This is a serious warning about not following after other
gods. The Lord is a jealous God and
these are His people, He will not allow them to go unpunished if they abandon
the covenant by worshipping at the altars of false gods. Where can we go astray like this? We can worship security, money, people, you
name it, anything in which we repose our trust other than Him. We are little idol factories because we crave
the satisfaction of our desires. The
Lord is clear in the warning here that if His people abandon the covenant
relationship they have with Him it will not go well, it will be as bad as the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and certainly there was such a failure and
the destruction of Jerusalem was exactly as promised.
There is nothing too hard for Jesus. First He healed all who were brought to Him,
the mute, crippled, lame and blind.
Next, He fed the multitude from the meager supplies they could scrounge and
there were more leftovers than they had in the beginning. There are those who would be teachers who
deny miracles such as these and suggest alternative explanations for where the
food came from but in the end if you don't believe Jesus was and is able to do
miracles why worship Him? If He is no
more than a great teacher where is there room for trust for life? Why pray to Him? If, however, He is able to do these things,
we can put our confidence in Him for every situation in our lives, believing
that all things are possible and we can pray expectantly, not looking for
coincidences but for God's hand.
This powerful imagery relates to the birth, crucifixion and
resurrection of Jesus. Mary is painted
as a queen-like figure of light, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet,
her crown adorned with twelve stars. Her
opponent is a fearsome dragon with seven heads on each which is a crown and ten
horns, wreaking havoc in the heavens, sweeping a third of the stars from heaven
and casting them on earth in its bloodlust for the child of this woman. The child, however, is taken up to heaven for
the proper time and then battle ensues with the archangel Michael, the
commander of the heavenly armies, leading the charge. The defeat of the dragon is the resurrection
of Jesus but also His death on the cross as sacrifice for sin. Arise, shine this day for your light has
come! He has won the victory and He
alone is worthy to be praised.
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