Isaiah had prophesied of peace and prosperity to come during a tumultuous time of rebellion of God’s people. The nation had turned a deaf ear to God, offering meaningless sacrifices and committing injustices throughout the nation. God was not going to let them go on that. He would ultimately exile them.
All discipline of God are for our good and they will produce “a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).
I grew up in a family where my grandma did ancestral worship, but the rest of the family were quite irreverent in matters of the divine. Money was the most important thing in my family, in place of God. But God turned this tragic family into a family with hope.
One day a relative was diagnosed by his doctor of having only 2 years to live. A family friend brought a pastor to pray for him, and he miraculously lived on for another ten years. His doctor said it was a miracle because there is no medical explanation.
As a result, my grandma in her late eighties was baptised, and my parents accepted the Lord. I begin to seek God, and at 20 years old, I accepted the Lord.
This passage reminded me of the ways of the salmon, swimming against the tide from the sea to rivers in order to spawn. They go through this hardship to ensure that their offspring will have the best chance to live.
In Acts 6, we see that the growth of the church was increasing so rapidly that the needs of the Hellenists (Greek-speaking Jews) were not being met, possibly because of the language barrier. The apostles recognised the problem that while there is a need to be met, they themselves could not be the ones to meet them, as they were already responsible to devote themselves to prayer and the preaching of the word.
While serving in exile, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were again pressured to worship a golden image which represented the pride and arrogance of King Nebuchadnezzar. When brought before the King, they remained ‘stubborn’ in their faith and would rather die in the fiery furnace than disobey their God’s commandments.
Imagine that you are Esther from what we see in Esther 2.
1.Esther was orphaned. She did not have any other family members with her, other than her cousin Mordecai.
2.Esther was like her fellow Jews who lost their home and taken into captivity into a foreign land.
3.Esther was separated and isolated from her people and cousin. While in the King’s Palace, she was surrounded by people, cultures and values that she was not accustomed to.
In this pagan society, Daniel fought to balance his loyal service to Babylon with his ultimate obedience to God. Yet in spite of his disagreement with Babylon’s policies, Daniel gave his life to serve the nation. The book of Daniel is thoroughly political, revealing the power of God’s sovereign undertow beneath the tides of world politics, and all for the sake of His chosen people. Even as His people endured exile in Babylon, God sovereignly governed the world’s political leaders — raising, dropping, and reordering political powers for millennia (Daniel 2:21)
Hoshea was the last king of the north as God’s judgement finally came upon Israel some 200 years after the nation was divided. This was however not caused singularly by Hoshea although he was definitely also a contributor. In fact it was said of him that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord but he was not as bad as his predecessors (v2). That however was immaterial as he became the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The people of Israel would have known from their parents and priests that, according to the Law, suffering and exile would be the consequences of living apart from God’s way (Deut. 28).
The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos, reminded the people of this again and again. Though these warnings of disaster seemed like bad news, they are actually words of mercy!
King Manasseh of Judah led God’s people astray, and they sunk into idolatry and injustice. Manasseh’s actions were heinous—he installed idols of the gods of Canaan in the holy temple of Jerusalem. Manasseh’s actions were monstrous—he burned his children according to the practices of the Canaanite god, Molech.
