NUMBERS 32:1-33:39
"Be sure your sin will find you out." (32:23): Reuben, Gad and the 1/2 tribe of Manasseh wanted to be allotted their land EAST of the Jordan, thus showing their unbelief and resulting reluctance to go to war. Years later, they were the first to be led away captive (1 Chron 5:25-26). Moses told them that they were no better than their fathers who died in the wilderness without seeing anything. Their sin was self-preservation and unbelief and it was manifested in their cowardly and selfish request.
42 Stops in the Wilderness: God led them to specific places, and sometimes named the places after them, for example, "Marah" means "bitter". Two years of stops were intentional, while the Israelites were to be humbled in learning to live by the life and energy of God, and to be obedient - but disqualified themselves from their inheritance and then wandered 38 years more (Deu 2:14), waiting for all of that generation to die off.
RESPONSE: My granddaughter is named after me (her middle name is "Rose".) I wouldn't want anyone or anything named "Bitter" after me! Some people just never complain, even though they have reason. What is their secret? What is their thought habit? At Marah, the cure was a tree, which is the figure of the Cross of Jesus - signifying death to SELF. Is that what it takes to stop complaining?
Actually, there is a list of sins in 1 Cor 10 of disqualifiers. Wanting to have their own way, idolatry (satisfying spiritual hunger with substitutes for God), fornication (compromise), testing God (rebellion), and COMPLAINING. Out of all of them, complaining seems to be the "smallest sin" of them all! But the most damning!
LUKE 4:31-5:11
Unclean spirits: They are ALL "unclean" - And they make their "host" unclean. Uncleanness in the Bible renders a thing unusable. It must pass through fire and through water to be cleansed. And then the "host" went through the rites of repentance and atonement. The unclean spirit went out at the power and authority of Jesus but Jesus did not want an unclean spirit to announce His coming - John and Baptist had already done that.
Peter's House: If Peter had a mother-in-law, it's "sure as shootin'" that he had a wife!
Peter's Business: (1) Catch fish. (2) Get caught by Jesus. (3) Catch men. When Peter realized his sin of unbelief, he wanted Jesus to "go away"; but Jesus wanted to draw Peter CLOSER so he could repent of his independence.
Note: When fishing for FISH, the word used for "catch" is to catch and haul away. When fishing for MEN, the word used for "catch" is "catch and release".
RESPONSE: Note that the demonized man was IN CHURCH! Can Christians "have" a demon? As Christians, we can have anything we want, even demons if we are that stupid! The devil can't MAKE you do ANYTHING you don't already WANT TO DO. We are not in bondage to sin. We only sin because we want to.
PSALM 64:1-10
Kingdom Psalm #4 - the Judgment of the Enemy: The enemy plans cruelty in secret, and fires at us from behind trees. He snoops out the sins of the saints, then ambushes us.The enemy's plans: (v.2) are in secret and in conspiracy against us.
The enemy's weapons: (v.3) "bitter words". The enemy's methods: (v.4) attack suddenly from out of nowhere.
The enemy's thoughts: (v.5) there is a conspiracy, and they think no one will know.
The enemy's are repaid: (v.7) God will suddenly act, and their curses will come home to roost.
PROVERBS 11:22
A woman with beauty but without character is blecchhh!
RESPONSE: God fires from behind trees, too! And He sees everything. I, too, long to be hidden away from "the secret plans of the wicked". As for Proverbs, my mother always said that "beauty is only skin-deep and ugly is to the bone."
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