No wonder people are angry

⁸But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
⁹you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, "You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off";

Hold the phone. God just called Israel his friend? God has been, at best, their adversary the past 350 years. About a hundred years ago God sent Assyria to destroy, pillage, rape, and murder Israel because of their wickedness. the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah have been belittled, ridiculed, and tormented because they've been commissioned to tell Judah their fate will be the same, and that fate its coming quickly. God will send his servant Babylon to humiliate Judah's King, burn down God's temple, and export legions of Israelites to a foreign land. Yet God uses the word friend.

And it's no wonder many people today are angry at God for such-and-such a reason. People have been fed a narrow-minded and incomplete Gospel saying God is unconditional love and nothing else. This as their shallow foundation of doctrine they simply can't fit the idea of the Lord "sending them off to Babylon" with all its hardships and despair into their paradigm of God. God winnows and sifts them for their own good, then extends a hand of friendship to them, to which they respond "No! We've already tried that solution and it didn't provide what we were looking for!" And they miss out of the full picture of Love God offers us. A love so deep he drags us into a deeper and fuller view of His glory, where we learn how much more honorable He is, and we begin to take a greater delight in that glory.

Ezekiel, ya' old crazy preacher...

Today I read Ezekiel 40-48. Try as I might, I don't understand in the slightest the significance of the Temple. The new, glorious temple is mentioned in both Ezekiel and Revelations 20-21. It was constructed by Moses and the gang, beefed up by Solomon, slowly stripped by the stupid Judean kings that followed and used as tribute to Assyria and Babylon, demolished by King Neb of Babylon in 586bc, rebuilt by Ezra thanks to King Darius in 515bc-ish, (though it was a sad imitation of Solomon's), and destroyed again in 70ad by Rome. It hasn't been rebuilt since. Before the temple was annihilated Paul says "you yourselves are God's temple, and God's spirit lives in you." And the author of Hebrews adds that the Temple was a mere shadow/illustration/parable of the New Covenant, lighting the way for the One who can once and for all offer a sacrifice, meriting us perfect righteousness.

Why should the Temple be such an encouragement to Israel? Why should the Temple in Revelations be such an encouragement to us?

P.S.

here's my favorite three posts for the week:

Promises

Thoughts on False Doctrine

Death & Taxes 2010

great book

Some day I would like to go through this as a devotional. Its great because cahapters with the title "Incommunicable Attributes of the Character of God" are followed by "Questions for personal application," "Scrupture Memory Passage," and even a Hymn.

Jer 22:8-9

⁸ "People from many nations will pass by this city and will ask one another, 'Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?' ⁹ And the answer will be: 'Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and have worshiped and served other gods.' "

Background: God's about to throw the smack down on his chosen people of Judah by calling Nebechadnezzer of Babylon to utterly destroy them.

I came across this in my reading today and was stuck on the idea of "Why?" Why Lord do you cause this to happen? One reason that occurred to me was: Because the Lord will not let his name be defamed.

Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Moab--they each served their own patron diety. If one was from Babylon he and his actions were associated with the god Marduk, and the reverance that person showed his god was how others saw that god. Similarly, Judah worshiped Yahweh. However over the last several hundred years their worship of Yahweh had become intermingled with Asshura poles, child sacrifice, and temple prostitution, to name a few. An outsider looking in saw this as how to worship Yahweh, and God was very, very angry.

Three years ago when I was in Japan a Christian there told me one reason it's difficult for Japanese people to become Christian is because they associate all people in America as Christians, just as we associate everyone in Israel as Jewish. The Japanese do not like the picture American's who consider themselves Christians portray, and thus, don't want anything to do with it.

We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. (II Cor. 5:20).

Woe to us if we call ourselves Christians and our life does not model it. We are ambassadors to a Leader who very concerned with His Honor.

Credit Cards

Let me describe my last hour to you

Call American Express toll free line to discuss an error about my card.

Sit through automated service.

Receptionist tells me I need to speak to a credit bural.

Call Experian.

After answering to a maze of options, I answer wrong question and the automated systems responds "good by"

Call again. Realize I need to sign up for a free credit report

Sign up for credit report online

Call again. Reweave through maze and get put on hold.

still on hold

Still there

almost.

finally

talk to very friendly and helpful receptionist

Call back american express new card application

Transfered to customer service.

Customer service has no idea what's going on and transfers me to "Jen" at some unknown office promising she can help.

Phone goes dead

Call customer service again and ask to be transfered to magical "Jen" lady. The person has no idea what I'm talking about.

Reexplain (for literally the 5th time) the situation. He says I need to talk to American express' credit bural. Unfortunately, they just closed 8 minutes ago (no joke).

Asked again to talk to "Jen." No luck.

Tried to explain situation [again] to customer service agent.

Hung up utterly defeated.

This really shouldn't be that difficult...

The Miracle

48 hours ago this 2004 beauty suffered half a can of coke to the keyboard, thus potentially destroying my entire Funding database, among other important documents. Thankfully, the only permanent damage is a missing key and sticky keyboard. Thanks God!

Men of Whom the World was not worthy

http://www.desiringgod.org/Store/MP3CDs/ByTopic/42/363_Men_of_Whom_the_World_Was_Not_Worthy/

You can click on the link of the names and listen to/read the sermons.