Category: Prayer

CHURCH SLEEPS ON TURNING A BLIND EYE.

CHURCH SLEEPS ON TURNING A BLIND EYE.
THE MISSING SPIRIT OF PRAYER
With the late 19th C. downgrade of church prayer meetings the clergy then (conveniently relegated it to privatized intercession to the home. The increased pastoral control and often made him the hero as sole prayer guru of the assembly, although he too, usually lacks the fire to do so orally before the congregation today.
What happened to the gathering of interceding saints’ weekly meet of the congregation? Their once powerful prevailing mediation for the lost, for the state and the nation has been silenced or at best muted for over a hundred and fifty years?

No wonder congregations die and disappear to leave only the ebullient stage performing pulpits to simulate what has been lost by their irreverent and flippant humour, or unashamed secular jokes; improvised music of the world, and a manufactured sense of excitement to keep the hype going. They are sadly deluded, nothing can replace the abandoned spirit of prayer by the priesthood of all believers wherein oral fervent and impassioned brethren, elders, and deacons participated as moved by the burdens granted by the High Intercessor sitting on the right hand of the Father ever interceding for His body.

Today a nation has floated from its bearings once anchored, for the most part, upon the Rock.
New England Theology built upon the humanistic 18th C Enlightenment that led famed evangelists into liberal philosophy of the FREEDOM OF THE WILL (1746), rewriting the principles of prayer, grace, and salvation by faith through grace as they rejected both the Reformation and evident biblical principles.

This downgrade of the weekly public church prayer meetings urged pastors to reassert control over the midweek meeting and re-elevated their eminence as Commanders-in-Chief to replace the very life-breath of an assembly.

The pulpit replaced the-power-house of fire with a disappearing small slot suffixed to the pastors’ study at the end of his oration.

A “smoking flax” is all that is left of the fire that shook the church and awakened the lost with a hunger to hear the Gospel it preached, soon brought by the Father to Christ Jesus, though ‘the hearing of faith’ (Galatians).

Modern controlling pulpits have in a hundred years silenced both the voice of the pews and quenched the spirit of prayer and now the nation and o/or Union pays the price.

That Spirit of Prayer leaves when there is “no room for HIM in the inn”. But relegated to the stable the doors are locked and soundproofed for fear of that holy fire that once burned in pulpits and pews. The key is hidden in a time capsule as an anachronism of the past.

CHURCH SLEEPS AMID TWO PANDEMICS.

CHURCH SLEEPS ON TURNING A BLIND EYE.

DAILY BATTLE OF THE SAINT (1)

THE DAILY BATTLE OF THE SAINT (James 5:16)
We need transparency and each other’s prayers.

Here are some thoughts from Scripture that may be helpful in reminding us of the cycle of temptation lest we let these things slip. (Hebrews 2:1)

James says that our own inner lust of body members can tempt us. Jesus agrees with James by his description of the inner recesses of the human heart and its capacity for evil, if left to itself. Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. (James 1:14-15; Jeremiah 29:13)

After a sinner repents, believes, and has the washing of regeneration by the water of the Word and renewal of the Holy Ghost, the ‘old man’ and his deeds are banished and buried. But despite the indwelling Spirit of Christ in the saint, there remains another force within that opposes the Spirit. It is called the flesh. It will be his bane until the redemption of his body when he is promoted to glory. It will need to be constantly mortified and resisted if the believer is to walk in the Spirit and live in its direction.
(Galatians 5:17; Romans 6:6; Romans 6:6.)

The joyous newborn lamb, free of condemnation and at peace, will be soon tempted, as will the mature sheep of the fold. Too often Satan is seen as responsible for temptation, or his demons that wage warfare against the saints. But before he can do his work the believer must neglect his armour (Ephesians 6) and forget to put off the motions of the flesh in his members.
(Romans 7:18; 7:22-23; Ephesians 4:22)

Suggested catalysts hereunder are those that determine whether or not we succumb or resist the temptations by the flesh. When we succumb it can give an opportunity for the roaring lion to set in motion a chain of events unless we quickly have a penitent attitude of confession for cleansing & reconciliation to our Abba Father and the indwelling Spirit which was grieved. (1 John 1:6-10; James 5:16)

Determinants and/or catalysts to the saint’s response to temptation.
1. Ignoring or admitting that the flesh is the antagonist of the indwelling Spirit
2. The individual’s besetting sin admitted or excused
3. The motions of the flesh in the body admitted or excused
4. Doubt & self-condemnation from self-pity or the reigning assurance thru walking in the light.
5. Inherited family traits: recognized or ignored.
6. Personality flaws and foibles: admitted or denied.
Bible References.
Falling: Proverbs 24:16;
Temptation: James 1:2; 1:12;
Common temptations: 1 Corinthians 10:13.

DAILY BATTLE OF THE SAINT (1)

OUR PRAYERLESS CHURCHES (Pt.3)

OUR PRAYERLESS CHURCHES (Pt.3)

Since the Reformation, until the mid 19th C the weekly intercessory gathering of the saints was an essential meeting for the whole congregation. From time immemorial this was the secret of survival for the New Testament church at Jerusalem and Antioch when it was still a persecuted and vilified minority.

Today, with very few exceptions, free prayer participation of spoken intercession is a forgotten public meeting. It was once a staple part of the church programme. It has been abandoned as too archaic and old-fashioned in the modern 21st-century hustle, and bustle addicted to restless compulsive busyness.

The unions secured the right of the worker to 8 hours work, 8 hours sleep, and 8 hours leisure. Today’s frenzy of movement, predicted by the ancient prophets, seems to allow time for busy social media, electronic interactive screen communication and entertainment for leisure, leaving little or no time for private devotion to God in the Scriptures and prayer. Much is often determined by their master, the smartphone allowing them any quietude. Heaven forbid that they dare silence or switch it off! Such action would be anathema to their so-called friends sending the latest interactive hearsay rumours.

Truthfully, on average the godfearing and the upright professors of moral rectitude and religion could not possibly stop still in prolonged silence without image, icon or decibel to preoccupy their minds. Why? Because they do not want to be discomforted facing their own naked soul unmasked of its pretence, and spurious profession of walking with the Intercessor: the Saviour.

Prayer, the clergy says, in this ‘modern-day’, can be automated and privatised by circulating lists of their people’s needs to the faithful for their petitions, in private prayer via prayer-chains. Whether by Bible Study hand-outs, email, smartphone, or social media, they are in reality, obfuscating as clergy and elders as they silently proclaim: “Why pray, when the church can SAY it some other way? Viz: said prayers, read prayers, and dead prayers?

When the human spirit prevails in an assembly the spirit of prayer is unwelcome. Preachers and leaders bypass it altogether and relegate public assembly prayer to individual home activity. When this happens hot coals cool; luke-warm embers become cold; broken reeds become more bowed; saints forget how to pray and when they try they are lost for words the vapour of smoking flax ascends. They with the household of faith need the old-time fire of free spontaneous vocal saints’ praying in the midst of the assembly. Without it they are separated from the Spirit’s dynamic of fire that God has deigned to ignite only when saints pour out their hearts aloud to Him. In a day of false-fire, it must be understood that prayer is in the language of the people, not the indulgence in eccentricity via popular hypnotic entrancing gibberish. The latter can be made unwelcome by precluding outsider participation.

The modern church focuses only on public praise in worship of song and overlooks the other. No one denies that God has chosen the ‘foolishness of preaching’ to save, keep, and revive, but only free public prayer generates the fire of the spirit of prayer in the heart of the newborn lamb. Down through the ages until the mid-19thC. our godly forefathers took this as incontrovertible. This was so in the New Testament church at Jerusalem and later at Antioch.

