifying to the sober minded reader. Judah comes to a place where God concludes, “…my mind could not be toward this people…”

  • No prayers would avail
  • No great men of God would turn Him

They must be cast out of God’s sight.

In our New Testament economy this would be ultimately fulfilled in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. What a terrible day when death and hell is delivered to God and then cast head long into eternal judgment.

But there are hints enough in the New Testament to indicate that some could find themselves even now outside the mercy of the Lord.

  • I cannot tell who it might be
  • I praise the Lord that many may appear to be there and still receive mercy
  • They most certainly are not elected vessels of wrath

We must therefore forever pray and work to see them saved.

The warning still exists and should frighten any who tread lightly on the grace of God. It could be one day that grace is used up.

 

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Jeremiah 14:10-12 When Grace Is Used Up

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Jeremiah 12:14-17 God Offers Compassion

Jeremiah 12:14-17 (KJV)
Thus saith the LORD against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.
And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.
And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, The LORD liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built in the midst of my people.
But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD.

There is a warning here to those who are enemies of God; if they will not turn to the Lord and obey they will be destroyed. But the focus of this passage is not concerning judgment but rather compassion.

God’s audience in this case is Babylon, the evil neighbors of Israel.

  • They were then
  • They are still today

Because of the terminology I believe we can include the Philistines, Assyrians and even nations such as Egypt. The point is that God offered to them compassion.

They were known enemies, they had committed evil atrocities against the people of God and God promised to exact judgment because of it. I believe a case could be made that the judgment has been dealt in part by the rule of Islam in that land. No good thing comes of Islam.

However there is the offer that if they will learn the ways of the people of God then God will include them as His own. This, I think, is fulfilled in the local church where Jews and Gentiles are included together as one.

No matter how much an enemy one has been to the people of God, or for that matter one is currently, there is compassion and inclusion for any who will come to learn of Christ.

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Jeremiah 12:14-17 God Offers Compassion

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Jeremiah 10:23-25 Is This Hate Speech?

Jeremiah 10:23-25 (KJV)
O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.
Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.

I can envision someone reading Jeremiah 10:25 and pointing a critical finger at the so-called hate speech it contains. No doubt it is a fearful prayer but a couple of thoughts derived from the context softens the blow (or at least gives it some background.)

I note that the prophet accepts man’s vulnerability.
Man is not able to direct his own paths. This does not excuse wicked behavior but it does explain it.

I see that he calls upon God to correct him before he calls for others to be judged.
He asks that the correction be merciful but he does ask for it first.

He asks that the enemy be destroyed not because they are different but because they are an enemy.
The one he seeks judgment upon is one who has already inflicted judgment against him and his people.

Those who scream against Christians for what they think is hate speech are generally deaf to the hateful things those like them say about believers. This isn’t the case of two cultures living peaceably side-by-side. In this case Christians have nearly two thousand years of persecution backing them. Those who are anti Christian have never been content to simply let Christians exist. They have used overt and covert means of stopping Christians.

We have had a couple hundred years of relative peace here in the United States and the opponents of Christianity have forgotten how hateful those like them have been against us.

For a Christian to pray that God destroys those who would destroy them is not hateful-it is practical and sensible. Especially when it is taken into account that the way Christians wish their enemies to be destroyed is not that they be killed but that they be converted.

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Jeremiah 10:23-25 Is This Hate Speech?

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Jeremiah 5:2 Hypocrisy

Jeremiah 5:2 (KJV)
And though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely.

Here is a biblical example of genuine hypocrisy. The Jews told the truth about God. They were His chosen nation. It was through them that God gave the world the Word. It was also through them that God gave the world a Saviour. They had the heritage of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. They had the amazing birthright to Moses and David. No other people had a greater claim to say, “The Lord liveth.”

And yet, by Jeremiah’s day they said it without knowing it as fact.

  • They had lost connection with God.
  • They had gone off in the worship of idols.

They spoke the truth about God but they did so falsely because they had no personal experience with Him.

How often to we speak the truth falsely?

  • We claim the Bible is the Word of God but we do not study it
  • We declare that prayer changes things but we do not pray
  • We believe the gospel to be the power of God unto salvation but we do not witness

We can be as guilty as the Jews if our Christian testimony is only words but not real experience.

 

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Jeremiah 5:2 Hypocrisy

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Jeremiah 4:3 Christians Must Prepare

Jeremiah 4:3 (KJV)
For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

There is, in this chapter, a little element of hope:

  • for Gentiles,
  • for Israel and
  • for Judah

Truth is there is hope in the Bible for everyone who will heed it.

  • There is hope for those who repent
  • There is hope for those who return
  • There is hope for those who remain

God gave a message to Judah and Jerusalem, but the message makes sense for us all. Before we plant, we need to prepare. Just as seed placed on:

  • hardened,
  • fallow and
  • thorny

ground can hope to produce little, so it is true in the realm of the spiritual.

The best fruit will yield through preparation.

