The Bible180 challenge, week 13

/
The Bible180 challenge, week 13

We spent a good portion of last week in Isaiah and in parallel passages of 2 Kings. Assyria has finally crushed the northern kingdom of Israel, and Judah is not far from a similar fate. And yet just here, when the future of God's people is utterly black, the prophet Isaiah begins to drop sparks of hope in the form of Messianic, millennial, and even tribulational prophecies.

Isaiah 32 & 33 stood out to me the most. In chapter 32, Isaiah prophesies of the day when the world is finally turned right side up in the end times:

Behold, a king will reign righteously and princes will rule justly. . . . No longer will the fool be called noble, or the rogue be spoken of as generous. . . . And the work of righteousness will be peace, and the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.
Isaiah 32:1, 5, 17

Yet between and beyond these hopeful words, a persistent warning weaves through: none of this can come to pass until the way is cleared by God's destructive vengeance on the world. The suffering must inevitably come first.

Read More

The Bible180 challenge, week 11

/
The Bible180 challenge, week 11

It's sometime in the mid-900s B.C., Jerusalem, Israel.

The nation is in chaos. King Solomon, maybe the nation's most impressive king in terms of wisdom and splendor, has reached and passed the peak of his greatness; he has recently completed the building of the magnificent Temple, he has become famous throughout the known world for his wisdom, he has "made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem" (1 Kings 10:27). But just when all is nearly perfect, sin creeps in - silent and smooth, like the serpent in the Garden - and God's covenant with Israel demands that He respond to Solomon's rebellion:

Read More

The Bible180 challenge, week 10

/
The Bible180 challenge, week 10

It's week 10, and we've finally started into the stories of the kings. King Solomon has been crowned, the incredible Temple has been built, and the spectating Israelites "went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown to David His servant and to Israel His people" (1 Kings 8:66b). At last, after their centuries of slavery and decades in the wilderness and long years of growing pains as a nation, it feels like Israel has found rest in her Promised Land.

And it's here, at the pinnacle of their prosperity, that we heard God issue a prophetic warning.

Read More