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Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Ps 37:4 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:The Three VisitorsIsrael after Solomon (32): Habakkuk’s Second Complaint to God BibleVerse:Habakkuk 1:13-16a (NASB) "Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they? Why have You made men like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things without a ruler over them? The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, Drag them away with their net, And gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net And burn incense to their fishing net;" Message:
In the first dialogue (Habakkuk 1:1-11), Habakkuk complained to God for allowing Jerusalem to live in wickedness; how could a just God allow the city of His Temple to be ruled by such idolatrous, immoral, greedy people? God responded by saying, basically, “the problem is being solved right this minute.” He had raised up the Chaldeans (Babylonians), “dreaded and fearsome,” who would turn Jerusalem into rubble and take its people captive.
Today’s Scripture is the first section of the second dialogue, Habakkuk’s second “complaint.” Habakkuk says, if I may paraphrase: “The Chaldeans! That’s even worse. They are wickeder than the people of Jerusalem. How could you let the partially-bad be punished by the horrible?” (God’s response is in Chapter 2 of Habukkak, which we will read in the near future.)
The second paragraph of Habukkak’s complaint is superb metaphor, so powerful that it will be adopted and expanded by Jesus Himself. He compares “men” — the people that the Chaldeans conquer in general, and specifically the Hebrews — to fish in the sea. The fish swim wherever they want, without a leader. Habukkak complains of a situation very much like the contemporary standard of self-realization. His frame of reference, however, is 180 degrees opposite the modern secular one, for he considers “everyone doing his own thing” to be a characteristic of lower life forms, “creeping things without a ruler over them.”
God’s response to both of Habukkak’s complaints is (like so much of the Bible) counter-intuitive. His justice is not Habakkuk’s justice. Those who believe they are righteous in His eyes will be swept up in the Chaldeans’ net with those they judge as sinners; this crowd, who will reappear in the Gospels as the Pharisees, lord their righteousness over those who are openly immoral. We might infer, from our knowledge of the New Testament, that sin in the eyes of God is not graded “on the curve.” They are all sinful, and they will all be judged. We will see in God’s response (in Habakkuk 2) the ultimate truth of the Bible, from Abraham, through Christ, and finally elaborated at great length by Paul: salvation can come only through faith.
fishers of men, Simon Peter Andrew
Fishers of men.
The Chaldeans find these directionless fish easy prey. They catch them with hooks and nets, and rejoice over the big easy catch. And having done so, they make their fishing net into a god and worship it!
This rich metaphor has a wealth of applications. The Chaldeans’ net could be anything that worldly men make into a god and serve, because it has given them power over people who are foolish and rudderless. Money. Television. A national flag. Cults. Political parties. The list is endless. People who will not listen to, or who have forgotten, or who ignore the teachings of their leader become rudderless fish, and they fall easy prey to the manipulative lies of — for a pointed example — CNN or Fox News (take your pick — I’m not trying to single out anyone specific! If this is too emotional for you to take the lesson, you can contemplate, say, Citibank or Mao Tse-Tung or Vogue Magazine).
A post-script: To be more specific about the prophetic nature of Habukkak’s fish metaphor, remember the words of Christ: “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19) The fish is perhaps the second most popular symbol of Christianity, after the cross.
Meditation : “There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.” ~ Martin Luther Prayer : And finally, may the grace of Christ our Savior, and the Father’s boundless love, with the Holy Spirit’s favor, rest upon me, and all of us, from above. Thus may we abide in union, with each other and the Lord, and possess, in sweet communion, joys which earth cannot afford.......Amen. |
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