Sheep and Goats

Category: Verses

  • Babylon Will Rise Again

    What do you do when you spy the woman of wickedness trying to climb out of the ephah jar? (Zech 5:7)

    You grab the brazen hussy by the scruff the neck and boot her back down into the jar from where she came. (taking care in these volatile times that you do not get accused of harassment) Then you summon the two with wings to ship her back to Babylon.

    Maybe it was a reminder to the Jews who had just come from there to check their own ephah jars – or even their shoes, lest they had tracked something in. 

    Incidentally, present at our meeting was an Iraqi man who has responded to the Arabic group. The actual  Babylon means something to him, unlike to anyone else. He says it is the site of a festival each year, with music and food. Also that there is the slogan everyone knows: 'Babylon will rise again.'

    Hanging gardens

    On Facebook, one of my countless friends said: "Hussein's rebuilt Babylon was smashed to bits in the first gulf war. A Syrian brother told me the local Iranian word on the street was basically "Why did they bomb Disneyland?"

     

  • Crocodiles Eating Straw Just Like Bulls

    There are people who say – more people than not – that it is more likely for your dog to pour himself a breakfast bowl of Cheerios than for a lion to eat straw like a bull. They are not really built that way.
     
    That's why I like how the brothers didn't go there last night with the God's Kingdom Rules book. Discussing the return of the Jews from Babylonian exile and how they would be encouraged by Isaiah's prophesy about the animals, it said: "The lion would eat straw in the sense that it would not devour the Jews' cattle."
     
    They didn't have to do it. They could have said "God will supply them with bales of hay in order to feed the lions."
     
    Will it be literal someday? Who knows? But I like that our people can spot a metaphor when they see one. They know (unlike some religionists) that when someone cries crocodile tears, it does not mean that they are a crocodile.
     
    Crocodile tears
     
     

  • Ever Had a Day Like This?

    Ever had a day like this?

    "It will be like a man who flees from a lion and is confronted by a bear,
    And when he enters his house and leans his hand against the wall, a snake bites him"- Amos 5:19

    We are watching my daughter's dog at the moment. So far it has not bit me.

     

     Lion bear

    photo: vid305.com

     

  • When Life is Treating You Good, Pull Closer to God

    Just between me and you, I find Hosea to be a little tough slogging, Bible-reading-wise. And I'm not sure I could be so big as Hosea letting God be my matchmaker. I mean, he usually helps you out. One can easily enough get stuck with a 'wife of fornication' on his own without needing divine help.

    But I did take something away from Hosea 10:1

    "Israel is a degenerate vine yielding its fruit. The more his fruit increases, the more he multiplies his altars. The better his land produces, the more splendid his sacred pillars."

    So when life is treating you good, you ought pull closer to God and not away from him.

  • Ralph Kramden is the Antitypical Nebuchadnezzar

    They don’t do antitypes at Bethel—maybe it is that too many have blown up in their face—but that doesn't mean I don't do them. Ralph Kramden, the hefty loud-mouthed bus driver of the 'Honeymooners' TV show, is the antitypical Nebuchadnezzar.

    Each show opens with him blustering. Each show he is totally humiliated. Each show he is contrite at the end. And each new show he totally forgets the lessons learned from the one before. So it is with Nebuchadnezzar.

    And what is it with Nebuchadnezzar and the magic-practicing priests? He picks a fight with them right out the clear blue sky. Read it in chapter 2 of Daniel:

    "Then the king said to them: “I have had a dream, and I am agitated because I want to know what I dreamed.” The Chaldeans replied to the king in the Aramaic language: “O king, may you live on forever. Relate the dream to your servants, and we will tell the interpretation.” The king answered the Chaldeans: “This is my final word: If you do not make the dream known to me, along with its interpretation, you will be dismembered, and your houses will be turned into public latrines."

    Why? What did they do? They are yanked out of bed to learn they must tell the king, not only what his dream means, but what it is! Now they will have to sit each in his house, without arms or legs, as people stop by to pee on their couch. There's bad blood between the king and them, somehow. He is fed up with them, I think. They are always playing him for a sucker with their air of religious mystery, and he has had about all that he can take.

    We're used to quoting Daniel 1:20 to show how, after a short trial period in which the Hebrew captives subsisted on vegetables, the king found them "ten times better than all his magic practicing priests." We're used to saying it is because of God's blessing that Daniel was elevated so high. Maybe so, but I'll bet it is also a reflection of what he thought of the priests. It was a pretty low bar they set—it wasn’t that tough on Daniel and his chums to clear it.

    ….

    So the king gave the order to summon the magic-practicing priests, the conjurers, the sorcerers, and the ChAleena’s to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. Then the king said to them: “I have had a dream, and I am agitated because I want to know what I dreamed.” The Chaldeans replied to the king in the Aramaic language: “O king, may you live on forever. Relate the dream to your servants, and we will tell the interpretation.” The king answered the Chaldeans: “This is my final word: If you do not make the dream known to me, along with its interpretation, you will be dismembered, and your houses will be turned into public latrines. But if you do tell the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a reward and great honor. So tell me the dream and its interpretation.” They answered a second time: “Let the king relate the dream to his servants, and we will tell its interpretation.” The king replied: “I am well-aware that you are trying to gain time, for you realize what my final word is. If you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one penalty for all of you. But you have agreed to tell me something false and deceitful until the situation changes. So tell me the dream, and I will know that you can explain its interpretation.” The Chaldeans answered the king: “There is not a man on earth who is able to do what the king demands, for no great king or governor has asked such a thing of any magic-practicing priest or conjurer or Chaldean. What the king is asking is difficult, and no one exists who could tell the king this except the gods, who do not dwell among mortals.” At this the king flew into a violent rage and gave the order to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

     

    William_Blake_-_Nebuchadnezzar_(Tate_Britain)