So Omri continued down the path of Jeroboam. He led Israel further into idol worship and
away from Yahweh. What began with the
idea that Solomon was corrupting the people therefore the Lord had rejected him
and given ten tribes to Jeroboam quickly became an apostate and heretical
kingdom. Would they not have been better
off under even Rehoboam? Omri,
unfortunately, gave the nation his son Ahab and his wife Jezebel as
successors. If you thought Omri was bad,
you haven't seen anything like his weak son Ahab and his insane wife. Because of his wife, Ahab completely walked
away from the Lord and followed after and served Baal. It is truly amazing how quickly and
completely the nation became apostate and turned away from Yahweh.
As you can see if you followed the link through Bible
Gateway to the ESV the final verses, from 9-20 of the Gospel reading were not
part of the earliest manuscripts we have found of the book of Mark. What we see though isn't out of line with the
other Gospels in significant ways, the real problem is what some sects of
Christianity have done with one small piece of that passage, "they will
pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will
not hurt them." That isn't
prescription for how to worship, it is a simple statement of the protection of
God that the early church actually experienced such as when we saw Paul on the
island of Malta bitten by a snake and not dying. The overarching theme we see in this passage
is that no one believed in the resurrection until they saw Jesus with their own
eyes, no one else's witness was believed.
Fortunately, we have the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost that made
it possible to "see" without seeing.
We can read the first part of the epistle to the church at
Philippi as sort of sequel to the book of Acts.
Paul writes from prison to tell the church that this imprisonment is bearing
fruit in that the imperial guard in Rome have now heard the Gospel and it has
emboldened others to preach the Gospel because Paul is out of action in some
ways. Rather than complaining and
whining about his situation Paul is rejoicing because more and more people are
preaching the Gospel than they were before.
His message to the church is essentially, "It's all
good." How many of us, if we were
in prison wouldn't desire to just get it over with and die, believing that
surely we had no further purpose for the kingdom. Paul decides that, in spite of his
circumstances it is still better to live.
We should hear his encouragement that obedience to Christ will bring
suffering but we are to rejoice even in that event and give it to Him for His
glory, as He is sovereign over all things and all things work together for good
for those who are called according to His purposes. We should never fear or despair, no matter
our circumstances, no matter how wicked our leader may be, He is sovereign over
all things!
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