February 13 MY SAVIOR’S LOVE Words and Music by Charles H. Gabriel, 1856–1932 Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:2) Love saw a guilt of sin, and sought a basis of pardon. Love saw the defilement of sin, and sought a way of cleansing. Love saw the depravity of sin, and sought a means of restoration. Love saw the condemnation of sin, and sought a method of justification. Love saw the death of sin, and sought a way of life. Love sought—Love found! —Unknown Historians have noted that the ancient Greeks expressed three levels of love: Eros Love—a “give me” kind of love; Philia Love—a “give and take” kind of love. “You love me and I’ll love you;” and Agape Love—an “unconditional” kind of love. “I love you simply for who you are.” Our Savior’s love was agape love in its highest form. He loved us enough to leave heaven’s best, to suffer humiliation and death for a world of rebellious sinners. Only when we are gathered in glory with the ransomed of the ages and see His face will we fully know the meaning of this divine love. In the meantime, however, the scriptural command is that we are to live a life of love that ministers to the needs of others as a “fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” “My Savior’s Love” was written by Charles H. Gabriel, the most popular and prolific gospel song writer of the 1910–20 decade, which was the height of the Billy Sunday/Homer Rodeheaver evangelistic crusades. This song first appeared in the hymnal titled Praises, published in 1905. I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how He could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean. For me it was in the garden He prayed, “Not My will, but Thine;” He had no tears for His own griefs but sweat drops of blood for mine. In pity angels beheld Him, and came from the world of light to comfort Him in the sorrows He bore for my soul that night. He took my sins and my sorrows; He made them His very own; He bore the burden to Calv’ry and suffered and died alone. When with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see, ’twill be my joy thru the ages to sing of His love for me. Chorus: How marvelous! how wonderful! and my song shall ever be: How marvelous! how wonderful is my Savior’s love for me!
For Today:
John 3:16; 15:12, 13; Ephesians 2:4–7; 1 John 3:16; 4:9, 10
Try to approach each event of the day with this question: “How would Jesus have shown His love in this situation?”
February 12 WHAT WONDROUS LOVE IS THIS Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. (Deuteronomy 21:23) Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13) Not father or mother has loved you as God has, for it was that you might be happy He gave His only Son. When He bowed His head in the death hour, love solemnized its triumph; the sacrifice there was complete. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow This beloved hymn, with its plaintive modal sound, is one of the best known of our authentic American folk hymns. Like all true folk music, the origins of this text and music remain unknown. It is simply the product of devout people who, when reflecting seriously on the sacrificial gift of God’s Son, respond spontaneously with amazed adoration for this “wondrous love.” One typical folk hymn characteristic found in these words is the repetition of key phrases such as “O my soul” and “I’ll sing on.” Since folk music is generally learned aurally without the assistance of the printed page or musical notation, such repetition is necessary. Note also how effectively the curving melodic lines enhance the thought and personal application of the words. The hymn first appeared in 1835 in a collection titled William Walker’s Southern Harmony. These simply stated words with their appealing music have since ministered to people everywhere, extolling the profound truth of Christ’s love for each of us. Allow the hymn to move you to awe even now. What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul! What wondrous love is this, O my soul! What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul, to bear the dreadful curse for my soul. When I was sinking down, sinking down, when I was sinking down, sinking down; when I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown, Christ laid aside His crown for my soul; Christ laid aside His crown for my soul. To God and to the Lamb I will sing, I will sing; to God and to the Lamb I will sing; to God and to the Lamb who is the great “I Am,” while millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing; while millions join the theme, I will sing. And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on, and when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on; and when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be, and through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on, and through eternity I’ll sing on.
For Today:
Numbers 21:8; Jeremiah 31:3; John 3:14–18; 1 John 3:1; Revelation 1:5, 6
Reflect once again on the wondrous love of Christ in your behalf. Determine to share your Lord and His wondrous love with another.
