Jun 6, 2022
2SAMUEL 1:
David returned from being sent home from the
battle with Israel only to find that his town had been ransacked by
the Amalekites. He found strength in God, asked for God to direct
him, and succeeded in retrieving everything, and even much more.
However in Israel, Saul and his three sons died, and the Israelite
army was completely defeated.
PSALM 107a:
We
come to another of my favorite psalms. In E.C. Olsen’s book on the
psalms (which is a transcription of his radio programs), he said
that this psalm has a message for America. That message is in the
repeated refrain found in this psalm. Then Olsen gave examples of
the Great Depression starting in 1929, the Dust Bowl plagues in
1933-34, and the drought of 1936. Olsen observed, “Do you think we
heeded [God’s warnings]? Indeed not. … Did we cease our wicked
doings? Indeed not.” And I similarly ask about the increasing pace
of disasters right now. My observation is that we as a nation
turned to God when we confronted the first disasters. But our
turning to God lasted only a few days. Now, even as natural
disasters multiply, we steadfastly talk of Climate Change and never
talk about God. Consequently, we do NOT do like the people we hear
about in this psalm.
ROMANS 11a:
As
Paul said in his topic sentence in this book (Rom. 1:16-17), the
way God has revealed for making people right with himself is— from
start to finish, by means of fully believing. In chapter 10 we have
a great and succinct summation of the content that we are to ‘fully
believe’. Our confessing the belief that is in our hearts is also
important. At the end of chapter 10 there are a series of Old
Testament quotes. Two of those quotes are about the non-Jews. Paul
was not changing his topic. He is still talking about Jewish
rejection of the Gospel. The two Old Testament prophecies about the
non-Jews (19-20) are quoted as a powerful sign to the Jews. This is
the topic Paul continues with in chapter 11.