Skip to main content

Nahum 3:18-19 Sleepy shepherds Day 339

Good morning fellow sheep of His pasture,

Its probably been awhile since you were greeted as a sheep.  But writing this devotional this morning made me thankful for our Good Shepherd above and beyond the world political stage.

Blessings,

Jeff

Interesting that Israel and Judah are not the only ones who were afflicted with bad shepherds.  Jonathan's look at John 10 and the Good Shepherd is the background for thoughts today.

Nahum's pronouncement of woes to Nineveh are really shocking to me.  Assyria had destroyed northern kingdom. Judah was on the decline. Yet here is a prophet telling the king of Assyria, the most powerful empire of the day, that the men looking out for the empire are asleep at their posts. 

The curse of perceived invincibility - when a nation has been successful in conquering others, leaders can become convinced that they can do no wrong. That whatever they do will preserve the empire. They stop being attentive to the true condition of their people. They fall asleep. They think they are awake, but they are deceived. 

Is Nahum speaking only to Assyria?  Hasn't history of Israel been full of sleepy shepherds and nobles?  Isn't this also a call to Judah and her shepherds and nobles to wake up?  While Assyria is the dominant power militarily, they don't have the Great I Am as their God. The nobles and shepherds over the Lord's people have a higher calling than those over a "superpower". 

In theory, history should teach all people everywhere that they need a Good Shepherd who neither slumbers nor sleeps.  Yet the world system opposed to God's kingdom continue to offer cheap imitation shepherds and nobles for people to run after. 

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" bec...
Post a Comment
Read more

Malachi 2:10-12 Here we go again!! Day 363

Good afternoon friends, As we draw to the end of the Old Testament, we see that Judah has rebuilt the temple and the walls of Jerusalem, but they are following in the footsteps of faithless fathers and not in the footsteps of Abraham and ultimately God.  The exile was a low point, but now a new low is about to happen.  The prophetic voice has once again become warning and not encouraging. Faithful reading and preaching of the word is all that keeps us from losing our way.  May we be faithful in our generation. Blessings, Jeff I am sure I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating.  The section summary, chapter and verse are not in the original language.  They are all rather modern inventions to help us.  For example, the section title here is "Judah profaned the Covenant".  That is OK as far as it goes, but which Covenant?  So let's take a look. Observations Starts with 3 questions but who is asking the questions and to whom are they addre...
Post a Comment
Read more

2 Chronicles 33:7-9 Thoughts on Davidic covenant - Day 362

Good morning faithful readers, The finish line is in sight!!!  One of the themes of scripture is that God is a covenant keeping God.  There are many between God and man. Adam, Noah, David are examples.  Covenants are more than promises.  They are made between a superior and inferior with conditions for each side and blessing and penalties based on keeping the conditions.  These are covenants of works which fallen man was unable to keep.  Thanks be to God that the Father made a covenant of grace with Christ, the second Adam, which he fully kept. Blessings, Jeff The promise in v8 was made to David when he had planned to build the temple and God promised to build him a house forever. (2 Sam 7:10).  Seems like there are only two possibilities about Manasseh's disobedience.  Either he knew of this covenant that God had made with his 13th great grandfather and chose to disregard it, or he didn't know of it and was unaware of the penalty.  Let's con...
Post a Comment
Read more