You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
11 He
stretched out [natah] his hand [yad] over the sea
[yam], he shook [ragaz] the kingdoms [mamlakah]:
the LORD [Yahovah] hath given a commandment [tsavah] against the merchant [Kana`an] city, to destroy [shamad]
the strong [ma`owz] holds [ma`owz] thereof. KJV-Interlinear
11 He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has shaken the
kingdoms; the LORD has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its
strongholds. ESV
And so just when you believe that you are safe, the news of this recent ebola outbreak reaches here into the United Sates. Some man travels here from Nigeria, to Dallas, Texas. He is sick and goes to the hospital in Dallas and they send him home. He just has a fever.
Then someone realizes that he has the ebola virus and he is taken back into the hospital and quarantined. But of course he has already traveled here on a major airline, walked through a major airport, gone home to his family. They have all been to and from various places in the city, dinner, work, public bathrooms, grocery store, and so forth.
The man has since died, but now we learn that one of the care workers in the hospital got the virus from him. But that care worker, has been back and forth between home and work. It takes three weeks for the symptoms to show themselves. And again more public contact from work, to dinner, to family, to social activities and so forth.
Over in Liberia and Nigeria people are dying like flies from this disease. Any moisture contact, a sneeze, a cough, a touch with sweat on a door knob, can spread this extremely aggressive disease.
And so it goes. There is no safe place in this world when the powers of this world are unleashed. And you thought that nothing like that could happen here. What happens when terrorists realize that they can infect their own fanatics and turn them loose in public places with this kind of thing?
And, once the symptoms are there, your life has but a week at best. Bleeding out of the nose, ears, mouth, eyes, diarrhea, vomit, it is really a bad ending. And this is just now appearing in the news headlines.
So, what does that have to do with us and our study?
Well, everything in life revolves around attitude toward Christ. This is not limited to believing in Him for salvation, but also in learning Him, which is the makeup of the spiritual life.
Christ is the word, and to receive Christ, and to have Christ in you, means to learn bible doctrine, meaning having Christ or the Word, in you. The only way this can happen is to pursue a daily study and learn.
And that is something that people seem to be oblivious too. They just coast along in a fog of clichés and empty headed beliefs. And in so doing they violate many truths without realizing it. In marriage wives withhold themselves from their husbands, men abuse women, children are insolent, society in general is indifferent toward truth, standards are lowered, attitudes become careless, and the general direction of the world is away from Christ.
Then along comes a wake-up call. Sometimes it is simple like a trip and a fall, and sometimes it is much more cruel like a plague. Could this be what is heading our way?
In our verse, Canaan, is the land that stretches from modern day Syria southward to Egypt. Both cities, that we have been studying, were located in Canaan.
But Canaan was the promised-land. It was settled by the grandson by the name of Canaan, of Ham, son of Noah, but was promised to Shem, the line of faith. Canaan tried to steal away, the promise of God to another.
And so when the end comes, this stolen land will be returned to its rightful owner, to whom the promise was made, namely the line of faith.
To stretch out His hand, means judgment. And when God judges, there will be no turning back unless there is a huge awakening and repentance back toward Christ.
But in the end days, there will be no repentance, and the strongholds, the strong minds of indifference, will be destroyed.
Most of us have never lived in the extremely hard times of the dark ages, or of the plagues, or even of the world wars of last century. We have seen many examples of tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and such, but they always seem to happen elsewhere.
But, that elsewhere principle, just may be shattered. One never knows.
When a society becomes indifferent, it also can become lax in its spiritual responsibilities and obligations, and very few want to examine themselves to see where they are lacking in their failure toward spiritual responsibilities or obligations. Then the troubles begin.
Sometimes the troubles can go along for a long time. This is designed to get people back on track, not only with their studies, but more so, with their obedience to their responsibilities in life.
With little or no response, then the troubles increase, and the squeeze is on in order to get the desired repentance from ones ways.
With little or no response, then the fire is turned up more and more, until someone cries uncle or they simply get tossed into the fires of heavy discipline or judgment.
It is far better to see the truth and to examine yourself and get back into Gods good graces, than it is to be exposed to the harder realities of life.
And to not take life seriously, to not take Christ seriously, to not take the responsibilities and obligations of your role in life seriously, to not take doctrine seriously, then you leave yourself wide open to the possibility of the extremely harsh realities that are out there. Is stubbornness really worth that?
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