Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

The purpose of this post is to remind people that we can’t be putting others on a pedestal.

Great men of God are still men.  That’s what I love about the Bible.

God is infallible, man is a mess.

The more hooked into to God we are and the more we die to ourselves, the less of a mess we become.  Even under those circumstances, we are still humans.

My example today is John the Baptist.  What a great man of God.  Dedicated his whole life when he was called from what we believe was from his birth.

Here is what Jesus had to say about John the Baptist.

Matthew 11:  – ¹⁰This is the one about whom it is written:  “‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ ¹¹I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

John prepared the way for the coming Messiah.  He was fully committed to God.

After John was arrested and was in prison, he wondered if Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  I believe John like many of the Jewish leaders of the day, thought the Messiah was coming to take over and rule the Jews over the other nations.  So when that wasn’t happening, he was second guessing his baptism.

Matthew 11:1-3 – ¹After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. ²When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples ³to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Why did John ever doubt?  Because he was a man.

He was in prison after giving his life to God.  He was hearing about Jesus preaching the Good News, but I can’t help to think, and this is my opinion, he was waiting for Jesus to make his Kingship and then get John out of that prison.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t believe that for two seconds that if John knew that if he was going to be in prison or beheaded and that was God’s plan for his life, that he would have changed a thing.  He was a souled out believer.

John was a great man of God.  Like all great men of God, he had his moment or moments.

I am so grateful that the Lord had all those things recorded in his Word.  If all the great men of God were perfect, who would attempt to follow and present the Gospel after them?  Certainly not I.

However, since all men are fallible, we can all know that perfection isn’t a necessity to spread the Good News.

A heart for Truth is.  To spread around the correct Gospel is.  Perfection however, is not a prerequisite.  Time for all of us to spread the Good News.

In the following verse King Saul and David are talking about David wanting to fight Goliath.

1 Samuel 17:32-37 –  ³² David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

 33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”

 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
      Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.”

Now this post is on one thing in which 20 or more could be written.  I’m going to concentrate today on how God prepared a boy to fight and take out one of the toughest warriors of their day.

David was the youngest of 8 sons that belonged to Jesse.  He tended the sheep for his father’s flock.

During that time he had dangerous Sheppard duties.  I know I would be freaked out at my age if I was tending sheep and a lion came along.

He was the protector of the flock and I’m sure he practiced slinging stones from his sling all day long.  It appears to me it was the kind of job which gave him time to practice as well as time to meditate on the Lord.

When the lion and the bear came around, he had built the confidence to confront his enemies.  However, don’t miss the fact that God had him out there as a Sheppard in the first place.  David had a willing heart to serve God. 

Now David found himself on the battle lines.  He knew that God already rescued him from the lion and the bear.  No small task there.  He also knew that God would give him victory over Goliath.

They tried to put armor on him.  They tried to give him a shield and a helmet.  They tried to give him a heavy sword to use. 

None of this was familiar to him.  It wasn’t how he trained.  It wasn’t how God how prepared him up to this point.  David was ready for battle based on his trust for God.  He trusted that God would give him victory and he trusted that God had prepared him to fight.

He didn’t count on God giving Goliath a heart attack, although God was capable of doing that.  No, God had prepared him prior to this fight, from his responsibility of protecting the sheep.

We have a responsibility to continue to prepare for what God has planned for us.  If we’re not ready and our hearts are not right, we get passed over like David’s seven older brothers.

Prepare yourselves.  How?  By studying God’s Word as often as you can. 

By studying God’s Word you prepare for that lost sole that is seeking God and needs your help.  By preparing you’re less apt to get swept away by some slick talking guy that’s not teaching the correct things about God whose Son is Jesus Christ.

Every one of us has some sort of talent that can be used for God.  No talent is too small.  If you use a small talent for Jesus, it’s better than an amazing one someone has that isn’t. 

Prepare for the things God has in store for you, because if you’re not prepared, or willing and able, he can’t use you in the battle.

We’ve been in the story of the Exodus and the focus is on how quickly man can forget the awesome Hand and works of God.

The Israelites were at the Red Sea and complaining to Moses.  As we know God parts the Red Sea in another awesome miracle.  The Israelites cross over and do a dance and sing songs for the Lord.

Immediately they have no water in the desert and they come up to Marah.  The water was bitter.  It doesn’t indicate that people asked Moses to ask God to make it drinkable.  It says they grumbled against Moses.  Once again, Moses went to God and God had him throw in a piece of wood and they could drink of it.

Not even few small paragraphs later we have them complaining of …… Food.