“And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31)

“Gird yourselves, and you priests lament,: you ministers of the altar howl: come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God…Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord.” (Joel 2:13-14)

Credits: King James Version-(Public Domain);
Article: John David

OUR PRAYERLESS CHURCHES (Pt.3)

1st BOOK OF SAMUEL (1)

PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF 1ST SAMUEL.
For a more comprehensive understanding of the background to this fourth book of biblical Israeli history, the reader should first read the Epilogue review of the preceding three books at the end of this article. It is paramount that the sequence of the chronological saga be grasped by the reader to understand the divine sovereign election of:-

1. Abram the father of faith;
2. The lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel)
3. The saga of Israel after the Exodus
4. The vicissitudes of success and failure by Joshua settling the Promised Land
5. The repetitive cycle of deviance by God’s chosen people responding to their patriarchs, prophets, priests, judges, and kings;
6. The propensity of each succeeding generation to more grave godlessness, despite the divine system of Israel’s theocracy, or monarchy centred around the tabernacle/temple worship of God’s manifest presence;
7. God’s covenant, then later breach of covenant, with Israel and His afflictive chastisement on its people for its apostasy, rebellion, and idolatry;
8. God’s wrathful vengeance upon Israelite impenitence tempered by God’s merciful overtures;
9. God’s irrevocable promises, of which He was oft reminded by the godly prophet, priest or king who dared intercede or mediate on their people’s behalf;
10. God’s final limit of mercy upon the Land of Promise, David’s tribe, and Jerusalem’s eternal city of David. As if the reign of Ahaz wasn’t bad enough, King Manasseh crossed the red line and the fate of Judah became that of the earlier elimination of Israel in Samaria besieged by Assyria over a hundred years before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and its hinterland of Judah;
11. God’s dispersing the Jews of the scattered Diaspora as testimony to His wrath upon them for their marring the Land He had given them;
12. God’s everlasting promise that when everything else had failed He would send a Saviour to stand in the gap to rescue His people and those outside the ‘wall of partition’ under the legacy of Abraham: the Gentiles. Thus in the books of history, the Psalms and the Prophets the unabated divine overtures of promise and mercy intermittently continued. In the thirty-nine books of Old Testament sacred canon this gave His people one remaining hope of return, restoration, and salvation. This was catalogued by:
a. The election of David as ‘a man after God’s own heart;’
b. God’s tryst and covenant with David to eternally preserve, his tribe of Judah and Jerusalem with its temple which had superseded the tabernacle in Solomon’s time;
c. The irrevocability of God’s promise to David, despite:-
i. The splitting of the kingdom into Israel in Samaria and Judah in Jerusalem;
ii. Assyria’s siege of Samaria and the imprisonment, abduction, and deportation of Jewish citizenry,
iii. Similarly, one hundred and twenty years later, the Chaldean captivity of Judah wherein the city of Jerusalem was razed to the ground, a burning heap.

For background, readers can review the previous books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth.

PROLOGUE TO THE BOOK OF 1ST SAMUEL.
CHARACTERS: (not including Saul)
1. ELI
the priest who is described by the text as apostate and cold like so many of the clergy today in the church:-
a. He misunderstood the travail of true prayer and treated the saint suspiciously as an aberration or non-conformist among the status quo.
b. He ostracizes Hannah and condemns her for her burden of prayer because it is beyond his life’s experience. This too is typical of the modern preacher who would write such as charismatic psychosis.
c. Eli was highly judgmental of any resurgence of new life in the congregation, in which he had wounded the sheep or driven them away (Ezekiel 13 & 34).
d. Eli was compromisingly ‘blind’ to his sons’ grievous infidelity and protected them and himself from the embarrassment of exposure.
e. Eli protected his family name, rather than the name of the Lord God Almighty, and was more an obstacle to worship than a help.
f. Eli had access to the testament and testimony of God’s Word, within the Ark, but he kept it hidden from the people and there was no ‘open vision’ because, by his indolence, the Word of God was precious but scarce.
g. Eli was more concerned about perpetuating the family name than the testimony of God’s Word;
h. Eli set up his own dynasty based on tradition instead of seeking God’s sovereign will.
2. ELKANAH
a. He was a dedicated god-fearing Jew from the tribe of Ephraim, a descendant of the tribe of Joseph, who spared no expense for his family to be faithful to the annual gathering at Shiloh, wherein lay the tent of the tabernacle (called ‘temple’ in the text).
b. He took notice of his wife’s sacrificial tendencies and yielded to them, though he himself was equally committed to the tenet of Matthew 6: 33.
3. HANNAH.
a. Though barren, she dared to believe for the impossible conception of a son, whom, when born would be loaned to the Lord at the Tabernacle, despite the priesthood’s wayward ways.
b. Hannah was consumed with a passion for the will of the Spirit in the dark days that ensued the anarchy of the Judges.
c. Hannah wholeheartedly loved the Lord with her mind, soul, strength and might and she contritely trembled at God’s Word as precious despite it being in common neglect.
d. She was burdened to ‘strengthen that which remained,’ rather than censoriously advocate reformation or a boycott of the Tabernacle. (Revelation 3:2a) This too has application to today’s congregations suffering from the predicted ‘falling away’.
e. She was neither pragmatically judgmental, nor a feministic protestor, but subservient to her husband and her minister, while at the same time resigned to prioritize the Lord’s will at His behest.
f. She was a woman of God.
4. SAMUEL THE PROPHET-PRIEST
appeared concurrently at the time of the Spirit’s awakening and restoration of a broken theocracy.
a. Though very young he had been taught to ‘worship God in spirit and truth’ before he arrived to serve Eli in Shiloh.
b. Like Joshua, Moses’ servant, Samuel would spend much time in the Tabernacle.
c. In adulthood, Samuel moved in a circuit as a judge, priest, and prophet until his old age.
d. Sadly, in his senior years, he began to compromise. Unlike the preceding period of Judges in which the Holy Spirit raised up the successor to judge Israel, Samuel set up a dynasty appointing his two sons: Joel and Abiah judges.
e. As both sons succumbed to offers of bribery their priestly office became debased and untenable.
f. This had been preceded by the earlier loss of the Ark to the Philistines.
g. But, whether Tabernacle or church, when an assembly reaches the stage of being ‘Ichabod’, God forsakes it, as the Psalmist would later describe Shiloh. (Psalm 78:60) Whereas the Tabernacle had been at Shiloh for 400 years.
h. Nonetheless, the aged Samuel fell into the same trap as Eli and inadvertently followed his precedent by appointing his own sons to continue his legacy.
i. It was this misjudgment that led to the end of the theocracy and made the people clamour for a monarchy instead.
j. Once Saul was anointed as the first king Samuel went to Gilgal, not Shiloh, to renew the kingdom. This was nearby to the Jordan, and Jericho and had been Joshua’s first encampment after crossing the flooded Jordan River. It had been the place where the manna ceased and the Exodus minors were circumcised.
k. Samuel was devastated that Israel had rejected the theocracy and this was compounded by the failure of Saul to act within the boundaries of his remit as a king and was soon marked as God’s reject for his stubbornness and impetuous disobedience, refusing to submit to Samuel or God.

TO BE CONTINUED: Part 2.

1st BOOK OF SAMUEL (1)

THE BOOK OF JUDGES.