February 11 THE WONDER OF IT ALL Words and Music by George Beverly Shea, 1909– What is man that You are mindful of him, the Son of Man that You care for Him? (Hebrews 2:6) What many Christians need today is a rebirth of wonder and awe. We know the gospel intellectually, but it seldom reaches our emotions and will. We take the incarnation, resurrection, ascension, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the eternal reign of Christ merely as theological concepts without letting them grip our inmost being. And the wonder that this great God knows, loves and cares for us doesn’t often thrill us as it should. We even become very blasé when we witness a life that has been dramatically transformed by the love of God. Our spiritual condition can be likened to those Christians at the church in Laodicea mentioned in Revelation 3:14–22: “neither cold nor hot”—just lukewarm. We need to recapture the wonder of it all. George Beverly Shea, one of the all-time favorite gospel singers, gives this account of the writing of this hymn in his book Songs That Lift the Heart: England figures in the story behind this hymn written in 1955. I was on my way to Scotland for meetings there aboard the S.S. United States bound for Southampton when inspiration came from conversation with another passenger. He wanted to know what went on at our meetings and after detailing the sequence of things at a typical Billy Graham Crusade meeting, I found myself at a loss for words when I tried to describe the response that usually accompanied Mr. Graham’s invitation to become a Christian. “What happens then never becomes commonplace … watching people by the hundreds come forward … oh, if you could just see the wonder of it all.” “I think I should,” he answered. Then he wrote these words on a card and handed it back to me: THE WONDER OF IT ALL. “That sounds like a song to me.” Later that night, I wrote words on that theme and roughed out a melody to go with them.
There’s the wonder of sunset at evening, the wonder as sunrise I see; but the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul is the wonder that God loves me. There’s the wonder of springtime and harvest, the sky, the stars, the sun; but the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul is a wonder that’s only begun. Refrain: O, the wonder of it all! The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me. O, the wonder of it all! The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me.
Take time to reflect with awe on the wonder of your personal relationship with the God of the universe. Determine to live throughout the day with this attitude as you think of “the wonder of it all.”
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit” (Jdg. 21:25).History books seldom provide as much insight into a period as do stories of men and women who lived in it. In three brief slices of life, the author of Judges shows us how dark the era really was.
Background
The material in these last chapters of Judges is undated. It is not associated with any specific judge. It is instead “slice of life” material: cross sections taken from the period to reveal the religious, personal, and social consequences of Israel’s failure to serve God. These stories illustrate the price ordinary people paid for the apostasy of the nation.
Overview
An Ephraimite named Micah used stolen silver to make an idol, and recruited a Levite to serve as family priest (17:1–13). The Levite and idol were taken by Danites seeking land. They set up a northern worship center which competed with the tabernacle during this era (18:1–31). When men of one Benjamite town gang raped and killed a Levite’s concubine, civil war broke out between the other tribes, nearly wiping out Benjamin (19:1–21:25).
Understanding the Text
“Now I know that the Lord will be good to me” Jdg. 17:1–13. The simple story of Micah and his idol portrays the religious consequences of the period. The clearest and most important of God’s requirements had been distorted or lost. Under God’s Law (1) making idols was forbidden, (2) Aaron’s descendants only were to serve as priests, (3) sacrifices were to be made only at the tabernacle, (4) and blessing was an outcome of obedience rather than ritual observance. Yet Micah violated each of these basic religious principles—and was convinced that his actions merited God’s favor! Perhaps even more revealing, Micah was able to find a Levite willing to serve as family priest. This despite the fact that Levites were commissioned by God to teach His Law in Israel. This story is told first for a very simple reason. Loss of knowledge of God is the underlying cause of the crumbling of the whole society. “They named it Dan” Jdg. 18:1–31. The story continues as a group of Danites seeking resettlement passed by Micah’s home. This group had abandoned the land allotted to the tribe under pressure from foreign powers. The Danites offered Micah’s Levite a post as priest to the whole tribe. He gladly accepted, and the Danites took him and Micah’s idols with them. Moving north, the Danites attacked a “peaceful and unsuspecting” city and established themselves there. This story is significant. Dan became an important worship site, and after Solomon’s kingdom was divided in 931B.C, Dan was sanctified as an official worship center by the apostate Jeroboam I. Dan’s origin as a worship center is thus traced back to the theft of an idol, and the service of an unqualified priest. It maintained this character throughout its history. When we build for the future, we need to lay a firm foundation of integrity. “Such a thing has never been seen or done” Jdg. 19:1–30. The story of the rape and murder of a Levite’s concubine by Benjamites is intended to give insight into the moral situation in Israel. Not a single actor in this story, and certainly not the Levite, is displayed as a righteous person. “We’ll go up against it as the lot directs” Jdg. 20:1–48. When the tribe of Benjamin refused to surrender the men who had raped and murdered the Levite’s concubine, civil war broke out. Only some 600 men of Benjamin survived. Under the Law, the tribe of Benjamin was responsible to turn the evildoers over for punishment. The Benjamites chose instead to protect them. This final story sums up the author’s analysis of the period. He began with religious decline, moved to moral failure, and now shows the impact of rejecting God on the society as a whole. “The Israelites grieved for their brothers” Jdg. 21:1–25. To preserve the tribe of Benjamin, the other tribes provided wives, by killing the men from a city which failed to respond to the call to war, and by inventing a religious fiction. The tribes had taken an oath not to “give” wives to any Benjamite. So they decided to permit the men of Benjamin who needed wives to catch and carry off marriageable girls who participated in an annual religious festival. Here we see Israel’s tendency to bend rules. There is no suggestion in the text that the people appealed to God for guidance. Instead they relied on the kind of sophistry which passed over intent to emphasize the letter of the Law. Just this kind of thing was later criticized by Jesus when He condemned many of the Pharisees (cf. Mark 7:9–13).