Then God rains down Manna.  Do they obey God concerning  Manna?  Of course not.  Don’t get me wrong, many of them did.  The others, well they were going to try and store some the next day and it was rotting, just like God said.  Others went out to find some on the Sabbath and there was none, just like God said.

We look at the Israelites and we think,” Are you blind?  Do you not hear and see the Hand of the Lord?”

Trust me on this one.  Nothing has changed.  The time period changes, but humans don’t change.  When they are trusting God and following Him and his Word, they are blessed.  When they are not, destruction comes.

God does get tired of man not obeying Him.  Plagues were set off on the Israelites who continued to grumble.  Plagues were set off on those who chose the idol over the Ten Commandments.  The whole assembly that came out of Egypt, besides Joshua and Caleb, died in the desert.  They were not allowed to enter the Promised Land.  Why, because they wouldn’t listen to God.

The next generation listened to God and they began their conquest of the Promised Land.  Who were they conquering?  Nations that were evil in God’s eyes and that weren’t obeying Him.

How quickly can humans forget?                                     

We were once a great nation.  Why?  This nation served God and overall was an ally of Israel.  Not always strong and shame on us when we weren’t, but guilty enough that their neighbors aren’t fans of ours.

Now this nation worships money.  It’s over $12 Trillion down and that’s the conservative estimate.  It has been fighting since 1962 to throw God out of everything. 

Make sense?  Actually, when one gets to know the Word of God and the sinful fall of man, it does. 

Study God’s Word nonstop.  The only sanity, in an insane and out of control world, is God and His Word.

Yesterday we spoke of the ten awesome plagues that God put on the Egyptians.  The Israelites witnessed it all.  After the Plague of the Firstborn, the Egyptians begged the Israelites to go and even gave them their goods, silver, and gold, when they were asked by the Jews.   

In another mighty act the Lord led them in the form of a pillar of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

In Exodus 13:17 the Israelites are on their way out of Egypt.  God has just delivered them singlehandedly from a strong dominant well to do nation.  How many versus does it take for them to lose heart?  About 15 versus it seems.  Pharaoh has a change of plans and decides he wants his slave labor plan back along with everything that was just plundered from them.

Exodus 14:5-9 – ⁵ When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” ⁶ So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. ⁷ He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. ⁸ The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. ⁹ The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.

I don’t think Pharaoh’s heart needed to change much nor needed a lot of persuasion from God to harden.  So with one miracle after another, day upon day from the Lord, how did the Israelites respond?

Exodus 14:10 – ¹⁰ As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD.    

Crying out to the Lord is the good part.  We need to cry out to the Lord for deliverence, but were they crying out to the Lord in confidence?

Exodus 14:11-12 – ¹¹ They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Now I don’t know about you, but when they were upset during captivity when the Egyptians took away the straw and still wanted the same number of bricks, I can understand whining to Moses that more hardship was being brought on by Moses’ boldness.  At that time they were trying to go with the flow and they were being beaten for something they weren’t prepared for.

That was before the Hand of God led them out of Egypt.  Now after witnessing God’s mighty strength, are they praying to Him stating, “please God, help us again!?”

No.  They’re complaining to Moses asking him if it was because there were no graves in Egypt that he brought them out into the desert to die.

They were asking Moses if “he” brought them out of Egypt to die?  I’m pretty sure we read that Moses was very careful to explain to the Israelites that it was God that delivered them out of Egypt. 

My, how quickly man forgets!  I emphasize the human race, as the Israelites are just the example in this story.

We could stop right there and wrap it up, but there is so much more.  We could use another day and let’s make that tomorrow.

Moses was chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

No generation of people has seen the direct mighty Hand of God at work more than this one.

They witnessed 10 plagues that were sent upon the Egyptians to help set them free.  Those plagues weren’t only to help set them free, but to display the awesome power of God also.

One by one they witnessed them.

The Plague of turning the Nile to blood.
The Plague of Frogs.
The Plague of Gnats.
The Plague of Flies.
The Plague of Livestock dying.  Yet not the Israelites livestock.
The Plague of Boils.
The Plague of Hail.
The Plague of Locust.
The Plague of Darkness.
The Plague of the Firstborn.

The Plagues were a strong judgment on a nation that had enslaved and suppressed God’s chosen people.  Not only were the judgments awesome in their severity, but just to make sure there was no mistake, the Israelites were warned and spared of the judgments.  This way, no one could pass it off by unfortunate circumstances.

Were the plagues bad timing for the Egyptians?  No, they came right after God told Moses to tell them they were coming if they didn’t let the His people go.

Did this generation of people (Israelites) as a whole, straighten up and live unwavering from this day forward?

Let’s discuss more on this tomorrow.