We have become so accustomed to hearing preachers or expositors, as important as that is, that many in the process have abandoned the grand privilege of personally hearing from God’s Word daily. - Ravi Zacharrias







Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Day 116- Joshua 15; Mark 11; Psalm 26

A summary of Joshua 15,

"Though the land was not completely conquered, yet being (as was said in the close of the foregoing chapter) as rest from war for the present, and their armies all drawn out of the field to a general rendezvous at Gilgal, there they began to divide the land, though the work was afterwards perfected at Shiloh, ch. 18:1 , etc. In this chapter we have the lot of the tribe of Judah, which in this, as in other things, had the precedency. I. The borders or bounds of the inheritance of Judah (v. 1-12). II. The particular assignment of Hebron and the country thereabout to Caleb and his family (v. 13-19). III. The names of the several cities that fell within Judah’s lot (v. 20-63)."

Tell me its not kind of cute how his new wife convinced her father to give them the land with the springs?

I have never heard, or do not recall the story of the colt or the fig tree.  I mean, I know of the riding in and the throwing of palms or tree leaves on the ground, but I guess I don't recall hearing it this way.  Thus begins the Passion week and Henry writes,

Here is, I. Christ’s cursing the fruitless fig-tree. He had a convenient resting-place at Bethany, and therefore thither he went at resting-time; but his work lay at Jerusalem, and thither therefore he returned in the morning, at working-time; and so intent was he upon his work, that he went out from Bethany without breakfast, which, before he was gone far, he found the want of, and was hungry (v. 12), for he was subject to all the sinless infirmities of our nature. Finding himself in want of food, he went to a fig-tree, which he saw at some distance, and which being well adorned with green leaves he hoped to find enriched with some sort of fruit. But he found nothing but leaves; he hoped to find some fruit, for though the time of gathering in figs was near, it was not yet; so that it could not be pretended that it had had fruit, but that it was gathered and gone; for the season had not yet arrived. Or, He found none, for indeed it was not a season of figs, it was no good fig-year. But this was worse than any fig-tree, for there was not so much as one fig to be found upon it, though it was so full of leaves. However, Christ was willing to make an example of it, not to the trees, but to the men, of that generation, and therefore cursed it with that curse which is the reverse of the first blessing, Be fruitful; he said unto it, Never let any man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever, v. 14. Sweetness and good fruit are, in Jotham’s parable, the honour of the fig-tree (Jdg. 9:11 ), and its serviceableness therein to man, preferable to the preferment of being promoted over the trees; now to be deprived of that, was a grievous curse. This was intended to be a type and figure of the doom passed upon the Jewish church, to which he came, seeking fruit, but found none (Lu. 13:6, Lu. 13:7 ); and though it was not, according to the doom in the parable, immediately cut down, yet, according to this in the history, blindness and hardness befel them (Rom. 11:8, Rom. 11:25 ), so that they were from henceforth good for nothing. The disciples heard what sentence Christ passed on this tree, and took notice of it. Woes from Christ’s mouth are to be observed and kept in mind, as well as blessings.
And on the Psalm,

Holy David is in this psalm putting himself upon a solemn trial, not by God and his country, but by God and his own conscience, to both which he appeals touching his integrity (v. 1, v. 2), for the proof of which he alleges, I. His constant regard to God and his grace (v. 3). II. His rooted antipathy to sin and sinners (v. 4, v. 5). III. His sincere affection to the ordinances of God, and his care about them (v. 6-8). Having thus proved his integrity, 1. He deprecates the doom of the wicked (v. 9, v. 10). He casts himself upon the mercy and grace of God, with a resolution to hold fast his integrity, and his hope in God (v. 11, v. 12). In singing this psalm we must teach and admonish ourselves, and one another, what we must be and do that we may have the favour of God, and comfort in our own consciences, and comfort ourselves with it, as David does, if we can say that in any measure we have, through grace, answered to these characters. The learned Amyraldus, in his argument of his psalm, suggests that David is here, by the spirit of prophecy, carried out to speak of himself as a type of Christ, of whom what he here says of his spotless innocence, was fully and eminently true, and of him only, and to him we may apply it in singing this psalm. "We are complete in him.’’A psalm of David.
Keep that in mind today as you venture out, we need to pay heed not only to the good things God does, but the woeful as well.

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