Psalm 119:143 Holman Christian Standard Bible

¹⁴³Trouble and distress have overtaken me,
but Your commands are my delight.

In August of 2016 I took the Better Than 50 Club to see the San Bernardino County Museum in San Bernardino; I felt bad enough so that I sat down on a bench in the entryway and waited for the group to tour the museum. That is the last I remember. A day or two later Sylvia had me in the emergency room at the Parkview Hospital. It took them three weeks to diagnose my disease—West Nile Virus. That’s the same disease that killed my colleague Charles Teel in five days. Once they knew what it was, they sent me to a Rehab Hospital, where I stayed for another five weeks. While I was there, my memory started to return. My urologist, Edward Yun, came by to see me. “When you get out of here, you need to come by and see me. We’ll start you on prostate cancer treatment!” were his “comforting” words.

After he left, I lifted up my eyes to heaven and queried God, “Why didn’t You let me die with WNV?! Why did You save me for more cancer treatments?!”

The Bible[2] encourages us to have the brethren anoint and pray over us when we are sick. Adventists are loathe to use this anointing and treat it almost as the Catholics do the last rites. However, I determined to follow James’s advice, and several of the church elders made the effort and came over to the Arlington Gardens Care Center and, at my request, anointed and prayed over me. According to His promise[3] God has raised me up.

I realize that there are many occasions when the Spirit of God determines that the best thing to do for some people is to forgive their sins and lay them to rest until His Great Second Coming. As several dear saints have told me, “God must have something He still wants you to do!”

I encourage you, when you are sick, follow God’s command in James 5 and ask for anointing. Let’s give God a chance.

Lord, help us to use the healing advice you have given us in the Bible.

[1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/X21O5MfH33s/maxresdefault.jpg

[2] James 5:14 (Holman Christian Standard Bible) “Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord.”

[3] James 5:15 “The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will restore him to health; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

Thursday, October 7, 2021

Omnipresence

[1]

Isaiah 46:10
Good News Translation
From the beginning I predicted the outcome;
long ago I foretold what would happen.
I said that my plans would never fail,
that I would do everything I intended to do.

In Isaiah chapters 44 and 45, God named Cyrus as the man who would restore and rebuild the Jewish temple. In the very next verse, He spoke of a hawk (“ravenous bird” in KJV) who would accomplish what He had planned.

Indeed, in his first year, Cyrus issued a decree that all the Jews were free to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. He actually returned the various vessels that had been taken from the former temple by Nebuchadnezzar and provided extra funds to rebuild the temple. It is a great tragedy that most of God’s people chose to not return to their ancestral homes. Christ later told a parable in which a king instructed his ten servants to “occupy until I come.” (Luke 19:13) The exiles were doing exactly that, as Jeremiah had instructed, “Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what you grow in them.” (Jeremiah 29:5) They had become prosperous as God promised in verse 7. Many of God’s people were doing so well in exile that they didn’t want to leave. Others had jobs they felt they couldn’t afford to leave. Ezra lists 42,360 people who returned with him as he led the group back to Jerusalem. Compare that to the time of the Exodus when the number of men considered able to fight was 603,550 who left Egypt; that is probably well over 2 million people counting women and children. Those who remained behind in exile eventually assimilated into the heathen they lived amongst.

Descendants of those 42,360 people became the nucleus of the population in Judea and Galilee who were alive when Christ came some 500 years later. God had provided them the privilege to be able to welcome His Son. But again, the people, instead of welcoming Him, crucified Him.

When Christ comes again, how many of us will actually look up and say “God bless Him who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 13:35 GNT)?

[1] https://www.montananaturalist.org/blog-post/montanas-the-final-destination-for-rough-legged-hawks-flying-south/