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.
This weekend, the Jewish people will celebrate the festival of Purim. This holiday commemorates Israel’s amazing reversal in Persia during the reign of King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) when Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai gained victory for the Jews and protected them from annihilation at the hands of the evil Haman.
The irony is the news this week carries a certain irony with Iran, once the ancient kingdom of Persia, is presiding over the UN’s Disarmament Conference. Given the historical and ongoing tensions, it raises the question: might this development compel the Jewish community to take measures to ensure their own defense?
Let me share a story that took place during Purim in 2010.
In 2010, just as the festival of Purim was getting underway, a lightning bolt struck outside our house, destroying the neighborhood’s transformer and cutting off our electric power. Then, later that day, as I was driving to the Dead Sea region to pick up a package, a ferocious river torrent from the desert came out of nowhere, sideswiped my car, and nearly washed me into the Dead Sea. The river’s immense 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 maneuvered the car to safety. For the next 7 hours, I was stuck between two rivers as the rains that came down over Israel. Later that night, I spoke with a police officer who informed me that a few weeks earlier a driver in similar circumstances was carried into the Dead Sea and drowned!
The lesson I learned that day was I do NOT actually see these experiences as “coincidences” but as signs and portents of things to come. We will soon be facing severe unexpected storms, which will shock and possibly dislodge us from the roads we are traveling on. But we are under Divine protection as we focus on the Lord, and our devotion rests in Him. We may be badly shaken — but He will rescue and restore us!
The message in these days of earthquakes and tsunamis is clear: “Do not fear, for I am with you, even unto the end of the age.”
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Once upon a time, there was a prince who received a very rare and beautiful bird. He named her Goldie and placed her in a lovely, 14K gold cage. But the poor creature was not impressed by the gold at all. She pleaded for her freedom but the prince loved her much too much to part with her. Still, she continued to beg. In final desperation, she asked that he at least allow her go to her relatives and tell them that, though captive, she was still alive.
Charles Swindoll wrote about these men who bring in animals from Africa for American zoos. They say that one of the hardest animals to catch there is the ringtailed monkey. For the Zulus of that continent, however, it’s simple. They’ve been catching this agile little animal with ease for years.
When I teach about “understanding the will of God,” I’d like to talk about a story that is told in all the synoptic gospels, except that Luke’s account gives a significant nuance. (Many skeptical Bible “critics” point out differences in the gospels to argue that they can’t be reliable — yet it’s actually the differences that support the validity of these accounts because they reveal that the events recorded were simply experienced and told from slightly different viewpoints, a very common circumstance when people are telling a story.)
This is a story relayed by Corrie Ten Boom, “It was Christmas, 1944. My sister, Betsie, had died. I was in a hospital barracks in Ravensbruck, a Nazi prison camp. Dark it was in my heart, and darkness was around me. There were Christmas trees in the street between the barracks. Dead bodies of prisoners had been thrown under the Christmas trees. I tried to talk to the people around me about Christmas, but they mocked and sneered. At last I kept quiet.
Over the past few days, one of our servers that hosts roughly 20 different web sites was breached and used to send SPAM. While there was no real damage done, the thousands of bounced messages literally caused the server to shut down. There was no personal information stored on the server, however, the hours spent setting up a new server in the midst of a speaking tour created chaos which we really didn’t have the time to deal with. However, the worst of it is all over, and we’re back! Just as we’re getting ready to launch another website (https://worthy.bible) for the Kingdom … we get attacked from all sides!
From the beginning, we anticipated a time when we would need to produce all our news content. Over the past month, as many of you are aware, we’ve fully shifted to generating articles exclusively through our dedicated in-house writing team. We’ve also expanded as we continue to freely syndicate our news to any online Christian ministry. Operating on faith and independent of advertising revenue, our ministry’s content is driven not by external factors but by a deep commitment to fulfilling the Lord’s will.
I came across an old legend about three cowboys crossing the desert on horseback by night. Suddenly, as they reached a rocky spot, a voice came from heaven and commanded them: “Friends, pick up some pebbles, put them in your pockets and do not look at them till morning.” The men looked at each other in astonishment and began to do as they were told. The voice went on to promise that if they obeyed, they would be both glad and sad. The perplexed men put a few pebbles each in their pockets and went on their way.