DEVOTIONAL
Moral Integrity (Jdg. 19)
Someone suggested that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Jesus made the point by insisting that we should ignore the speck in another’s eye until we’ve dealt with the beam in our own. There’s something of this flavor in the story of the Levite’s concubine. The Levite was unwilling to stay the night in an alien (Canaanite) city. But when he stopped at a Benjamite city, the men of the town refused the couple hospitality (v. 18). Later they attempted to make him the victim of homosexual rape (v. 22). Instead the Levite pushed his concubine, a secondary wife, out the door. The Benjamites abused her all night and she died in the morning. Filled with moral outrage, the Levite cut up her body and sent pieces throughout the other tribes as a call to vengeance. The irony, of course, lies in the fact that the Levite himself showed no concern for his concubine, either when he thrust her outside rather than defend her, or the next morning when he coldly addressed her dead body, saying, “Get up; let’s go.” The story is ironic because Levites in Israel were supposed to serve God. They were, with the priests, the established guardians of the Law and of morality. When a guardian loses all moral sensibility, and abandons others or treats them as objects, society is truly lost. The failure of the Levite is a warning to us. Yes, we do need to stand against injustice and sins in our society. We are to be stone throwers. And even “mote inspectors.” But we can do this only from a position of personal moral integrity.
Personal Application
Our lives even more than our words must witness to righteousness.
Quotable
“We are full of words but empty of actions, and therefore are cursed by the Lord, since He Himself cursed the fig tree when He found no fruit but only leaves. It is useless for a man to flaunt his knowledge of the law if he undermines its teachings by his actions.”—Anthony of Padua
“Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines” (Jdg. 15:20).This text does not conclude, “and the land had rest.” Samson, for all his physical strength, lacked the inner strength needed to put his people ahead of his own raging desires.
Definition of Key Terms
Philistines. Great numbers of these people settled on Palestine’s coastal plains about 1200B.C after an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt. Gradually they penetrated the hill country occupied by Israel, and intermingled with the Israelites. Israel was unable to resist the encroachment, in part because the Philistines had the secret of smelting iron and had weapons superior to anything Israel possessed. Samson conducted one-man war against the Philistines, but never marshalled his people to resist the invaders. The Philistines remained a dangerous enemy through the judgeship of Samuel and the reign of Saul, until crushed by David about a hundred years after the time of Samson.
Overview
Samson’s birth was announced by the Angel of the Lord (13:1–24). He insisted on marrying a Philistine, but was deceived and humiliated at the wedding (14:1–15). Revenge escalated into open hostilities in which Samson personally killed a thousand men (15:1–20). But his passion for Delilah led Samson to reveal the secret of his strength (16:1–17). He was captured, blinded, and forced to grind grain for his enemy (vv. 16–22). Samson’s strength returned and he died destroying a Philistine temple, killing thousands of his enemies (vv. 23–31).