  • A tender repentant heart will hear best the Bible message
  • A soft and surrendered life will best walk after the Spirit
  • A prayed up and holy mind will best profit from study

What a blessing it is to see people trust the Lord as Saviour and begin to attend church! We must preach to them, however, that Christian growth requires more than attendance.

Christians must prepare so that they may produce spiritual benefits.

 

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Jeremiah 4:3 Christians Must Prepare

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Jeremiah 1:14-19 One Is Worth A Whole

Jeremiah 1:14-19 (KJV)
Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.
For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.
Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land.
And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee.

I notice a series of ever shrinking circles drawn around Jeremiah:
The families of the kingdoms of the north
These would be those Gentile nations, most notably Assyria and Babylon.

All the cities of Judah
Those of the southern kingdom, the northern being already destroyed.

The gates of Jerusalem
Jeremiah dwelt and ministered in the heart of Jewry. And that heart had become corrupt. It was God’s intention to use the Kingdoms of the north to judge Judah and then Jerusalem just as He had already judged Israel. God revealed His intention to Jeremiah and tasked him with warning the Jews.

Jeremiah himself
The final part of the text describes Jeremiah as a defensed city. God’s encouragement to him was that, while the judgment raged around him, God planned to protect him. God viewed him as more than an expendable. He was like an entire city in the estimation of the Lord. God would let no harm come to him.

Do we sometimes feel alone and unimportant? In the eyes of God every believer has the worth of a whole city. He would give Himself for just one because he estimates the worth of one as equal to all.

 

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Jeremiah 1:14-19 One Is Worth A Whole

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Isaiah 64:1-5 Where Is Revival Needed Today?

Isaiah 64:1-5 (KJV)
Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!
When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.

Bible students have long pointed out that Isaiah looks like a mini “Bible in one book.” Isaiah 64:1-5 Where Is Revival Needed Today?There are sixty-six chapters and, if one really stretches, they roughly correspond to the sixty-six books of the Bible. It’s not difficult at all to see a shift in the mood of Isaiah at chapter 40, corresponding to the beginning of the New Testament.

Using that line of thinking, Isaiah 64 places us in the Pauline Epistles of the New Testament, perhaps even later. Would it be possible to compare this chapter to passages like:

  • 1 &2 Thessalonians,
  • 2 Timothy chapter 3 or
  • Jude? 

Couldn’t we think of this as a latter day prophecy similar to Paul’s “This know also…?”

If we made that connection then Isaiah is preaching about the days we live in right now.

Notice the plea of Isaiah. He is asking for revival. How we need such a revival in our world today. We need it in America but we need it in more than only America:

  • We need revival in Europe where secularism has all but drowned out the voice of God’s people
  • We need it in communist nations where the struggle to regain a spiritual foothold begins to grow and is at once threatened
  • We need it in the Middle East where Islam has riddled the people with fear and falsehoods
  • We need revival in third world countries where in some cases the gospel has yet to be heard

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Isaiah 64:1-5 Where Is Revival Needed Today?

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Isaiah 62:6-7 Christians Can’t Keep Silent

Isaiah 62:6-7 (KJV)
I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,
And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

One of the things most hated about evangelistic Christians is that they are too outspoken about their faith. The irreligious tell us they would be fine with us if we would just be quiet about what we believe. There are many things wrong with this:

Our faith requires we be evangelistic about our faith
We are really practicing our faith if we are quiet about it.

Their argument isn’t sincere
They believe that if they can keep us quiet they can starve us out. If we are not evangelistic we will have no converts and we will die out by attrition.

This would be terribly hypocritical of us
Even those who hate what we believe need what we believe. God is. That being the case, for a Christian to know this and be quiet about it is heartless and cruel. The sleeping family in a burning house may not like being awakened but to allow them to sleep in their condition is unconscionable.

So too for the Christian to keep silence.

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Isaiah 62:6-7 Christians Can’t Keep Silent

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Isaiah 60:17 The Hope of All Who Serve the Lord

Isaiah 60:17 (KJV)
For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness.

“This commences the description of the happy times when the Gentiles should be led to embrace the true religion, and when the wealth of the world would be consecrated to the service of the true God. The idea is, that all things would be changed for the better….”[1]

I can buy these words by Albert Barnes if by better we mean:

  • a better covenant,
  • a better High Priest,
  • etc.

God has never promised the world would get better but He did promise both Jews and Gentiles of the Old Testament era a better outcome through the Messiah.

I see in this verse the hope of all who serve the Lord. We know that our efforts are feeble at very best. We can never in our flesh be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. We can never meet God’s standard of righteousness. We can never from the strength of fallen man bring forth gold silver and precious stones.

We are not asked to or expected to.

He hath made Him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.[2]

  • Where we are not perfect He is our perfection
  • Where we are not holy He is our righteousness
  • Where we bring forth wood, hay and stubble He brings gold, silver and precious stones

 

[1] Barnes Notes

[2] 2 Corinthians 5:21

To my readers:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3700 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Isaiah 60:17 The Hope of All Who Serve the Lord

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.