SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 4/17/2014 10:19 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Thess. Perseverance in Suffering
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1
Thessalonians 2:14b
Message of the
verses: “for you also endured the
same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the
Jews.”
As I was looking at my emails this morning I got an email
from Joel Rosenberg’s blog that he writes sometimes once a day and sometimes
more. He was quoting a story from a
newspaper in the US about something that is going on in Ukraine that has been
going on many occasions before and that something is anti-Semitism. Dr. Wiersbe writes “There is no place in the Christian
faith for anti-Semitism.” This happened
during the Second World War in Europe when six million Jews were killed just
because they were Jews. Now we see this
going on in Ukraine at this moment. In
Genesis 12:1-3 we read these words that God spoke to Abram: “1 Now
the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your
relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing;
3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the
one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will
be blessed.’” I have heard that
you can chart the rising and falling of nations throughout history on how they
treated the Jews. In chapters 38-39 of
Ezekiel we read about a future war that will take place against Israel and in
that war which is called the war of Gog and Magog there will be a number of
countries going against Israel which Ezekiel writes about and most Bible scholars
believe that Russia will be one of those nations, in fact will be leading this
attack against Israel. The timing of
this prophecy is not agreed upon as to when it will happen as some believe it
will happen before the rapture of the church and some believe it will happen during
the tribulation period. We cannot
identify all of the nations, but Iran is surely one of them and we can see in
our time that Iran has stated they want to destroy the nation of Israel. According to God’s Word this will not happen
and also according to God’s Word all of these nations will be destroyed.
Paul writes about how the Gentiles were persecuting the
believers in Thessalonica just as the Jews were persecuting the Church in
Judah. The Jews were wrong in doing this
as the Gentiles were wrong in persecuting the believes in Thessalonica.
I think that it is in the book of Jeremiah where God
calls Israel the apple of His eye, and we can see from the passage quoted in
Genesis that He will care for Israel.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: When God saved me
in January of 1974 I knew little about the Jews, but it did not take long for
God to put a deep love in my heart for them.
I have learned that it is wrong to dislike a Jew because he is a Jew and
I am glad that God has put a love in my heart for the children of Israel.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to keep all of His Word that
speaks of what will happen to the children of Israel, and what will happen to
those who hate them.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “All Night” (Luke 6:12).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘"Before a
rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.’”
Answer in our next SD.
4/17/2014 10:48 PM
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