Understanding the Text
“Teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born” Jdg. 13:1–25. Samson is one of the few in Scripture whose birth was preannounced to his parents. He shares this honor with Isaac, John the Baptist, and Jesus. Samson’s parents were godly Israelites who believed the prediction and asked God to show them how to bring up their son. This prayer was answered: Samson was to be brought up as a Nazarite—a person set completely apart to God (see Num. 6:1–8). Nazarites drank no wine, did not cut their hair, and were to follow certain other requirements. It is striking that in this and other tales of the judges the author does not editorialize. He simply tells his story, without moralizing or comment. Yet the stories speak for themselves, particularly in Samson’s case. Unlike Jephthah, Samson had loving and godly parents. Even as a teenager “the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him” (Jdg. 13:25). Samson’s many flaws can hardly be traced either to his parents or to God. What a comfort to godly Christian parents whose children have not chosen to follow Jesus. Every tormented mom or dad, who looks back and wonders, “What did I do?” or “What did I fail to do?” can find comfort in the story of Samson. There was no failure on the part of Samson’s parents. The flaws that later destroyed Samson were in Samson himself. “Get her for me” Jdg. 14:1–20. Samson’s desire for a Philistine woman indicates his weakness. God’s Law forbad intermarriage with pagan peoples (Deut. 7:3). Yet Samson was ruled by his desires. His passion for a woman, based merely on her looks, seemed more important to him than God’s expressed will. So, despite his objections, Samson’s father arranged for the marriage. The comment that “this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines” is likely a gloss, or comment by a later editor. But the point is well taken. God is able to turn even our weaknesses to His purposes. A confrontation was stimulated when Samson posed a riddle that the Philistines he challenged could answer only by threatening his bride. Samson’s comment that he had not even explained it to his father or mother (Jdg. 14:16) is interesting. As a Nazarite he was not supposed to touch a dead body. Yet he had taken honey from the body of a lion that he killed. The incident is another indication of his parents’ godly character, and Samson’s own flaws. “I have a right to get even” Jdg. 15:1–20. When Samson learned that his father-in-law had given his bride to someone else, he captured a number of jackals (not foxes) and set them loose in Philistine grain fields with firebrands attached to their tails. Escalation followed. The Philistines burned Samson’s bride and her father to death, and then demanded that the Israelites turn Samson over to them to be executed. The Israelites bound Samson, but after he was turned over Samson broke his bonds and, using the fresh jawbone of a donkey, “struck down a thousand men.” The text sheds light on several aspects of the period and the Samson story. First, the casual brutality of the Philistines is seen in their burning of Samson’s bride and her father (v. 6). Second, the subservient attitude of the Israelites is shown in their failure to support Samson and in their fear of the Philistines, who “are rulers over us” (v. 11). Most revealing of all are Samson’s references to his “right to get even” and to do to the Philistines “what they did to me” (vv. 3, 11). This is the same kind of thinking that characterized the Philistines (v. 10). Samson gave no thought to the oppression experienced by the people he led. His vendetta with the Philistines was personal. Samson hated the Philistines not for what they had done to his people but for what they had done to him personally. God used Samson’s selfishness to “begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines” (13:5). But Samson himself is revealed to be a shallow person, without the spiritual depth or concern for others that marks the truly godly. Approaches to the gates of ancient cities were carefully constructed to prevent access. The gates themselves were massive, usually reinforced with metal. Samson not only tore off the gates of Gaza, which weighed many hundreds of pounds, but carried them to the “top of the hill that faces Hebron,” 38 miles away! “Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver” Jdg. 16:1–21. The combined payment of almost 150 pounds of silver was a vast sum for that day. Delilah was as eager to have the money as Samson was to have her! Neither of the major figures in this story merits admiration. Each shows very human weaknesses against which you and I must guard. “He killed many more when he died” Jdg. 16:23–31. Samson’s last prayer suggests he had learned little during his lifetime, for his concern is still with revenge, this time “for my two eyes” (v. 28). The temple to which Samson was brought probably was built on a plan common to such structures of that era. If so, most of the Philistines were gathered on the roof, which was supported by a number of pillars. The crowd, pressing forward to see the captive hero, would have made the whole structure unstable, so that when Samson pushed against the pillars, the temple collapsed. More died with Samson in that fall than Samson had killed during his lifetime. What a difference between this epitaph and that of other judges, which commonly read, “And the land had peace.” Samson brought death to Israel’s enemies. But this morally weak strongman failed to make peace for his own people or for himself.
DEVOTIONAL
Now, or Never? (Jdg. 16)
The story of Samson and Delilah is one of the best known in Scripture. Samson’s passion for Delilah is legendary, as is her betrayal of him for money. Yet as we read the story, we’re reminded more of children than adults. Samson and Delilah each desperately wanted what he or she desired . . . now. Reading the story we’re amazed that Samson kept going back to Delilah when what she said and did so clearly showed her intent to betray. But Samson’s passion was so dominating that he cared nothing for the future. His only concern was that his desire be satisfied now. We wonder at Samson’s blindness. It’s so much easier to see a fault in someone else than in ourselves. How often have we made choices because we want something now, without considering the future? How often have our choices been made simply on the basis of our will, without pausing to consider God’s? Samson reminds us that we grown-ups can’t afford to adopt a child’s perspective on life, and let ourselves be controlled by our passions and desires.
Personal Application
In the choice between now and never, never is often best.
Quotable
“Inordinate love of the flesh is cruelty, because under the appearance of pleasing the body we kill the soul.”—Bernard of Clairvaux
This is my personal collection of thoughts and writings, mainly from much smarter people than I, which challenge me in my discipleship walk. Don't rush by these thoughts, but ponder them.
Milo 