Category: Old Testament

Psalms 11:4 His Eyes and His Eyelids

Psalms 11:4 (KJV)
The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’S throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.

The punctuation in this verse completely changes the meaning of the verse. It should not be read, “His eyes, (think carefully about this), His eyelids …” The verse gives us two separate actions:

His eyes behold
He looks, perceives and contemplates upon the children of men.

His eyelids try
He investigates, examines and proves them. The use of the term “eyelids” could be in reference to how men squint the eyelids when we want to examine a thing more closely.

God is in heaven but He is very

  • Aware of
  • Up to date and
  • Active in

the affairs of men on earth.

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For this and more than 3000 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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Psalms 11:4 His Eyes and His Eyelids

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Psalms 9:1-2 The Privilege of Persons of Free Will

Psalms 9:1-2 (KJV)
I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.
I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High.

No doubt the majority of those viewing this will be familiar with the “I wills” of Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12-14). Satan’s fall was the direct result of his own will. He exercised his right of free will to his own destruction.

“I” and more specifically “I will” is one of the most self-damning attitudes any person may have. However, having a will is not evil in and of itself. Here God’s Word gives us four wholesome “I wills” to which every human being is wise to affirm:

I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart
His praise is not half hearted. He pours all of his heart into praising God.

I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.
The psalmist determines to manifest, proclaim, make known all God’s marvelous works. This necessarily implies that he has undertaken to learn them.

I will be glad and rejoice in thee
Rejoicing is not always a natural response to the circumstances of this life. In order to be glad and rejoice in God one has to have determined to do so.

I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High.
This is not necessarily difficult except that first, singing exposes oneself and it is not in the nature of all to do that and second, the natural man prefers music of a different sort than glorifies God.

I will, the self determinate privilege of persons of free will, may be exercised for evil or good.

Exercise yours for godliness.

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For this and more than 3000 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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Psalms 9:1-2 The Privilege of Persons of Free Will

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Psalms 1:4 Not So

Psalms 1:4 (KJV)
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Barnes says that the term ungodly is, in this case, a general one. This is not necessarily the person totally abandoned to wickedness but the one who:

  • Walks in the counsel of the ungodly
  • Stands in the way of sinners and
  • Sits in the seat of the scornful

By this definition a Christian can be as ungodly as the lost man.

The point of the passage is just this; every promise and blessing God has in store for the godly, the ungodly misses. A Christian, even an ungodly one, cannot miss heaven, but he can miss the blessing of God on his way to heaven. He can miss the joy a Christian owns and he can miss eternal rewards in heaven.

Whatever is true of the godly is not so of the ungodly.

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For this and more than 3000 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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Psalms 1:4 Not So

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Job 42:10 Motivating Job’s Prayer

Job 42:10 (KJV)
And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.

In my studies this week I discovered the suggestion that God’s message (a rebuke) to Job in chapters 38 through 41 is directed especially toward Elihu and not Job personally. God may have been instructing Job concerning the error of his friends which in turn motivated and directed Job’s prayers for them.

Elihu is not mentioned by name in 42:7-9, perhaps because he was addressed specifically in God’s message to Job. Job does declare his own repentance but that implies nothing against Job’s character and standing before God. Like us all he had a sin nature and, before praying for his friends it would be appropriate to clear things between he and the Lord.

This interpretation:

  • Preserves Job’s character
  • Seems consistent with the theme of the book and
  • Explains Job’s prayer for his friends

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For this and more than 3000 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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Job 42:10 Motivating Job’s Prayer

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Job 31:35 We Have What Job Longed For

Job 31:35 (KJV)
Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book.

A friend recently pointed this verse out to me and offered some very helpful insights.

Job is here expressing his case. As far as he knew, he had committed none of the heinous sins his friends were just sure he must have done (though they could not name one or prove it if they had). Previous to this verse Job is at a loss. He lists possible sins and declares himself innocent of them all.

Then here he makes his request. Job prays for a thing that believers have enjoyed possessing for the last nineteen hundred years; a completed and perfect book revealing God’s plan for men. Job’s own life event is both contained in that book and answered by the book.

The Bible, God’s answer to the struggle of fallen man, has gone through four thousand years of writing, two thousand years of abuse and refinement and four hundred years of attempted corruption but God has kept His Word perfect, pure and profitable.

All that remains is that we learn it.

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For this and more than 3000 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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Job 31:35 We Have What Job Longed For

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Job 29:2-3 Job- A Type of Christ

Job 29:2-3 (KJV)
Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;
When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;

No one person in the Bible is a perfect type of Jesus Christ. We do, however, find types of Christ in a great many Old Testament characters such as Joseph, David, Solomon and, in this piece of his account, Job.