BRIEF REVIEW OF THE SAGA OF ISRAEL IN THE HISTORICAL BOOKS.
The Historic Books extend from
• Joshua’s entry into the Promised Land;
• Israel’s exile into Babylonian captivity; and
• The Jews final, but gradual return to Jerusalem, staged under Medo-Persian imperial decrees.
The salient and memorable periods in the time span covered by these twelve books are as follows:-
1) Israel ceases its forty years of desert wanderings and enters Canaan;
2) Canaan is conquered by Joshua, but not fully possessed. The Canaanites were not always expelled;
3) Wayward Israel loses sight of God’s deliverance; forgets its purpose & faith.
4) In the endemic cycle of godlessness, wickedness and lawlessness:
a. Israel goes astray and succumbs to Baal’s religion;
b. it receives divine punishment from foreign tyranny;
c. it prays to Jehovah for a deliverer to rescue it in its plight;
d. God answers by raising up a god-fearing, judge, seer, prophet or prophetess;
e. Once relief is experienced Israel quickly becomes wayward again;
f. It reverts to its cycle of backsliding and the pattern repeats itself.
g. Despite notable judges, seers, and deliverers Israel stays apostate.
5) The prophet Samuel and his ministry to Israel’s first two kings: Saul and David.
6) David’s son Solomon reigns: the tabernacle tent is superseded by Solomon’s temple.
7) The success and failures of the aforesaid two kings.
8) Solomon’s kingdom of Israel divided:
a. The tribe of Judah in the south with its temple worship of Jehovah
b. Ten rebel tribes in Samaria with their golden calf worship in Dan & Bethel.
9) The rebel kingdom of Israel ended by Assyrian captivity & forced migration after the siege of Samaria,
10) The ongoing concurrent southern kingdom of Judah under King Ahaz lasts a farther hundred and twenty years.
11) Judah goes into Chaldean captivity under Nebuchadnezzar who razes Jerusalem to the ground.
12) King Darius, acting for Cyrus, releases captives from Babylon, who return to Jerusalem in stages.
13) The captivity period belongs to the three historic books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF JUDGES.
As a sequel to the exciting adventures and conquests of Joshua we now come to the grand anticlimax in the Book of Judges where every man did was what right in his own eyes. When there are no moral absolutes and Judeo-Christian ethics are superseded by situational ethics lawlessness will ensue. This progressive propensity of the diseased human heart certainly becomes manifestly obvious in this second of the twelve books of Jewish history.
But the apostle said that these were written for our ensamples that we might be warned of such dangers. The self-righteousness with which we all exonerate ourselves from guilt often prevents the reader from gaining the benefit of the lesson given in this book. We are in a habit of categorizing exhortative examples of waywardness into ‘them’ and ‘us’. This protects the reader from any conviction, lest he is condemned for his/her own sins. Jeremiah the prophet described this guile as the ‘deceitful and wicked heart unable to fathom its true state’. From a New Testament perspective, this is the very reason the Law was called ‘as schoolmaster unto Christ’. In other words, without the penetrating work of the Spirit using the proclaimed Word of God we remain in our sins and the process of self-justification. Many resort to religion and even Christian church adherence to help this process of artificially veneering our true selves lest we or others discover the truth.
Whilst many disavow the human depravity of the heart espoused by the Reformation when denied we are the poorer in grasping the truths of Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Apostles and of Christ himself the Apostle of our faith.

CHAPTER HEADINGS & DIVISIONS IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES.
JUDGES: 1.
The legacy of Joshua continues on apace.
The exploits of Caleb, Othniel, and Achsah
Hebron, Bethel, and Gaza captured.
Israel’s early tolerance of idolatrous tribes marked for expulsion.
JUDGES: 2.
Angelic chiding of Israel for its disobedience.
Remembering Joshua’s life & death.
The next generation of godless Jews.
God’s anger allows the defeat of Israel before its enemies.
Idolatry’s cycle: affliction-repentance-deliverance-apostasy.
JUDGES: 3.
Hostile Canaanites test Israel’s mettle;
Exploits of Caleb’s son Othniel as Judge and Deliverer;
Judge Ehud saves the Hebrew nation from Moab.
Shamgar successfully resists Philistine occupation.
JUDGES: 4.
Prophetess Deborah & Captain Barak defeat the Canaanites.
Jael assassinates Sisera behind enemy lines with milk & a tent peg.
JUDGES: 5.
Deborah & Barak laud the Lord in songs of praise.
JUDGES: 6
God chooses Gideon to be Judge and saviour from Midian oppression.
Gideon seeks God’s confirmation by signs.
JUDGES: 7
Gideon & his 300 warriors’ route the Midianite army.
JUDGES: 8
Gideon’s success leads him astray with a golden priestly ephod.
JUDGES: 9
Abimelech massacres Gideon’s seventy sons, then is wounded & suicides in battle.
JUDGES: 10
Judges Tola and Jair lead Israel which afterward waywardly worship Baal.
JUDGES: 11
Jephthah judges the nation; in battle, he bargains with God vowing to give his daughter to celibacy.
JUDGES: 12
Israel’s civil war; anarchy;
Judges Elon & Abdon rule the Hebrew nation.
JUDGES: 13
God appears to Samson’s parents; his birth; his Nazarite vow.
The birth of Samson the Judge.
JUDGES: 14
Samson’s disobeys his parents espousing a Philistine: Israel’s enemy.
Samson slays a lion and presents a riddle of its carcass to wedding guests.
Samson’s wife divulges the answer of the riddle to thirty Philistine guests.
Samson slays 30 Philistines for 30 guests’ garments & loses his wife
JUDGES: 15
Retaliating, Samson burns the Philistine fields of corn with captive foxes.
His wife and parents murdered; Samson’s fury.
The Jews of Judah betray their judge & deliverer for fear.
In his second slaughter, Samson kills one thousand men jawbone of an ass.
JUDGES: 16.
Samson goes to Gaza; he’s surrounded; he escapes.
Samson tells his secret; she betrays him to Philistines.
Samson’s regains strength; his greatest victory in death.
JUDGES: 17. Micah misuses the Levite office of a priest for private gain.
JUDGES: 18. The godless anarchy of irreligious Israel with no king, judge, or theocracy.
JUDGES: 19. Tribe of Benjamin descend into moral insanity
JUDGES: 20. Civil war: Israel fights Benjamin in retaliation.
JUDGES: 21. Israel restores its tribe of Benjamin for posterity.

THE BOOK OF JUDGES.

Historical Books: Kings & Chronicles

BOOK OF 1ST KINGS.
1 KINGS 1.
The aged king David’s decline.
Adonijah seeks to usurp brother Solomon’s reign before David dies.
Joab and Abiathar defect to Adonijah.
David gives Solomon his kingdom and makes him King in Adonijah’s stead.
Adonijah flees to escape the penalty of treason.
King Solomon gives Adonijah conditional mercy, but not a pardon.
1 KINGS 2
The last words of David before his death.
The penalty for treason exacted upon Joab, Adonijah and Shimei.
1 KINGS 3
Solomon’s forges affinity with Egypt’s Pharaoh by marriage.
God appears to Solomon in a dream offering to a gift of his own choice.
God answers his prayer for wisdom, giving him also exceeding wealth.
1 KINGS 4
King Solomon rules his vast kingdom with great wisdom, riches & wealth.
1 KINGS 5
Solomon & Hiram get supplies to build the temple.
1 KINGS 6
Solomon builds and completes the temple in seven years.
1 KINGS 7
The Temple décor and Solomon’s building projects.
1 KINGS 8
Solomon’s prayer and his dedication of the temple.
1 KINGS 9
God appears a second time to Solomon; God covenants with Solomon.
1 KINGS 10
The Queen of Sheba visits Solomon’s kingdom.
1 KINGS 11
God warns Solomon of his kingdom’s rupture;
Jerusalem to be preserved.
Ahijah prophesies of Jeroboam’s new kingdom: Israel’s ten tribes.
Prophecy: for its grievous idolatry Judah shall suffer, but not forever.
Solomon dies & king Rehoboam his son reigns over all Israel.
1 KINGS 12
Rehoboam’s folly provokes mutinous rebellion led by Jeroboam.
King Jeroboam reigns over ten seceding tribes fled to Samaria.
Judah prepares for civil war against northern rebels.
Shemaiah the prophet prevents civil war’s bloodshed.
Israel’s Jeroboam the infidel changes the religion of Samaria.
1 KINGS 13
The prophet’s curse on Jeroboam’s golden calves in Dan and Bethel.
The false prophet deceives God’s own prophet.
The deadly consequence of the prophet’s beguilement.
1 KINGS 14
Israel’s prophet Ahijah & Jeroboam; King Jeroboam dies; King Nadab, his son, reigns in Jeroboam’s stead.
Egypt’s king Shishak attacks Judah & king Rehoboam dies.
1 KINGS 15
Judah’s King Asa removes the sodomites.
Judah’s King Asa distrusts God in the civil war.
Judah’s King Asa dies; Judah’s King Jehoshaphat reigns.
King Nadab reigns in Samaria (Israel).
How Baasha’s fratricide had gained him the throne of Nadab.
1 KINGS 16
Jehu’s prophecy: a curse upon Baasha and Israel’s royals.
King Elah replaces Baasha on Israel’s throne.
Israel’s king Zimri is deposed who then suicides;
Omri reigns; the ensuing anarchy.
Ahab reigns in Omri’s stead from the city of Samaria.
1 KINGS 17
Israel’s prophet Elijah confronts wicked Ahab, then he hides.
The miraculous saga of Elijah hiding amid drought & famine.
1 KINGS 18
The great test of Ahab’s prophets of Baal by Elijah.
Ahab meets Elijah face to face; the proposed contest at Mount Carmel.
The challenge begins by Elijah against 450 prophets.
Elijah’s prayer is answered by the fire of God.
1 KINGS 19
At the zenith of his ministry Elijah flees from a woman.
Elijah despondently quits his post as Israel’s prophet.
1 KINGS 20
Syria’s King Benhadad besieges Samaria; God defends Israel.
Captive King Benhadad tricks Ahab into releasing him.
God’s prophet predicts Ahab’s death for releasing Benhadad.
1 KINGS 21
Ahab steals some property by assassinating the owner.
Elijah confronts King Ahab over Nadab’s murder;
He predicts Ahab & Jezebel’s death.
1 KINGS 22
Prophet Micaiah asked to prophesy & is imprisoned doing it.
Ahab is mortally wounded in battle against Syrians.
Israel’s king Ahab is replaced by Ahaziah after Ahab’s death.
Judah’s King Jehoshaphat succeeds Asa,
Israeli alliance is the royal family’s curse.
Israel’s king Ahaziah’s evil reign in Samaria
God rejects Elijah’s needless flight; God makes Elisha prophet.
Last days of Elijah before Elisha sees his final fiery rapture.

