night vision | SCRIP-BITS

Daniel 2:20. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his.

Ah Friends, this being the season of winter, it’s nothing special to wake up and find a beautiful layer of snow covering the ground. I can’t help remarking how wonderful the snow looks when it lies quietly in the dark, or even in the sunshine, as yet undisturbed, undefiled by human hands and feet. (smile)

But you know that once we humans get into anything, or any place, we always cause disturbances and confusion. I guess that such is the nature of the beast. But that doesn’t mean because something’s in our nature that we have to automatically give into it.

For though sinfulness is our natural state, we don’t have to be always or thoroughly sinful, because Christ died and paid for our sins, so that we could be set free and live in holiness and righteousness before Almighty God.

And this Lenten season is a time for us to consider who God is, and what He means to us. It’s a time to delve into the Word of God to discover His truth, and also delve into our own souls to see how the contents of both match up.

Then we need to aspire to, and work diligently to bring them into sync. For unless our lives are in sync with God’s Word, we are being disobedient, being rebellious, and will eventually pay a hefty price for that disobedience and rebellion.

So Friends, this is the ‘rightest’ time to consider how we’ve done so far in keeping our New Year’s Resolution to improve our walk with Christ this very meaningful year of 2014. Has there been noticeable progress, have we regressed, or have we just stood still? Only you and God can decide the answer to that question.

But it’s rather important that we monitor our walk with Christ, to ensure that we are indeed growing and maturing, as we journey along on our earthly pilgrimage. And we can see from the Scriptures that that is what Daniel and his three amigos, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (their Jewish names) were doing, when Daniel blessed the God of heaven and declared in our Bit:

‘Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his.’ And there’s not one iota of doubt on that proclamation my brethren!

For as Daniel continues: ”And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth (raises) up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know (have) understanding: He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

I thank thee and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter.’ (Dan.2:21-23)

Yes mih people, our omnipotent, omniscient and omni-present God does all those things… and more! And I guess some of you who don’t know the story of Daniel are wondering what all the fuss is about.

Well Friends, it was a rather serious matter, one of life and death! The powerful Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, had a dream that deeply disturbed him, and so he called his wise men, his magicians and sorcerers to interpret it for him.

But when they asked him to tell them the dream, he refused. He wanted the wise men to both tell him the dream, then its interpretation. On top of that, he threatened to kill them all if they couldn’t do both things. (Dan.2:1-9)

In exasperation, the wise men finally told the king: ‘There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.

And it is a rare (difficult) thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can show it before (no other who can tell it to) the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.’ (Dan.2:10-11)

And they were quite right my fellow believers, except for one point; not ‘gods’, but the ONE and ONLY TRUE LIVING GOD, He of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is a most mighty and powerful Spirit!

Now that answer certainly didn’t sit well with king Neb, and he commanded that all the wise men in Babylon be destroyed. Now Daniel and his buddies were numbered amongst the king’s advisers, but when Daniel heard of the king’s decree from Arioch, the captain in charge of the cleansing, he wondered about the king’s haste, and was told the reason by the captain.

Daniel therefore went before the king and asked for some time to consider the matter. (Dan.2:12-16) And the scholars’ note here that ‘Daniel was obviously held in high esteem, as his ready access to the king demonstrates.’

And the Good Book declares: ‘Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing (decree) known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: That they would desire (seek) mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish (be destroyed) with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.’ (Dan.2:17-19)

Then our Bit comes in. Oh Friends, oh Friends, I can’t help reminding us every day of the wonderful God we serve and worship!

The problem though is that you’ll never see it until you truly believe it! And unfortunately, there are too many of us who don’t believe it, consequently we don’t do the things necessary for God to show up in our lives, that’s why we are sadly plodding along in desperation.

But you can see, as the scholars wisely note, that ‘Even though Daniel had special, God-given attributes, he and his friends still had to pray.’

And that’s the crux of the problem right there, my people! We’re never too mature, too holy, too righteous, or too anything else that we don’t need to pray. If even, Jesus Christ, the mighty Son of the mighty Jehovah God had to pray, why wouldn’t we, poor mortal minions, His fickle and fallible creation, need to do likewise eh?

So Friends, please, let’s note the necessity of prayer in all our lives. For prayer is the method of close and positive communication with our Creator, and without it, we can do NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL, in our own strength!

Please let that bit of wisdom sink deep into our hearts and souls today, so that we can walk a better and truer path to heaven and Father God Himself! Much LOVE!

…no prayer…means no communication with our Maker and heavenly Father…truly an unwise deed…for the consequences can be rather painful…

Isaiah 54:17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgement thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of (from) me.