He speaks of the glory of former days
Job 29:2-3

Christ first setting is heavenly glory. He laid that down to identify with and become man but He always looked to the day of His restored glory.

He did the work of deliverance
Job 29:12-14

Through His own righteousness and personal sacrifice many are delivered from sin and sing for joy.

Job is a judge of the wicked and brings vengeance for the bereft.
Job 29:17

The believer need never seek vengeance as he is assured God will make all things right.

He prophesied his death
Job 29:18-20

It was the death burial and resurrection of Christ that purchased our liberty.

Upon His Words hang the very souls of men
Job 29:21-22

The Word of God is the most important thing a man possesses in this life.

It is for His Word we assemble and wait
Job 29:23-24

This is church. We gather to hear His very Word.

He gives us direction leadership weapons and comfort
Job 29:25

All of it from His Word

The type continues into Job chapter 30. I leave to the interested reader to develop this likenesses.

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For this and more than 3000 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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Job 29:2-3 Job- A Type of Christ

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Job 27:6 His Heart Never Condemned Him

Job 27:6 (KJV)
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

Job found himself in a situation where reproach was all around him.

  • It felt as if God had reproached him allowing him to suffer as he did
  • It is certain that Satan had reproached him as is recorded in this book
  • His wife had reproached him, we know not what became of her
  • His friends had reproached him and continued to do so

But Job said that there was one thing he had determined would not reproach him; his own heart. He knew that none of this had come upon him due to any unrighteousness found in him. Job was no more perfect than anyone else but he had a living relationship with God. That relationship provided his righteousness. He would not allow his circumstances or the accusations of his friends to break down that trusting relationship and thus allow his own heart to accuse and reproach him.

1 John 3:19-22
And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.
For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

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For this and more than 3000 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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Job 27:6 His Heart Never Condemned Him

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Job 26:1-4 A Course on Comfort

Job 26:1-4 (KJV)
But Job answered and said,
How hast thou helped him that is without power? how savest thou the arm that hath no strength?
How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? and how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?
To whom hast thou uttered words? and whose spirit came from thee?

The Bible tells us to try the spirits whether they be of God. Job does that very thing in this passage. His reply to Bildad was simply, “whose spirit came from thee?” It obviously wasn’t God’s.

Notice the questions Job urges Bildad to consider:

  • How hast thou helped?
  • How savest thou the arm?
  • How hast thou counseled?
  • How hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?
  • To whom hast thou uttered words?
  • Whose spirit came from thee?

We would be wise to weigh any counsel or comfort we offer others on the scale of these questions.

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For this and more than 3000 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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Job 26:1-4 A Course on Comfort

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Job 23:6 What a Testimony!

Job 23:6 (KJV)
Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.

What an impressive demonstration of faith. How could a person imagine a man in lower straits? Job had lost very nearly everything

  • His wife was no comfort
  • His children were dead
  • His resources were depleted
  • His influence was exhausted
  • His body was ravished with disease

To top it off his friends were nothing more than thorns ripping holes in his soul.

It is in the midst of all of this that Job boldly declares God was not against him. Further he insisted that in fact God did all of this to “put strength” in him.

  • What a testimony
  • What an example

 

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3000 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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Job 23:6 What a Testimony!

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.

Job 21:4 No One Else Need Know

Job 21:4 (KJV)
As for me, is my complaint to man? and if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?

Some years ago I had to have a heart catheter in view of a possible open heart surgery. As the prospect of this potentially monumental life event drew close I determined that I didn’t want to have a ton of people around me while I was in the hospital. I called on one trusted preacher friend to pray with me, had a couple of men from the church I pastor who came to a waiting room and prayed and I had my immediate family there. The situation was:

  • Huge
  • Scary and
  • Stressful

I just didn’t want to be pressed upon by people.

I wonder if Job might have felt a bit like that? He was in a terrible situation. He had and continued to meet with God about it. The supposed friends served no real purpose but to interfere with that meeting.

It was under these circumstances that Job told these miserable comforters that

  • His complaint
  • His communication
  • His distresses

were between him and the Lord. If they had not pressed in and refused to give him space, they may not ever have known that Job’s spirit was troubled.

All of us go through times when we must pour out our hearts to the Lord. Those times are best accomplished in private or at least with only very trusted comforters.

No one else need ever know of our troubled spirit.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3000 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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Job 21:4 No One Else Need Know

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.