Psalms 112:6-7 Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.
I recently arrived back in Israel last week, and upon my arrival, there were severe thunderstorms, something unusual for this time of year. In these thunderstorms, rivers are often created in the desert, and the highway road along the Dead Sea is often closed during this time. Last week, a few people died traveling along this road as its car was carried away by a flash flood. This reminded me of another incident in my own life.
A few years ago, I was driving to the Dead Sea region to pick up a package when a river from the desert suddenly exploded out of nowhere, sideswiped my car, and nearly washed me into the Dead Sea. The river’s force was so powerful that it lifted the rear end of my car off the road, ripping off most of the bumper, while the front wheels struggled to maintain traction as I desperately maneuvered out of the cataract forward to safety. For the next 7 hours, I was stuck between two rivers as the rains that came down over Israel the night before inundated numerous valleys leading to the Dead Sea. I later spoke with a police officer who informed me that a driver in similar circumstances was carried into the Dead Sea the previous month and drowned!
I believe this is a prophetic picture of what will take place in the near future. When the “rivers” come out of nowhere — will you be wiped into the sea with no hope? Or will you be one of those who witness the raging rivers but is secure on the rock?
I wrote about building your house on the rock — but the key is DOING what Yeshua (Jesus) says… “He that hears and does them” — it’s all about how you are LIVING it out!
Take the Lord’s words to heart — live them out — it could be a matter of life and death.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Some of the wealthiest individuals in the United States are real estate developers. They make their money by buying a piece of property that is terribly run down, seemingly useless, without any value to the naked eye and reforming it completely, making it look brand new! These businessmen are not as much interested in what is on the property as they are interested in the land it’s on!
A sailor who was shipwrecked on a desert island was captured by some of the natives of that island. They carried him off on their shoulders to their village, where he was sure he would end up being the main course. But instead, they put a crown on his head and made him king. He was enjoying all the attention he was receiving but was growing a little suspicious. He started making inquiries and discovered that their custom was to crown a stranger king for a year and at the end of that year the crowned king would be sent to a deserted island where he was allowed to starve to death.
With war drums beating even more intensely in Iran and Syria, we’ve received numerous phone calls and emails expressing their concerns — and understandably so! Nevertheless, even in this climate of anxiety, we are preparing to enter into Shabbat (the Hebrew word for Sabbath) this afternoon. And as we do, we are remembering again, the deep lesson of God’s entering into His rest following the six creation days.
This is one of my favorite promises in the Bible — that God turns mourning into dancing! He takes away the anguish of being clothed in sadness and replaces it with gladness. However, notice what God doesn’t do — simply stop your mourning and make it disappear. No, He transforms it…into joy!
As we discussed last week, the word for “sign” in ancient Hebrew is “oht”. It was used in Genesis to designate God’s covenant sign with Noah, (the rainbow). And we see now the same word again, in Exodus, identified with the deliverance of the Jewish people from the tenth plague, when the angel of death passed through all Egypt to strike the firstborn. Anyone under the “sign” of the blood was spared.
Yesterday we wrote about one of the greatest moves of God … the Moravian Revival. When the community was in complete disarray, Count Zinzendorf focused on how they could live together in love despite their differences. He called all the men together for an intense study of the Scriptures to focus on how Christian life in community was portrayed. These studies combined with intense prayer convinced many of the believers that they were called to live together in love and that their disunity and conflict were contrary to the clear calling of Scripture.
In the late 1800s, an awakening in South Africa led by Andrew Murray was a powerful move of God. Studying that revival yields essential insights concerning the events occurring now throughout the United States. As the spirit of God began to move in Cape Town, Murray compared the SA revival with past experiences of revivals in Europe. He decided that the intense “emotionalism” was a false experience of God and charged in to break up the meeting. Stepping out of the church, he encountered his father standing and weeping. His father rebuked Andrew, “How dare you stop something that I have prayed to happen for 30 years!”