THE 2ND BOOK OF KINGS.

2 KINGS 1.
Elijah predicts Ahaziah’s death. He retaliates.
2 KINGS 2.
The prophet Elisha replaces Elijah in Samaria.
2 KINGS 3
Judah’s Jehoshaphat makes an unwise alliance.
2 KINGS 4:
The widow’s oil & her dead son revived by Elisha in Samaria.
2 KINGS 5
Samaria’s prophet, Elisha heals the Syrian Captain.
2 KINGS 6
Samaria’s prophet floats a lost axe. Syria besieges Elisha.
2 KINGS 7
Elisha predicts Samaria will defeat the Syrian invaders.
2 KINGS 8
Syria’s king assassinated. Jehoshaphat’s sons reign in Judah.
2 KINGS 9
Samaria’s King Jehu slays Jezebel’s son, & son-in-law.
2 KINGS 10
Samaria’s Jehu destroys Ahab’s children & Baal worshippers.
2 KINGS 11
Ahab’s daughter proclaims herself queen of Judah.
2 KINGS 12
Jehoshaphat’s great grandson, Joash, reigns in Judah.
2 KINGS 13
A counterpart contemporary Joash reigns also in Samaria.
2 KINGS 14
Judah’s King Amaziah provokes civil war with Samaria.
2 KINGS 15 Judah’ s leper king Azariah. Samaria taken into captivity.
2 KINGS 16
Assyria defends Judah against Israeli and Syrian forces.
2 KINGS 17
Samaritan captivity & forced immigration of Babylonians.
2 KINGS 18
Assyrian campaigns against Israel & Judah in Hezekiah’s reign.
2 KINGS 19
Beleaguered Hezekiah’s prayer & Isaiah’s prophecy.
2 KINGS 20
Isaiah & the ailing Hezekiah’s recovery.
2 KINGS 21
Hezekiah’s son Manasseh’s evil reign.
2 KINGS 22
Judah’s Josiah the righteous boy king.
2 KINGS 23
Judah’s godliness revived under Josiah and his destruction of Samaria’s idols.
2 KINGS 24
The last days of Judah before Babylonian captivity.
2 KINGS 25
The final siege of Jerusalem and its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar.
End of Second Book of Kings.

1ST BOOK OF CHRONICLES.

1 CHRONICLES: 1.
The descendants of Adam’s son Seth to Noah, Shem, and Abraham.
1 CHRONICLES: 2
The descendants of Jacob (Israel) Abraham’s grandson, & his son Judah.
1 CHRONICLES: 3
The lineage of Judah through David the king.
1 CHRONICLES: 4
The lineage of Israel’s son Judah
1 CHRONICLES: 5
The settlement by Reuben, Gad & Manasseh in Gilead.
The Diaspora from the tribes of Israel after the Babylonian captivity
1 CHRONICLES: 10
Death of King Saul against the Philistines & David while consulting a witch.
1 CHRONICLES: 11
Coronation of King David & honouring past gallantry of his militia.
1 CHRONICLES: 12
David consolidates his hold on the kingdom with military victories.

1 CHRONICLES: 13
David’s unwise attempt to recover the ark of the covenant.
1 CHRONICLES: 14
King David: his house, his harem, and his battles.
1 CHRONICLES: 15
Festive return of the ark to Zion’s tabernacle in Jerusalem.
1 CHRONICLES: 16
Jerusalem’s tabernacle and David’s psalm of joy.
1 CHRONICLES: 17
David’s proposed temple for the tabernacle & his prayer.
1 CHRONICLES: 18
David expands the kingdom.
1 CHRONICLES: 19
David’s wars with Ammon and Syria.
1 CHRONICLES: 20
David’s indolence & his fall into cruel & grievous sins.
1 CHRONICLES: 21
David further succumbs to nationalism, suffering God’s retribution.
1 CHRONICLES: 22
David prepares materials for Solomon’s temple.
2 CHRONICLES: 23
David crowns Solomon King
He summons 38,000 Levites to temple tasks.
2 CHRONICLES: 24
David’s muster of three Levitical divisions & their lineage.
1 CHRONICLES: 25
David’s muster of Levite instrumentalists for Solomon’s temple.
1 CHRONICLES: 26
The muster of David’s porters, officers, and rulers
1 CHRONICLES: 27
Muster of appointed military officers, judges and princes.
1 CHRONICLES: 28
David hands reins of the kingdom & temple plans to Solomon
1 CHRONICLES: 29
Before his decease David bestows Israel’s legacy upon King Solomon.

BOOK OF 2ND CHRONICLES.

2 CHRONICLES: 1.
Early reign of Solomon;
God’s appears with an offer.
2 CHRONICLES: 2
King Solomon activates David’s temple plan
2 CHRONICLES: 3
Solomon begins the temple building.
2 CHRONICLES: 4
Solomon’s use of precious metals for the temple.
2 CHRONICLES: 5
Solomon moves Zion’s tabernacle to Mt. Moriah
He transfers tabernacle into new temple.
2 CHRONICLES: 6
Solomon opens & dedicates the temple in prayer.
2 CHRONICLES: 7
Solomon’s dedicatory prayer.
God confirms acceptance with fire.
2 CHRONICLES: 8
Solomon moves Pharaoh’s daughter from Zion
2 CHRONICLES: 9
Queen of Sheba’s visits Solomon’s realm.
Solomon’s reign comes to an end.
2 CHRONICLES: 10
King Jeroboam takes ten tribes (Israel) to Samaria.
King Rehoboam rules Judah from Jerusalem.
Shemaiah stops war of Rehoboam with Jeroboam.
2 Chronicles 11.
Prophet Shemaiah stops Reheboam warring with Jeroboam.

2 CHRONICLES: 12.
God uses Egypt to discipline wayward Judah.
Shemaiah reproves Judah’s Rehoboam for idolatry.
Limited repentance: limited relief
Temple vandalized by Egypt.
Jerusalem spared from total destruction.
2 CHRONICLES: 13.
King Abijah reigns in Judah; Jeroboam invades.
Abijah’s vain plea to avert civil war.
God intervenes after Jeroboam’s ambush.
Smitten Jeroboam dies after his defeat.
2 CHRONICLES: 14
Judah’s good king Asa banishes idolatry;
Judah defeats Ethiopian invaders.
2 CHRONICLES: 15.
The prophet exhorts Asa to fully remove idolatry.
2 CHRONICLES: 16.
Samaria’ siege of Jerusalem in civil war; Asa’s folly.
2 CHRONICLES: 17
Righteous King Jehoshaphat reigns in Judah.