Oh Friends, it seems like I owe my poor, departed mother another apology on this Sunday morning, the first day of September 2013. Not only did it take me almost two years to go and visit her, it seems that I was so taken up with T&T’s Independence celebrations yesterday, that I failed to mention it was also the second anniversary of her going to be with the Lord. I guess the ole fella’s simply showing his age and human frailty. (smile)

Thanks for reminding me Di, although as I told you, it wasn’t a complete forgetting, because the flowers on the altar at church today will be donated in her memory. And you know Mols sugar, that whatever nonsense or mistakes your Sonny Boy might make, he will NEVER forget you!

How could I eh, after the wonderful relationship we shared for sixty something years, especially since it was an experience chocked full of LOVE? For as Cousin Sol says in his Song, your banner over me was one of continuous LOVE! That’s not to say there weren’t some tumultuous times, but they were few and far between and never lasted very long.

And I’m not the only one who thinks that time is going by rather quickly, because everybody I tell that she’s been gone to Paradise for two years now can’t believe that it’s already been that long.

That’s why, my fellow believers, we can’t afford to dilly-dally with the work we’ve been commissioned to do for Christ here on earth, since we can be called home unexpectedly at any time. And what are we going to tell the Father when He asks why we didn’t do a better job eh, that we didn’t have enough time?

No Friends that’s not going to pass muster, because he’s going to turn back the clock and show us all the time we wasted being involved in sinful worldly endeavours, when we could have been spreading His Word.

That brings us to our Bit: ‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgement thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of (from) me.’

Now a lot of us claim that promise, and so we should, but as with a lot of other scriptures, we take them out of context, and only use the parts that seem beneficial, while conveniently forgetting the other aspects. And in this particular promise, we always seem to leave out the very important proviso: ‘This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord…’

Yes Friends, if you’re not a servant of the Lord, then that promise is null and void! And furthermore, whatever righteousness we might have, doesn’t come from our own efforts, but from the Lord God Jehovah, our Creator and Provider. And having straightened that out, (smile) let’s look at some scriptures that fortify that, no, those awesome promises, because we’re promised physical, vocal and spiritual protection with righteousness.

Wow! And people still refuse to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! How unwise and foolish!

Isaiah himself tells us, re Ariel (Jerusalem; lit- lion of God) and her enemies, that though the Lord distresses Jerusalem, yet in the end: ‘And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel (Jerusalem), even all that fight against her and her munition (fortress), and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.

It shall even be as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite (still craves): so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.’ (Is.29:7-8)

And just before our Bit, Isaiah trills thus to God’s everlasting LOVE for the children of Israel, and those who follow His commandments. ‘And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.

Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument (weapon) for his work; and I have created the waster (destroyer) to destroy.’ (Is.54:13 -16)

So my people, there’s nothing to fear if we are walking obedient to God’s will, for as we’ve seen, He has promised on several occasions to protect us from our enemies when we so do. But unfortunately in these evil, turbulent and dangerous times, we have forsaken our God, have not even taught our children His Word. So what else can we expect but disaster, calamity and misery eh?

I don’t know if there’s ever been a time in man’s history, even during the two great wars, where mankind has been engaged in warfare on so many fronts at the same time. The scale of fighting might not be as large as in the two world wars, but we have many more nations inflamed in both external and internal strife. It’s possibly easier to pick out the few nations that are not involved in some kind of deadly strife.

Oh Friends, when are we ever going to learn eh? The Most High God created us, and though He’s given us freedom of choice, He still retains overall control. And He has continually warned us to keep His commandments, to serve and worship Him in sincerity and truth, while also providing glaring examples of the disastrous happenings disobedience can bring.

So it’s up to us now Friends to rally round the cross of Christ and try to drum some sense into the hard, stubborn minds of our fellowman. That is if we want our children and future generations to live in a somewhat peaceful world.

And in closing, I know that some people try to knock the Old Testament, saying it’s out of date and of no use now. But my brethren, that’s a fallacy, pure foolishness, because the Old Testament is the setting, the foreshadowing, for fulfillment by the New Testament. And throughout the New Testament you’ll find Jesus and all the disciples and apostles quoting important scripture from the Old Testament.

So please don’t listen to anyone who tells you that nonsense! You can’t properly understand the New until you understand the Old, just like you cannot tell where you’re going, until you know where you’ve come from. Much LOVE!

…our earthly pilgrimage may be rough and rocky…but if we concentrate on walking with God…then though we occasionally stumble…we’ll never fall…that’s the Lord’s faithful promise…

SCRIP-BITS

Today’s Scrip-Bit 6 March 2014 Daniel 2:20

Today’s Scrip-Bit 1 September 2013 Isaiah 54:17

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