JANUARY 18 READING…GENESIS 34 & MATTHEW 12 & PSALM 64
Today’s theme is God’s protection when evil things happen, and evil people come against His children. In Genesis we have the rape of one of Jacob’s daughters by a man named Shechem, a Hivite. He was a prince in the land, this probably made him feel he had the right to anything he wanted, even rape a virgin young lady. After his act of defilement, he was so enamored with Dinah that he wanted to “make things right” and marry her. Shechem’s father, Hamor, tried to convince Jacob to give his daughter to Shechem as his wife. The brothers of Dinah we furious at what had happened to their sister, so they came up with a scheme to exact revenge. They said they required Shechem and all the men of the city to be circumcised in order for him to marry Dinah. While the men were healing the sons of Jacob attack and killed the father and the son. The psalmist calls out to God in chapter 64 for His protection against those who would try to do evil toward him. He put his trust in God, and knew that it would be God who would bring vengeance…later on in the New Testament we are reminded that it is God who avenges His children, and that we need to be careful seeking revenge, for it could bring even more trouble upon us.
In Matthew chapter 12 we have evil men in the guise of religiosity attacking Jesus. They attack the Lord’s activity on the Sabbath, they did this because the had evil in their hearts and were ignorant of the meaning of Scripture. The accuse Jesus of being demon-possessed…and in doing so blaspheme the Lord. They then carried their blasphemy a step further and commit the unpardonable sin in blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They attempted to make a mockery of Jesus and His ministry by asking Jesus to perform for them, like some circus act. Truth is these men were enemies of God and there was nothing Jesus could have done to convince them to believe in Him.
Please share your thoughts.
TOMORROW’S READING…GENESIS 35 & MATTHEW 13
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