2 CHRONICLES: 18
Jehoshaphat’s alliance with Israel’s evil Ahab.
2 CHRONICLES: 19
The prophet Jehu reproves Jehoshaphat.
2 CHRONICLES: 20
The test of Jehoshaphat in battle.
God uses Jehoshaphat to revive Judah.
The open public prayer meeting and its fruit.
Jehoshaphat renews alliance with wicked Ahab.
God’s royal blight on Judah for alliance with Israel..
2 CHRONICLES: 21
Judah’s Jehoram marries Ahab’s daughter,
Jehoram massacres royal princes of Judah and Samaria.
Elijah prophesies of God’s blight on King Jehoram.
The Arabs, Philistines & Ethiopians attack Judah
King Jehoram dies fulfilling Elijah’s prophecy.
2 CHRONICLES: 22
Arabs attack Jerusalem & murder the royal princes.
Judah’s royal curse by intermarriage with Ahab.
Jehu assassinates Judah’s Ahaziah and Israel’s Jehoram.
Ahab’s daughter massacres royal family of Judah & reigns.
2 CHRONICLES: 23
Jehoiada replaces Queen Athaliah with boy king: Joash.
Queen Athaliah, is executed for treason in Jerusalem.
Priest Jehoiada & Jehoshabeath bring Judah back to God.
2 CHRONICLES: 24
Coronation of the boy King Joash and his godly reign.
Joash martyrs Prophet Zechariah when he’s reproved.
God raises up Syria to punish Judah and afflict Joash.
Joash assassinated and his son Amaziah reigns over Judah.
2 CHRONICLES: 25
Amaziah massacres Esau’s descendants & is assassinated.
A prophet reproves Amaziah for his misalliance with Israel.
God penalises Judah for its forbidden brutality to Edomites;
God’s wrath on Judah for its idolatry & ignoring the prophet.
Israel defeats Judah and raids Jerusalem, its temple.
Amaziah is stricken with disease and then assassinated.

2 CHRONICLES: 26
Uzziah’s reign ends in blasphemous apostasy & leprosy.
2 CHRONICLES: 27
Righteous Jotham’s reign in Judah.
2 CHRONICLES: 28
Judah’s Ahaz shuts the temple; God’s wrath on Judah.
2 CHRONICLES: 29
King Hezekiah’s good reign & revival of Judaism.
2 CHRONICLES: 30
Hezekiah restores the feast of Passover.
2 CHRONICLES: 31
Hezekiah restores worship of Jehovah & the law.
2 CHRONICLES: 32
Isaiah and Hezekiah withstand Assyrian siege.
2 CHRONICLES: 33
Judah installs its most wicked king: Manasseh.2 CHRONICLES: 34
Josiah, the last good king of Judah, rules.
2 CHRONICLES: 35
Righteous Josiah killed in by Pharaoh & Jeremiah laments.
2 CHRONICLES: 36
Judah’s last days under puppet kings of Egypt & Babylon.

Historical Books: Kings & Chronicles

THE BOOKS OF RUTH & SAMUEL

BRIEF REVIEW OF THE SAGA OF ISRAEL IN THE HISTORICAL BOOKS.
The Historic Books extend from
• Joshua’s entry into the Promised Land;
• Israel’s exile into Babylonian captivity; and
• The Jews final, but gradual return to Jerusalem, staged under Medo-Persian imperial decrees.
The salient and memorable periods in the time span covered by these twelve books are as follows:-
1) Israel ceases its forty years of desert wanderings and enters Canaan;
2) Canaan is conquered by Joshua, but not fully possessed. The Canaanites were not always expelled;
3) Wayward Israel loses sight of God’s deliverance; forgets its purpose & faith.
4) In the endemic cycle of godlessness, wickedness and lawlessness:
a. Israel goes astray and succumbs to Baal’s religion;
b. it receives divine punishment from foreign tyranny;
c. it prays to Jehovah for a deliverer to rescue it in its plight;
d. God answers by raising up a god-fearing, judge, seer, prophet or prophetess;
e. Once relief is experienced Israel quickly becomes wayward again;
f. It reverts to its cycle of backsliding and the pattern repeats itself.
g. Despite notable judges, seers, and deliverers Israel stays apostate.
5) The prophet Samuel and his ministry to Israel’s first two kings: Saul and David.
6) David’s son Solomon reigns: the tabernacle tent is superseded by Solomon’s temple.
7) The success and failures of the aforesaid two kings.
8) Solomon’s kingdom of Israel divided:
a. The tribe of Judah in the south with its temple worship of Jehovah
b. Ten rebel tribes in Samaria with their golden calf worship in Dan & Bethel.
9) The rebel kingdom of Israel ended by Assyrian captivity & forced migration after the siege of Samaria,
10) The ongoing concurrent southern kingdom of Judah under King Ahaz, lasts a farther hundred and twenty years.
11) Judah goes into Chaldean captivity under Nebuchadnezzar who razes Jerusalem to the ground.
12) King Darius, acting for Cyrus, releases captives from Babylon, who return to Jerusalem in stages.
13) The captivity period belongs to the three historic books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

CHAPTER HEADINGS AND DIVISIONS OF RUTH & SAMUEL.

RUTH: 1. Naomi and her husband leave Judah & take refuge in Moab from famine.
Naomi’s planned departure home to Bethlehem.
Naomi’s daughter-in-law refuses to be separated and both arrive in Bethlehem.
RUTH: 2. Boaz, kindred of Naomi’s late husband, sustains Ruth.
RUTH: 3. Marriage proposal of Boaz and Ruth; Naomi approves.
RUTH: 4. Boaz satisfies ancestral law; free to marry Ruth; blessed couple: forbears of David & Jesus.

THE BOOK OF 1ST SAMUEL.

1 SAMUEL: 1. The birth of Samuel; his weaning; his parents loan him to tabernacle at Shiloh.
1 SAMUEL: 2. Wayward sons of Eli, who turns a blind eye to their immoral acts.
1 SAMUEL: 3. Samuel a servant of the tabernacle; God’s calls him as seer and prophet.
Samuel hears God’s first prophecy; imminent retribution upon Eli & sons.
1 SAMUEL: 4. Philistines kill Eli’s sons and capture the Ark of the Tabernacle.
1 SAMUEL: 5. The Ark of the Testament plagues its hosts.
1 SAMUEL: 6. The Philistines attempt to return the Ark to Shiloh in Israel.
1 SAMUEL: 7. The Ark returns; Pursuing Philistines repelled; Samuel the Judge.
1 SAMUEL: 8. Samuel creates dynasty of judges; monarchy replaces Israel’s theocracy.
1 SAMUEL: 9. Saul looks for his lost asses; Samuel meets Saul and draws him aside.
1 SAMUEL: 10. Samuel anoints Saul as Israel’s first king; Despite Samuel’s signs Saul hides.
1 SAMUEL: 11. Saul defeats the Ammonite invaders; the coronation of the new king.
1 SAMUEL: 12 . The prophet Samuel foreshadows his retirement with a warning.
1 SAMUEL: 13. Saul’s 1st mistake: sends 2000 against 30,000 Philistines; the people hide.
Saul’s 2nd mistake: he blasphemously acts as prophet & priest on impulse.
The prophet Samuel rebukes the king; he predicts Saul’s demise.
1 SAMUEL: 14. Jonathan miraculously routs Philistine army whilst Jews hide in fear.
1 SAMUEL: 15. Saul’s rank disobedience; God rejects Saul as king of Israel.
1 SAMUEL: 16. Saul clings to the throne; Samuel anoints David as the next king.
The unpredictable illness of Saul’s mind and his severe melancholy.
1 SAMUEL: 17. David kills Goliath the giant with a slingshot; King Saul’s increasing dementia.
1 SAMUEL: 18. King Saul’s rapid mental decline; his unstable maliciousness and jealousy.
1 SAMUEL: 19. Saul’s malice becomes murderous as he pursues David.
God’s mysterious use of prophesy for restraining confusion to shield David.
1 SAMUEL: 20. Saul’s son, Jonathan, aides David’s final escape.
1 SAMUEL: 21. Ahimelech helps David, giving refuge when he and his men were faint.
1 SAMUEL: 22. David and his band of men become refugees in Adullam’s cave.
1 SAMUEL: 23. Exploits of King David & his six hundred men in exile.
Jonathan & David covenant together; David is surrounded by Saul, but escapes.
1 SAMUEL: 24. David encircled, but escapes by bravery, humility & Saul’s armies’ stupor.
David’s honourable plea & Saul’s pretentious repentance.
1 SAMUEL: 25. Saul dies; Nabal’s contempt for David; godly Abigail stops massacre; Nabal dies.
1 SAMUEL: 26. David avoids Saul, David continues to forgive him; the king pretends to be sorry.
1 SAMUEL: 27. David flees to Philistine refuge; David the secret saboteur behind the lines.
1 SAMUEL: 28. Abandoned by God, Saul faces invasion consults a medium for Saul’s advice.
1 SAMUEL: 29. Forces gather against Saul; Philistine army sends David away from them.
1 SAMUEL: 30. David returns to Philistia having lost his wives & property to Amelakite raiders.
1 SAMUEL: 31. Philistines defeat Israel; Saul falls on his own sword and dies.

