Grains of Sand

Google Images Ezra Levant, columnist for Sun Media, took potshots at US President Barak Obama and Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, this morning in our local paper. The gist of the article was a scathing rebuke directed at these two leaders who, having been able to exert considerable influence on the advance of evil in the world, are too busy playing golf (Barak) and doing a book tour (Hilary) to care to stop evil in its tracks. According to Levant, they never did care much and now care less. Consequently, according to Levant, terrorist bands like ISIS have effectively taken back in days what Americans and others died for during the years since Desert Storm. Wherever you fall on the political landscape there is something to be said for the events of Joshua 10 when we look at what is happening in Iraq today, and I am not saying that one situation is equal to the other. But though this will not sit well with some people, it’s what God told Joshua to do. So if there is an issue, tak...

Google Images Sometimes you just have to let things go and move forward. Joseph’s older brothers arrive in Egypt (Genesis 42:3). Famine has spread to Canaan and there is nothing left to do but to leave home turf and try to buy food elsewhere. The brothers are basically unchanged in appearance, older to be sure, and perhaps a lot wiser as well. Joseph has radically changed, taking on the appearance of an Egyptian. So when the brothers are presented to him, they do not recognize him. Of course, neither did they expect to ever see him again. As Joseph eavesdrops on the conversation among the brothers, he is aware that the jealous siblings who sold him into slavery are not the same men that he once knew. But he determines to test them to be sure. When they arrive back in Canaan they are one brother short (42:24). Simeon is captive in Egypt as surety for the return of the others with their young brother, Benjamin. They also have all the money they took with them to pray for the grain (4...

Google Images He’d been here before—different man, different circumstances. The last time Jacob had visited Bethel he had bargained with God (Genesis 28). Back then, in his flight from the repercussions of his lying and deceit, God had promised to go with him, and to bring him back to Canaan. Now Jacob was instructed to go back to Bethel, this time on his way back to Canaan, just as God had promised. This time, instead of telling God what he would do if God held up His part of the bargain, Jacob acknowledged that God had done exactly what He had promised. This, I believe, is Jacob’s true moment of “conversion.” When he fled from his father-in-law Laban, Rachel, Jacob’s wife, had stolen her father’s household gods (31:19), which tells us that Yahweh was not exclusively worshiped and served. Jacob appeared to be accepting of this practice even if he didn’t participate in it himself. But now, at Bethel, the picture changed. “ Then God said to Jacob, ‘Go up to Bethel and settle there a...

Gideon is threshing wheat, trying his best to keep his activities secret. If the Midianite oppressors discover what he is doing, they will destroy the crop and quite possibly punish his impudence. The Israelites have cried out to God because of the seven years of suffering they have endured under the harsh hand of Midian. He heard those cries, sent a prophet to remind them that they brought all this on themselves because they had assimilated the local gods into their daily worship (Judges 6:10). When the angel appears to Gideon, he greets the farmer with " The Lord is with you, mighty warrior" to which Gideon responds, "If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us… " (6:13, NIV). I guess Gideon must have missed the sermon delivered by the prophet, or he hadn't received the memo. His own father had an image of Baal and an Asherah pole (6:25). All that aside, when the angel tells Gideon to go and rescue Israel from her oppressors, there begins a leng...