Bel and Nebo, the gods of Babylon, bow as they are lowered to the ground. They are being hauled away on ox carts. The poor beasts stagger under the weight. Both the idols and their owners are bowed down. The gods cannot protect the people, and the people cannot protect the gods. They go off into captivity together. [Isaiah 46:1-2 (NLT)]
The Israelites were surrounded by various pagan peoples who worshipped foreign deities. Baal ruled over Canaan and Phoenicia, Chemosh over Moab, and Marduk/Bel and Nebo over Babylonia. The Philistines’ had Dagon and the Ammonites worshipped Molech. These gods usually had a domain over which they ruled. For example, Baal’s domain was rain, storms, and the harvest. Moab’s Chemosh presided over war and mountains. As patron deity of Babylon, Marduk/Bel was supposed to protect the city and rule over storms while Nebo’s purview was wisdom and science. The Philistines’ chief god Dagon presided over death, the afterlife, war, and agriculture while Ammon’s Molech reigned over the underworld, which may explain his association with child sacrifice in the Old Testament.
In spite of their reputed special powers, those pagan gods were nothing more than powerless idols who had to be carried around on ox carts and would be taken captive along with their worshippers! Marduk/Bel couldn’t protect Babylon from Cyrus or Alexander the Great and Baal, the god of rain and storms, couldn’t even make it rain after Elijah called for a drought or muster up a bolt of lightning to ignite a fire! In contrast, upon Elijah’s prayer, the God of Israel immediately flashed down flames and turned water-soaked wood into an inferno.
Perhaps, the ultimate test of any god is prophecy because only a true God can know all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. In Isaiah 41, the Lord called out those false gods because they couldn’t prophesy when He, the God of Israel, could! It wasn’t just His prophet Isaiah who accurately forecast the future; many others did as well. For example, Jeremiah accurately foretold Jerusalem’s destruction, King Jehoiakim’s death and the end of his line, Babylon’s fall, the length of captivity, and the exiles’ return to Judah. When interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel accurately foretold the different empires in historical progression—from Babylonian to Medo-Persian to Grecian and then to Roman. In 536 BC, more than 213 years before it happened, he predicted the division of Alexander the Great’s kingdom into four weaker nations. In fact, the book of Daniel predicted political history for the next 370 years!
Since true prophecy is the living word of God, I suppose the historic accuracy of those fulfilled prophecies shouldn’t surprise us. Their accuracy tells us that God exists, that there are no other gods, and that, just as He controlled the past, He is in full control of the future. There are, however, several prophecies yet to come. For example, Daniel’s predictive prophecies didn’t stop at 166 BC with the Maccabees and Antiochus IV. He continued on with end-time predictions of the antichrist, the tribulation, and humanity’s resurrection. The accuracy of past predictive prophecy tells us that those prophecies not yet fulfilled will come to pass. Will you be ready when they do?
I’ve read the last page of the Bible. It’s all going to turn out all right. [Billy Graham]
To the delight of the girls who attended the party, my daughter-in-law hired a Mehndi artist for my grand-daughter’s birthday celebration. Using a red-orange paste made from the dried leaves of the henna plant, the artist adorned the girls’ hands or arms with assorted intricate floral motifs. Since all of the family on her mother’s side is from India, this ancient form of body art is familiar to my grand. Although she’s attended several Mehndi parties, most of her guests have not. A Mehndi party for close friends and family is an important pre-wedding tradition in any Indian wedding. Along with plenty of food and music, there are henna artists. While they take only a few minutes painting designs on the guests, they spend several hours painting intricate geometric shapes and floral and paisley motifs on the bride’s hands, arms and feet. Hidden somewhere among the elaborate patterns on her body is the groom’s name.
Let’s go back to the sixties—a time of “turn on, tune in, drop out”—a counter-culture of “flower power,” anti-war sentiment, and discontented disillusioned youth. When Chuck Smith saw these “hippies” on the California beaches, he said they needed a bath but, when his wife Kay saw them, she said they needed the Lord! Moving their message onto the streets and beach, they opened the doors of their church to those kids and anyone else who wanted to come in. Regardless of faith, background, attire, length of hair, addictions, political views, cleanliness, or finances, the church unconditionally welcomed everyone. While still preaching the uncompromising truth of the Gospel, what began as a congregation of 25, within eight years had to conduct three Sunday services in a 2,200-seat auditorium!
In four of Paul’s epistles, he instructs his readers to greet one another with a sacred kiss. The word he used was philéma which meant a kiss of respect or affection between friends rather than one of romance. It seems odd to us today but, when greeting or saying farewell in the ancient world, people frequently kissed one another on the cheek, forehead, beard or hands. In the Old Testament, for example, both Laban and Esau kissed Jacob, Joseph kissed his brothers, Moses kissed Aaron and Jethro, Samuel kissed Saul, David kissed Barzillai and Jonathon, and Absalom curried favor by kissing just about everyone who approached him!
For many in the Christian community, last Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent, a season in remembrance of the forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness and was tempted by Satan. For them, Lent is a penitential season of repentance, fasting, and self-denial leading up to Easter. The idea of fasting as a form of preparation for Resurrection Sunday comes from Jesus’ statement, “But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; and when that day comes, they will fast,” found in Mark 2:20.
The first thing to clear up when writing about the Book of Jonah is whether it was a fish or a whale. Both the Hebrew word (dahg) and the Greek word (ketos) in later translations were used to describe this sea creature. In 785 BC, at the time of this story’s writing, neither language had a word that could identify the exact species so it could have been a fish, shark, whale or some other now extinct large sea creature. For those who choose to use this discrepancy to attack the Bible’s veracity, it’s probably wise to remember that Linnaeus’ classification of living things occurred in the 18th century and not 2,800 years ago when Jonah was swallowed by something huge in the sea. When learning the story in Sunday school, most of us were told it was a whale. Having seen Disney’s Pinocchio with Geppetto living in a whale’s belly, it was easy to picture Jonah doing the same.
Devotions of the Heart 