THE BOOK OF 2ND SAMUEL.

2 SAMUEL:1. David’s grievous lament over loss of Jonathan & Saul.
2 SAMUEL: 2. David, returns; Judah makes him king; Abner crowns Ishbosheth king instead.
Joab’s murderous mischief against dissenting tribe of Benjamin.
2 SAMUEL:3. Civil war erupts between Judah and the late King Saul’s kingdom; Abner defects.
Joab continues his murderous mischief & assassinates Abner during détente.
2 SAMUEL:4. Ishbosheth flees after Joab murder of Abner, but he is assassinated.
2 SAMUEL:5. Saul’s former kingdom of Israel returns to Hebron to make David king.
David takes Jerusalem & expels Jebusites; Philistines oppose King David.
2 SAMUEL: 6. David seeks God’s glory his own way bypassing Levitical precedent.
Uzzah struck dead; ark’s transit aborted; arrives in Jerusalem 90 days later.
2 SAMUEL:7. David plans temple for the tabernacle; Prophet Nathan postpones progress.
King David pours out his heart’s plea that Jerusalem be the eternal city.
2 SAMUEL:8. David expands his kingdom reaching from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean;
2 SAMUEL:9. David shows mercy to Mephibosheth; Ziba, reassigned to him.
2 SAMUEL:10. David’s merciful kindness to Lot’s descendents spurned; Ammon & Syria attack.
2 SAMUEL:11. David’s success breeds indolent lethargy; David’s evil waywardness.
2 SAMUEL:12. Prophet Nathan reproves David; his repentance; consequence is family blight.
2 SAMUEL:13. David’s son Amnon rapes Tamar, sister of Absalom.
Absalom plans murderous retaliation then flees into exile.
2 SAMUEL:14. Joab’s deception allows Absalom to return to Jerusalem.
2 SAMUEL:15. Absalom’s treacherous subterfuge to steal the kingdom of David..
David’s self imposed exile; he flees from Absalom’s revolution.
David plants foreign agents in Absalom’s Jerusalem.
2 SAMUEL:16. Ziba’s provisions of sustenance; Dad mercifully tolerates his detractors.
2 SAMUEL:17. Agent Hushai in Jerusalem cripples the credibility of Ahithophel.
Dejected Ahithophel commits suicide and David’s life is preserved.
Aged Barzillai sustains David’s flight to Gilead, on Jordan’s east bank.
2 SAMUEL:18. Israeli loyalists arrive en masse to defend David in battle; Joab slays Absalom.
2 SAMUEL:19. David’s continued grief over enemy Absalom is misunderstood.
2 SAMUEL:20. Sheba’s coup d’etat leaves king David with only one tribe: Judah.
2 SAMUEL:21. God’s blight of famine upon the land for Saul’s slaughter of Gibeonites.
The Gibeonite demand for reparation; David executes seven sons of Saul.
2 SAMUEL:22. David recounts his life’s blessings in his psalm of praise and prayer.
2 SAMUEL:23. Last words of godly King David’s throne: his worship; his mighty men.
2 SAMUEL:24. David’s sin; he conducts another census; God’s wrath; his mercy on Jerusalem.

 

UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK OF JOSHUA.

UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK OF JOSHUA.
The Twelve Historical Books (Part 2)
Chapter headings with the background in an epilogue.

JOSHUA: 1.
Joshua prepares to enter the Promised Land of Canaan.
JOSHUA: 2.
The spies enter Jericho; Rahab secretly gives them refuge.
JOSHUA: 3.
Jordan River stops flowing; Joshua crosses on dry ground.
JOSHUA: 4.
Jordan’s waters return to their normal course.
JOSHUA: 5.
Joshua circumcises minors of the Exodus Red Sea crossing.
JOSHUA: 6.
Seven days’ march around Jericho leading to the wall’s collapse.
Rahab’s scarlet thread; Joshua rescues her entire family.
JOSHUA: 7.
The curse of Achan costs many lives.
JOSHUA: 8.
Joshua builds an altar in Canaan inscribing the Law upon it.
JOSHUA: 9.
Canaanite kings prepare against Israel; Gibeonite deception.
JOSHUA: 10.
Five kings attack Gibeon for defecting to Israel;
Joshua guarantees the treaty and defends Gibeon
The sun stands still for Joshua routing the enemy host.
JOSHUA: 11.
Surrounding kings ready their onslaught; all are defeated.
JOSHUA: 12.
The thirty-one kings subdued by Joshua.
JOSHUA: 13.
Aged Joshua exhorts all tribes to fully possess Canaan.
The tribes that failed to expel all the Canaanites;
Joshua surveys the land and plots tribal boundaries.
The occultist, Balaam, failing attempts to curse Israel;
Balaam’s success seducing Israel by Baal-Peor.
JOSHUA: 14.
Caleb, claims Hebron for his own possession by faith.
JOSHUA: 15.
The territory allotted to the tribe of Judah.
JOSHUA: 16.
The territory allotted to children of Ephraim, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 17.
The territory allotted to children of Manasseh, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 18.
Joshua assembles the tabernacle in Shiloh.
The territories allotted to the seven tribes.
The territory allotted to Benjamin.
JOSHUA: 19.
The territory allotted to Simeon.
The territory allotted to Zebulun.
The territory allotted to Issachar.
The territory allotted to Asher.
The territory allotted to Naphtali.
The territory allotted to Dan.
JOSHUA: 20
Six cities of refuge created, three on both east & west banks.
JOSHUA: 21.
Joshua allocates forty-eight cities to the Levites in which to dwell.
JOSHUA: 22.
Joshua releases Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh to return to Gilead.
Joshua tells the three tribes to be faithful to God in Gilead.
Their misunderstood altar sparks threat of civil war.
Gilead’s tribes wisely answer the west bank’s ultimatum & avert war.
JOSHUA: 23.
Aged Joshua warns of dangers that accompany peace.
Joshua commands the twelve tribes to fully oust the Canaanites.
JOSHUA: 24.
Joshua’s farewell address revises Hebrew history.
Joshua warns of idolatry’s dangers.
Dire consequences if a nation presumes upon God’s mercy.
Israel covenants with God to seal its tryst with Joshua.
Joshua gives his final address to Israel at Shiloh.

BACKGROUND IN BRIEF PROLOGUE.
This is the sixth book of the Holy Bible after the five books of Moses, called the Pentateuch. Those are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Book of Joshua is a record of Israel’s overdue entry into the Promised Land crossing the flooded Jordan River.

Forty years God had sent them wandering into wilderness terrain until all but two of army’s six hundred thousand rebel doubters had died within its barren bounds. Joshua and Caleb were the only two adults in the original ‘exodus’ to enter the ‘Land of milk and honey.

Instead of believing the good report of the two faithful spies the Hebrews chose to believe only the doubts of the remaining ten spies. Thus, they wanted to stone both men of faith and go back to Egypt, the land of their bondage for the food it offered.

Yet, God had provided immeasurably for them in the desert with daily manna for bread and quail for meat, while at the same time always leading them to hidden sources of water. Miraculously, their feet had neither swelled nor had their clothes worn in the abrasive desert conditions.

Despite their frequent, but intermittent murmurs of ingratitude that tested Moses to the point of exasperation, God’s mercy and loving-kindness continued because of His covenant with Abraham and the blood of the Passover Lamb. This was notwithstanding Israel’s chastening ordeals driving them to repentance.

For forty days the twelve had espied the Land of ‘milk and honey’ and its hinterland of vast resources ready for the Hebrew people to possess.

