Dithering.... so the internet decides for me

Having given myself two options this year for Bible reading, I neither find my lectionary nor want to use my back-up approach this morning.

Fickle, moi?

So instead, opening BibleGateway in preparation, I decide to read the Psalm from which the verse of the day (90:12) ("So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.") is taken. This could be a new approach, but is a little unstructured for long-term usage (I would prefer to work through a book at a time, so I know what it is about).

Psalm 90
Thoughts:
This is a really good reality check.

I love verses like vv1-2 - they cut through all the hustle and bustle of life and remind me that my true home is with God.

vv3-6 help cut through the self-importance of any age. I'm currently researching family history and also enjoying a book which gives an overview of great moments in British history. It's difficult to imagine a thousand years seeming as a day, but does force me to think 'big picture' (it's a bit easier if e.g. I try to think of the first thousand years of AD British History - hmm - Romans, Alfred, burnt cakes, William the Conq, Harold and the arrow).

vv7-8 a reminder that I cannot hide from God, (and thus all the rationalisation and justification of things I ought not to be doing really doesn't wash with Him).

vv9-12 - time is not as long as we think that it is (or, as The Wurzels put it "you're a short time living and a long time dead" - can't remember the song just yet, but it will bug me until I find it out, so will post the link...)

v12-17 - so, I should remember to number my days (and thank God for Jesus, or I would be in a very sorry mess indeed).

Hurrah!. I like the Psalms.

Did you know..... (Who was Cyrus?)

I found this (originally copied from an article in the Times I think, when I was doing Overview, or maybe Isaiah).... you've heard of Attila the Hun, but have you heard of Cyrus?

LISTOMANIA

The men who conquered the most miles

Genghis Khan (c1162- 1227): 4,860,000 square miles, including northern China, Mongolia, southern Siberia and central Asia.

Alexander the Great (356- 323BC): 2,180,000 square miles, including the southern Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor, Egypt and the entire Near East.

Tamerlane (c1336-1405): 2,145,000 square miles, including most of the Near East.

Cyrus the Great (c600- c529BC): 2,090,000 square miles including the Median Empire, Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, the Indus Valley and southern Turkistan.

Attila (c406-453), king of the Huns: 1,450,000 square miles, encompassing most of central and eastern Europe and the western Russian plain, but not Gaul.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945): 1,370,000 square miles, including most of continental Europe — extending from the English Channel to the outskirts of Moscow, and from North Africa to Norway — all of which he lost within 31/2 years.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821): 720,000 square miles, including France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Spain.

Testing Times: Stop!

Sermon notes from this morning - really good, and excellent service (lots of Psalm-singing). Really useful as well, as we are just beginning to study Judges in Central Focus, and so it was helpful to go back a little in Israel's history and understand the 'backstory'.

This is about coming so close, but being so far from glory. About the agony of loss. About the rewards of perserverance for those who never stop believing. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Numbers 13-14

Research (13:1-33)
Gathering Intelligence
Spies are sent out into Canaan to gather intelligence. They report back that it is a land of milk and honey - BUT - the people are strong, the cities fortified and large.

Minority Report - Caleb reports back and is v.positive - 'we should go up at once! we are well able etc.'

Majority Report - the other spies persuade the people that they are not able. The people of Canaan are stronger. Spin the news - v32b - land devours its inhabitants, 'we are like grasshoppers'.

Response (14:1-10)
The people panic
Focussing on God's enemies, rather than God's power.
The faithful preach
Do not rebel, do not fear - 'they are bread for us' - 'their protection is removed'.
Danger of making people big and God small

We are so often immobilised in our spiritual lives due to fear of what pressing on with Jesus might mean (oh, so very true).

Reaction (14:11-38)
Disinheritance threatened
God would disinherit - look back - only Joshua and Caleb remain from the generations in the wilderness who refused to go in.
Prayer for God's glory
v17 - appeal to God's character as revealed in Exodus 34.
Moses recognises that God must be just.
The final straw
All the grumblers - vv36-37. 10 spies die (the majority report). v29 - all your numbernumber who have grumbled against me will die in the wilderness. Look back at Numbers 1 - a great nation then - all died in the wilderness.
The faithful few


Today if you hear his voice ....
No loss is so gut-wrenching or permanent as losingout on heaven. Do not surrender to the flesh and devil.

Numbers ... some thoughts

A collection of jottings from recent time spent reading Numbers in the mornings (July 2007).

Numbers 11
11v11 - Moses actually argues with the LORD (I know that this is known as something which he does, but it still comes as a shock to see it in print).
11v21 - 600,000 people. A huge number now, as well as then (frequently I find that the numbers in the OT are not that big, so I have to imagine myself back in OT times and think how big they would be for them. Not so here).
11v29 - would that all the LORD's people were prophets.

12v3 - Moses was the meekest man. What is meek?
12v6 - special relationship with Moses.

14v10 - the people are ready to stone those who are faithful to God.
14vv11-12 - 11And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they."

Numbers 15
(within the context of offerings for intentional and unintentional sin:
30But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. 31Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him."
Am intrigued by the 'high hand'. Must find commentary on Numbers at some point.

Numbers 16 - I've not noticed before the way that the phrases are repeated here as the rebels mock Moses(Korah's rebellion).
e.g.
16v9 Moses says "9is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the LORD and to stand before the congregation to minister to them, "
16v13 the rebels say "13Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also make yourself a prince over us? "

16vv31-32 - the earth opens its mouth to swallow up Korah and his people for their rebellion.
16v41 - the next day the congregation of the people of Israel grumble against Moses and Aaron.
It seems so stark, against the context of Moses having been shown (by the swallowing up) to have been sent to do the LORD's works.

vv44-46 - the plague starts as soon as the LORD has said that He will consume these people. Moses runs and offers atonement, and stands between the dead and the living. Not entirely sure why the 'standing between the dead and the living' strikes me, but it does.

Numbers 20
v28 - Aaron's death - mused gently about whether Aaron dies because he's taken his clothes off on the mountaintop, or whether his clothes are removed because he dies. A question for coffee I suspect.

Moses ... the meekest man (12v3), probably in his eighties (need to find a source for this - Exodus??, leads a troublesome people through the wilderness, is told that he won't be entering into the Promised Land, but still leads them on, obediently, through confrontation with Edom, Arad and the Amorites.