DAILY, WEEKEND, AND HOLIDAY INTERNET EVANGELIZE TO THE WORLD MINISTRY

June 29: Behind the Scenes Esther 3:1–7:10 ; 3 John 1:1–4 ; Psalm 117:1–118:16 Sometimes life can look so bleak that it seems as if all hope is gone. This was the situation for Esther and Mordecai: “Letters were sent by couriers to all the provinces of the king to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children” ( Esth 3:13 ). Genocide was upon Esther, Mordecai, and their people, and it seemed that little could be done. Yet God unexpectedly used Esther to do His work and made Mordecai a hero for thwarting the enemies’ plan to destroy God’s people ( Esth 5–7 ). As a result, the people who wanted to kill Mordecai ended up dead ( Esth 7:7–10 ). But these events depicted more than poetic justice; they provide an example of hope in the midst of adversity. This story shows that God is at work even when we don’t realize He is there—when even prayer feels like a waste of energy. While God is not a “character” in the book of Esther , His pres...

Morning, June 29 Go To Evening Reading “Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:14 Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps in insensibility. “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise,” is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint. They “sleep in Jesus,” but their souls are before the throne of God, praising him day and night in his temple, singing hallelujahs to him who washed them from their sins in his blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this sleep? The idea connected with sleep is “rest,” and that is the thought which the Spirit of God would convey to us. Sleep makes each night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep shuts fast the door of the soul, and bids all intruders tarry for a while, that the life within may enter its summer garden of ease. The toil-worn believer quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when it slumbers on its mother’s breast. Oh! happy they who die in the Lo...

June 29th Direction of discipline And if thy right hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matthew 5:30 . Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off the right hand, but— ‘If your right hand offends you in your walk with Me, cut it off.’ There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says if it hinders you in following His precepts, cut it off. This line of discipline is the sternest one that ever struck mankind. When God alters a man by regeneration, the characteristic of the life to begin with is that it is maimed. There are a hundred and one things you dare not do, things that to you and in the eyes of the world that knows you are as your right hand and your eye, and the unspiritual person says— ‘Whatever is w...

June 29 Sleep on now, and take your rest Mark 14:41 Never did that sacred opportunity to watch with Christ return to His disciples. Lost then, it was lost forever. And now when Jesus is still beholding the travail of His soul in the redemption of the world, if you fail to be with Him watching for souls as they that must give account, remember that the opportunity will never return. “Watch, therefore,” says your Lord, “lest coming suddenly, he may find you sleeping.” A. J. Gordon  Hardman, Samuel G., and Dwight Lyman Moody. Thoughts for the Quiet Hour . Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997. Print.

The New Command Excerpt What made the command new when Jesus gave it was not its content. The Old Testament contains the command to love one’s neighbor ( Lev  19:18 ), and Jesus quotes it in some of the Gospels ( Mt  19:19 ;  22:39 ;  Lk 10:27 ). Neither does Jesus have in mind a new kind of love or a new expression of love. The God whom Jesus knows and proclaims is a God of love ( Jn  3:16 ). But the command to love one another can be called new for two reasons: First, it points to a new example of love, that of Jesus’ own life. We see his love most fully manifested in his death on the cross ( compare   Jn 13:1 ;  1 Jn 3:16 ;  4:9–10 ). Second, Jesus’ death creates the new fellowship in which obedience to his command is possible. Jesus’ death is the act by which all God’s people can be gathered together ( Jn  10:16 ;  11:51–52 ;  12:24 ). The command to love was given and modeled by Jesus, and now it is to be put into act...

Uz Job 1:1 Excerpt The homeland of Job ( Job 1:1 ). Two traditions exist concerning the location of Uz: Edom in the southeast and Syria in the northeast. Neither tradition is completely persuasive, and the evidence concerning the location cannot be reconciled. Among the arguments for the Edomite location, the personal name Uz appears in Edomite genealogies ( Gen. 36:28  =  1 Chr. 1:42 ), and personal names in the book of Job probably are Edomite in origin ( cf .  Job 2:11 ). The personal name Uz is linked with Buz ( Gen. 22:21 ), which also appears as a place name associated with Edom ( Jer. 25:23 ). The LXX appendix to Job describes Uz as bordering on Idumea and Arabia ( Jer. 42:17b ). Also, Uz is poetically parallel to “daughter Edom” at  Lam. 4:21 . Other arguments place Uz in Aram (Syria), near Damascus or S of Damascus in the Hauran. The person Uz is a descendant of Aram ( Gen. 10:23 ;  1 Chr. 1:17 ) and the oldest son of Abraham’s Aramean bro...

The Witness of Two People Excerpt Jesus now reverts to the topic of testimony. The shifts back and forth between Jesus as witness and Jesus as judge would appear sudden and awkward if the dispute in chapter  5  had not already prepared readers for the irony of Jesus’ dual role, which in turn reflects Yahweh’s functioning as both witness and judge in the trial scenes of  Isa. 40–55 . Having stressed his self-authenticating witness, Jesus can now return to the conventions of ordinary Jewish trials— In your law it  is written that the witness of two people is true.  As he did in  5:31–7 , he again accommodates himself to the law’s requirements ( cf .  Deut. 19:15 ). But the concession to the opponents’ standard of judgement (‘ your  law ’) is ironic. The law required two witnesses, not including the accused, and an appeal to God is not envisaged as one of these. The force of Jesus’ mention of the law appears to be that if the law demands two h...