But in the grand national mutiny at Kadesh, after receiving the spies’ report, God deemed that forty days would incur a forty-year entry taboo to the Land: a sentence for Israel’s rebellious disbelief.

Even after thirty-eight years in the wilderness the final stage of the second attempt to enter the Land almost failed because of the Moab-Midian nexus of conspiracy. Devilishly, it employed Balaam, the spiritistic false prophet, to stop Joshua’s host and prevent them from crossing River Jordan into Canaan. However, the Lord intervened to stop Balaam in a most remarkable way. Nevertheless, Balaam worked with the conspiratorial nexus to beguile Israel’s camp with the sexual religion of Baal-Peor’s gods of erotic worship.

Joshua’s mighty host had neared its long-awaited destiny predicted by Abraham when Israel’s invisible arch enemy’s final almost succeeded. He had created an irrevocable anticlimax that would have aborted the saga of Israel’s pilgrimage.

End of Brief Prologue.

BRIEF EPILOGUE: THE BOOK OF JOSHUA: SEQUEL TO THE PENTATEUCH.
The next chapter of Israel’s history begins in the Book of Joshua, the first of the twelve historic books. It is an exciting record of Joshua’s lifelong, unmitigated faith and his robust exploits for his people and the Lord.

The man Joshua had come to know God personally quite early in his life. He had sat alone so often in the tent of the tabernacle with God; he had been Moses’ servant; he had ascended Mount Sinai with his master when the moral Law was written in stone, and finally, he had been divinely nominated to replace Moses leading the seventy elder.

The Book of Joshua reveals the recalcitrant ways of the human heart, which, despite having the best possible conditions for faith, exposed their complete lack of it in the hour of trial. They refused the grace of God and were only interested in ulterior motives of sensual self-gain, dietary, physical or material benefits. In other words, they were normal human beings with incurable heart disease but wearing the mask of conformity to the prevailing religion of the status quo and its social privileges. They were happy to use and exploit that religion for their own ends until the day of truth arrived then their real selves were unmasked.

This book demonstrates to today’s generation that followership and discipleship are two completely separate experiences. The following God’s presence and His prophet was nonetheless a humanist religion of lip service. Disciples, on the other hand, have a different spirit, they did not just walk with the crowd to escape bondage and privation, they walked with God. The followers were the status quo, or the majority of the masses, disciples were a very small remnant.

The followers inevitably rejected the grace of` God, the only medium for faith. The disciples had been wholehearted seekers refusing to trust in the myth of their own faith and sought His gift of grace instead. Off the 600,000 only Joshua and Caleb sought the Lord wholeheartedly, the minimum requirement before the Lord will personally draw near to an individual.

Over a million Hebrew followers had seen the miracles afforded to them both before and after the Exodus journey, but only Moses and two others possessed a different spirit.
What was that spirit in disciples Joshua and Caleb that followers failed to possess? God’s grace had given them His Spirit of faith that Moses and disciples before him had possessed back through time to Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham.

Moses had been a skeptic until he finally believed God’s commission and His promises. It took many decades, however, before he was ready to call on the Lord of his Fathers and humble himself to seek God, spending forty years a fugitive in the Sinai desert.

What was the different spirit dwelling within them? Paul the apostle says that it was the Holy Spirit within them. (1Peter 1:11)

How does that scripture apply? Both Moses and Joshua were disciples, prophets in their own right. Caleb, also a disciple had sought the Lord with all his soul, mind and might until He drew near to impart the spirit of faith.

All of Moses’ followers had seen a constant stream of miracles in the Exodus journey from Egypt’s plagues; the fiery pillar of cloud; the parting of the Red Sea; and the drowning of Pharaoh’s Army etcetera. Yet none of those signs gave them faith, nothing on earth can have changed the leopard’s spots or the wilfulness from endemic heart disease brought by the curse of Adam’s rejection of the tree of eternal life. They remained religious followers of god of reason under the guise of being faithful pilgrims.

The conscience of the follower is evil, the heart is secretly wicked and deceitful from the womb, the mind is agile in its natural propensity to worship since creation, regardless of the religious culture that prevails. The mind’s greatest subtlety is to masquerade itself as nobly righteous and can easily adapt to any cult or sect for self-justification when the Good Shepherd begins to call them to His Kingdom.

Blind to the truth, the pilgrim follower’s persona is demonstrably humanist at best and accurate description of its attributes are listed in the Prophets, Psalms, Gospels, and Epistles. Albeit religious followers are very skilful in discrediting what they read in the sacred writ of the Bible when troubled by truths they read disturbing their comfort zone they create as emergency earplugs or eyeshades for their protection, lest their pretentious mask is punctured.

Over a million of pilgrim followers addictively doubted and compulsively disobeyed Moses’ directions and God’s commandments received on Mount Sinai, all in the face of the God’s manifest power.

The behaviour of these followers was incomprehensible having seen the clearest injunctions of the moral law; hearing the most eminent Patriarch, and observing the most astonishing miracles, but remained stubbornly unmoved. No wonder that Joshua his protégé finally took Moses’ place when in dejection at their immovability he resigned his role with his Lord and Israel thereby making way for Joshua his seventy elders to lead the Hebrews into the Land of Milk and Honey which he at last viewed from Pisgah’s Peak of Mount Nebo.

(End of Brief Epilogue.)

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.
King James Version: (Public domain.)

Numbers 14:24. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully…

Numbers 27:18. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit,

1 Peter 1: 10-11.
Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify…

Luke 24: 44. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

ADDITIONAL READING:

1 Peter 1:11; Romans: Chapter 5; Romans: Chapter 7.
CREDITS: John David 2019, biblesimply@gmail.com, Jonacy Press, POB 366603, Bonita Springs FL 34136
Previous publication: PREAMBLE TO BIBLE HISTORICAL BOOKS (Series Part 1.)

UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK OF JOSHUA.

HOW TO START READING YOUR BIBLE.

HOW TO START READING YOUR BIBLE.
SIMPLE KEYS
TO UNDERSTANDING
AND KNOWING YOUR
BIBLE’S CONTENTS
 
HOW TO START READING YOUR BIBLE.
As we are educated to be doubters and skeptics, one way or another, you need to employ the willing suspension of disbelief at the very start and if you have not believed the following tenets enumerated below you must pretend they are true while reading.
1. Read it as if it is the infallible Word of God.
2. Remember in the first chapter of the first of sixty six books: Genesis, these words appear:
a. “God said-God made-God called”
i. God said what you’re reading
ii. God made the patriarchs, prophets & apostles write them.
iii. God called ordinary men to write His Words. Do not treat them as in any other book.
3. Do not analyse it by your own intellect for logic or truthfulness;
4. Do not judge it by your powers of mental reason or of popular philosophy;
5. Read it as God’s Word demonstrating the waywardness of rebellious human nature cursed by sin;
6. Read it noticing the rare men or women that wholeheartedly seek God sincerely without ulterior motive;
7. Read it noticing the futile attempts of men to keep the moral law, vainly worshipping with lip service;
8. Read it and continue the habit even when you do not understand it for God is secretly at work because the Bible says:-:
a. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God:
i. Romans 10: 17.
b. The pre-eternal Christ’s name is the Word, in the triune godhead of the Father, the Word & Spirit:
i. 1st John 5:7; 1st John 1:1; John’s Gospel 1:1.
9. Read it with out help of church or clergy until there arises within your heart a hunger to wholeheartedly be a daily Bible reader.
10. Read it until God’s grace enlightens the eyes of your understanding to fathom Christ’s message to you in both the Old and New Testaments (excepting the uninspired Apocrypha in some Bibles)
11. Read it noticing the principles of the wise reader found in the following Bible references:-
a. Proverbs 3:5-6; 1st Corinthians 2:14; 2nd Timothy 3:16; Romans 1:17; John’s Gospel 1:17.
12. Keep in mind that the minute your mind asserts superior wisdom over your Bible reading you are a fool.
a. Romans 1:22.
13. The reason the mind blindly argues against the credibility of Scripture that the problem is from the heart:
a. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

PROFILE
John David’s Bible Simply is a Know Your Bible program. Bible Simply has been formed to reach the ‘household of faith’ and the god-fearing pilgrims struggling to understand the Bible. Bible Simply would encourage spasmodic readers to become daily Bible readers and regular readers to become more acquainted with the Old and New Testaments.

