Grow in the Word of the Lord

THE THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

If you choose foolishness over righteousness, nothing you yourself can do can change that

“Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.”

Proverbs 27:22 (KJV)

Song of Solomon

This book is a Divine allegory, which represents the love between Christ (the Groom) and his church (the bride) of true believers/the church, under figures taken from the relation and affection that subsist between a bridegroom (Christ) and his espoused bride (the church).

Song of Solomon 1

This is “the Song of songs,” excellent above any others, for it is wholly taken up with describing the excellences of Christ, and the love between him and his redeemed people.

1 Kings 4:32 (KJV), “And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five.”

Song of Solomon 1:1 (KJV), “The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.”

The true believers feelings of Jesus’ kiss of acceptance is better than any wine could be

Song of Solomon 1:2 (KJV), “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.”

Those who still or unbelievers (virgins) smell the fragrance of Jesus on the new believers and repent and draw their love to Christ as Christ invites them into His house

Song of Solomon 1:3-4 (KJV), “³ Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.  ⁴ Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.”

The blackness of a sinful nature will not prevent Christ from welcoming in anyone

Song of Solomon 1:5-6 (KJV), “⁵ I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.  ⁶ Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.”

Unbelievers wonder endlessly through life

The tents

Brown-Driver-Briggs –  1.  tent of nomad; one who leads a wandering life.

Of Kedar

Strong’s Concordance (6938) – Qedar: perhaps “swarthy,” a son of Ishmael, also his desc.  Brown-Driver-Briggs –  1.  tribe of nomads in Arabian desert.

The new believers quest to belong to Jesus’ flock

Song of Solomon 1:7 (KJV), “Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?”

Jesus tells the new believers to follow His flock since now you are among best of the best

Song of Solomon 1:8-10 (KJV), “⁸ If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.  ⁹ I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.  ¹⁰ Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.”

The new believers are welcomed in with open arms

Song of Solomon 1:11 (KJV), “We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.”

This King has his royal table spread in the gospel, in which is made for all nations a feast of fat things

Song of Solomon 1:12a (KJV), “While the king sitteth at his table”.

Isaiah 25:6 (KJV), “And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.”

Then believers do him all the honour they can, and study how to express their esteem of him and gratitude to him, as Mary did when she anointed his head with the ointment of spikenard that was very costly

Song of Solomon 1:12b (KJV), “my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.”

John 12:3 (KJV), “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.”

Christ is not only beloved by all believing souls, but is their well-beloved, their best-beloved, their only beloved; he has that place in their hearts which no rival can be admitted to, the innermost and uppermost place

Song of Solomon 1:13 (KJV), “A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.”

Amos 6

Warnings to Zion and Samaria (or to those who seek delight in the persecution of others)

Amos 6:3-6 (KJV), “³ Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; ⁴ That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; ⁵ That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David; ⁶ That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.”

Arrogance and pride are an abomination to the Lord

Amos 6:8 (KJV), “The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency [the pride] of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.”

Lamentations

Jeremiah is assumed to have penned the book of Lamentations based on his personal experiences of being held captive in Babylon.  He most likely wrote this book after the return of the captivity.

Lamentations 1

Lamentations 1:1-3 (KJV), “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!  ² She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.  ³ Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.”

Lamentations 1:5 (KJV), “Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.”

If anyone abandons God, you will wonder around aimlessly without guidance

Lamentations 1:6-7 (KJV), “⁶ And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.  ⁷ Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.”

For those who turn from the Lord either don’t comprehend or simply deny any their destiny

Lamentations 1:9 (KJV), “Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.”

Those who choose sin over God, put the weight (yoke) of that sin and bind it around their necks

Lamentations 1:14 (KJV), “The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.”

 What else can we say when we choose sin over God?

Lamentations 1:16 (KJV), “For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the Comforter (The Holy Spirit) that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.”

Proverbs 27 (To be read)

Jonah

This book of Jonah, though it be placed here in the midst of the prophetical books of scripture, is yet rather a history than a prophecy; one line of prediction there is in it

Jonah 3:4 (KJV), “And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”

The rest of the book is a narrative of the preface to and the consequences of that prediction

Who was Jonah?

2 Kings 14:25 (KJV), “He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher.”

Jonah 1

God gave a command to Jonah

Jonah 1:1-2 (KJV), “Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ² Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”

Matthew 12:39-41 (KJV), “³⁹ But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: ⁴⁰ For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.  ⁴¹ The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”

When God commanded Jonah to preach in Nineveh, not only did he run away, but he went as far as possible in the opposite direction. Nineveh was 550 miles northeast of Israel, but he headed to Tarshish, located on the coast of Spain some 2,500 miles to the west

Jonah 1:3 (KJV), “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

Jonah was fortunate that God only wanted him to go to Nineveh and was persistent

Jonah 1:4 (KJV), “But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.”

The entire crew of the ship knew that Jonah had disobeyed his God and was the cause of the stormy seas

Jonah 1:10-11 (KJV), “¹⁰ Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him. Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.  ¹¹ Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous.”

God is the creator of all things and controls all things and can command anyone or anything

1 Chronicles 29:11-12 (KJV), “¹¹ Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.  ¹² Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all.”

Jonah 1:17 (KJV), “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”