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‘The just shall live by faith,’ not of themselves but of grace.

HOW TO START READING YOUR BIBLE.

KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING BOOK OF JOSHUA

The Twelve Historic Books Series: Part Two: JoshuaiIn chapter headings, addenda background in an epilogue.
see also Part 1 in the series: http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/twelve-bible-historical-books/

JOSHUA’S CHAPTER HEADINGS & BACKGROUND ADDENDA:
JOSHUA: 1.
Joshua prepares to enter the Promised Land of Canaan.
JOSHUA: 2.
The spies enter Jericho; Rahab secretly gives them refuge.
JOSHUA: 3.
Jordan River stops flowing; Joshua crosses on dry ground.
JOSHUA: 4.
Jordan’s waters return to their normal course.
JOSHUA: 5.
Joshua circumcises minors from the Exodus Red Sea crossing.
JOSHUA: 6.
Seven days’ march around Jericho leads to walls’ collapse.
Rahab’s scarlet thread; Joshua rescues her entire family.
JOSHUA: 7.
The curse of Achan the thief that cost many lives.
JOSHUA: 8.
Joshua builds an altar in Canaan inscribing the Law upon it.
JOSHUA: 9.
Canaanite kings prepare against Israel; Gibeonite deception.
JOSHUA: 10.
Five kings attack Gibeon for defecting to Israel;
Joshua guarantees the treaty and defends Gibeon
The sun stands still for Joshua routing the enemy host.
JOSHUA: 11.
Surrounding kings ready their onslaught; all are defeated.
JOSHUA: 12.
List of thirty-one kings whom Joshua subdued.
JOSHUA: 13.
Aged Joshua exhorts all tribes to fully possess Canaan.
Tribes failing to expel heathen; all boundaries defined.
The false prophet, Balaam, attempts to curse Israel; but succeeds by Baal-Peor.
JOSHUA: 14.
Joshua’s companion Caleb seeks Hebron for his own.
JOSHUA: 15.
The territory allotted to the tribe of Judah.
JOSHUA: 16.
Territory allotted to children of Ephraim, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 17.
Territory allotted to children of Manasseh, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 18. Shiloh’s tabernacle assembled.
Joshua divides rest of Canaan to the seven tribes.
Joshua allots the first territory to tribe of Benjamin.
JOSHUA: 19.
Joshua allots the second territory to tribe of Simeon.
He allots the third territory to tribe of Zebulun.
Joshua allots the fourth territory to tribe of Issachar.
He allots the fifth territory to tribe of Asher.
Joshua allots the sixth territory to tribe of Naphtali.
He allots the seventh territory to tribe of Dan.
JOSHUA: 20
Joshua appoints the cities of refuge for accidental manslaughter.
JOSHUA: 21.
Joshua allocates forty-eight cities to the Levites in which to dwell.
JOSHUA: 22.
Army releases Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh to return to Gilead.
Joshua tells Gilead’s discharged soldiers to be faithful to God’s Laws.
The misunderstood returned soldiers’ altar sparking a civil war threat.
The three tribes wisely answer the west bank’s ultimatum & avert war.
JOSHUA: 23.
Aged Joshua warns of dangers accompanying peace.
Joshua commands the twelve tribes to fully oust the Canaanites.
JOSHUA: 24.
Joshua’s farewell address revises Hebrew history.
Joshua’s warns of idolatry’s dangers.
The dire consequences when people presume upon God’s mercy.
Israel covenants with God sealing its tryst with Joshua.
Joshua’s final address to the nation from Shiloh.
***
ADDENDA IN EPILOGUE.
This is the sixth book of the Holy Bible after the five books of Moses called the Pentateuch. They are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Book of Joshua is a record of Israel’s final entry into the Promised Land crossing over the River Jordan into the land of the Canaanites.
Forty years God had sent them wandering in the inhospitable wilderness terrain until all 599, 998 army rebel doubters died within its barren bounds. Only two of the original host survived: Caleb and Joshua.
Instead of believing their good report of Canaan they chose only to believe the doubts presented by the other ten spies. Thus they wanted to stone the two men of faith and go back to Egypt for the food offered in the land of their bondage. God had provided immeasurably for them in the desert with daily manna for bread and quail for meat, while at the same time always leading them to hidden source of water. Miraculously their feet never swelled and their clothes failed to wear from the abrasive desert conditions.
Despite their frequent, but intermittent murmurs of ingratitude which sometimes tested Moses to the point of exasperation, God’s mercy and loving-kindness continued when they chose to remember the covenant of blood, notwithstanding the chastising ordeals Israeli ingrates received from the Lord’s hand driving them to repentance but often with vast loss of life.
Forty day the emissaries of Moses espied the features of the Land the Hebrew people were to possess. But when the grand mutiny occurred at Kadesh after receiving the twelve men’s report, God deemed the forty days would incur a forty year sentence upon the Israeli adults for the rebellious disbelief.
Even after thirty eight years the final stage of the second attempt to enter Palestine almost failed because of the Moab-Midia nexus of hostility. Devilishly, when Balaam (the powerful occultist) was divinely prevented from cursing Israel , he then beguiled Israel’s men into succumbing to the adulterous religious practices of Baal-Peor. In the hour penultimate to Israel reaching its long awaited glorious zenith her invisible arch enemy almost succeeded. He had created an irrevocable anticlimax that would have aborted the saga of Israel’s pilgrimage.
Nevertheless, the Book of Joshua, the first of the twelve historic books, is an exciting record Joshua’s life of unmitigated faith and robust exploits for his Lord, whom he had come to know personally. He’d sat so often alone in the Tabernacle with God; he had been Moses’ servant; he had ascended Mount Sinai with his master when the moral Law was written in stone; and he had under Moses been divinely nominated and empowered to lead the nation’s seventy elders in Moses’ stead before his imminent death.
This book reveals the recalcitrant ways of the human heart, which despite having the best possible conditions for faith showed they had none at all in the hour of trial. They refused the grace of God and were only interested in the ulterior motive of sensual self-gain, dietary, physical or material benefits. In other words they were normal human beings with incurable heart disease but wearing the mask of conformity to the prevailing religion of the status quo and its social privileges. They were happy to use and exploit that religion for their own ends until the day of truth arrived then their real selves were unmasked. Does it not remind the reader of today’s Christendom and its myriad mass ‘converts’ ?
In hindsight, Israel rejected the grace of God, the only medium for faith. Of the 600,000 only Joshua and Caleb sought the Lord wholeheartedly, the minimum requirement before the Lord will personally draw near to the individual.
Over a million Hebrews had seen the miracles afforded to them both before and after the Exodus journey, but only Moses and two others possessed a different spirit. What was that spirit? Paul the apostle says that it was the Holy Spirit within them. (1Peter 1:11) How does that scripture apply? Both Moses, Joshua were prophets in their own right. Caleb, a valiant soldier, and emissary was an individual seeker who did so reverently with all his soul, mind and might. One day the Spirit of Christ drew near to dwell within him.
Religion; miracles; following the presence of God in religion; or being a fellow traveler in a Christian Church by using one’s own ‘simple childlike faith’ will not make anyone a wholehearted seeker of Christ, let alone regenerate the person. Following God and His presence will allow the follower an awareness that God is with him, but this falls far short of possessing the indwelling Spirit of Christ.
The Pentateuch catalogued over a million of His chosen people continuously doubting and disobeying. Having seen the clearest injunction of the written Law, heard the best preacher; and observed many mighty miracles, Moses that in dejection sought God for a replacement so he could retire from his role to be with his Maker.

John David 2019
Jonacy Press
POB 366603 Bonita Springs FL 34136
biblesimply@gmail.com

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES. (King James Version: Public domain.)
Numbers 14:24. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully…
Numbers 27:18. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit,
1 Peter 1: 10-11. Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify…
Luke 24: 44. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. OTHER REFERENCES: 1 Peter 1:11; Romans 5; + 7; Romans 1.

: http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/easy-keys-to-bible-book-joshua/