Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 366 - Wicked People Pay for All Their Wickedness (Please click here for English podcast)

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

OT DAY 366 - Wicked People Pay for All Their Wickedness (Please click here for English podcast)

Please click the link below to my new 40 days Break.Build site any time you like to having a 40 days "Break.Build" daily devotion with one to two people as a discipler to help those Jesus prepares for you to disciple. You need to know that the call and purpose of my Break.Build and this Discipler123 blog/podcast is for you to become a discipler to help more people to have a daily intimate relationship with Jesus and then they can become disciplers too:
http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Please click these links to the app. Andy Ng wrote if you have an Android cel.:

Discipler123: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.rec.app

Break.Build: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.bb.app

Silence

1. Put on your “brakes” and stop for a moment of silence

2. Wait for God. Breathe deep for God's peace and feel His presence. Exhale your worries.

Praise and Thanksgiving

1. Think through your day, all the times that made you smile

2. Thank God for all those moments, and for all those people

3. Open your heart to praise the Lord

   As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
  so the Lord surrounds his people,
  from this time forth and forevermore.

Psalm 125 :2

Confession and Repentance (Subjective Shifting Devotion Method http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html)

1. Pray for the Holy Spirit to work in you:

“Dear Holy Spirit, shine your light into the places of darkness in my life. Show me my sins, everything that blocks me from encountering God. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

2. Through the Holy Spirit, examine yourself for a short silence and then pray:

"Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and being victorious over death and sin. I confess my sin to you(pause, to tell Jesus what the Holy Spirit has shown you). Forgive my sins by your blood and help me follow you. Holy Spirit, fill me that I may be able to receive your gift to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."

The Word (Judges 9:1-57)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+8&version=ESV

22 Abimelech ruled over Israel three years. 23 And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, 24 that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid on Abimelech their brother, who killed them, and on the men of Shechem, who strengthened his hands to kill his brothers.

52 And Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire. 53 And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech's head and crushed his skull. 54 Then he called quickly to the young man his armor-bearer and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’” And his young man thrust him through, and he died. 55 And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, everyone departed to his home. 56 Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers. 57 And God also made all the evil of the men of Shechem return on their heads, and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.

Judges 9:22-24, 52-57

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

My Listening

You need to read the whole chapter today to know what really happened. Today's passage is such a sad ending to Gideon, the judge and mighty warrior. His son from his secondary wife (concubine) killed all his 70 sons and enthroned himself to be a king. And then he was badly hurt by a woman with just a piece of stone and then he asked his armor-bearer to kill him. How can that happen to a mighty judge?

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

God answers Jotham's prayer and sends a "bad spirit" between Abimelek and the Shechemite "notables," the leading citizens of the city, the heads of the families. They then "broke faith" with Abimelek. To speak of God's sending a bad spirit could sound as if it implied God intervened to do something that would never naturally have happened, but I have already implied that it will not be at all surprising if an alliance rooted in ambition and violence falls apart. The story's way of making that point is to say that by this breaking of faith the violence one to Gideon's seventy sons "came," as if it had been waiting and had eventually arrived to do its further work. In other words, their blood was "put on" Abimelek and the Shechemites. There is a sort of natural process whereby such terrible wrongdoing brings about terrible consequences for the people who do it.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.123.

Do you know God can put a "bad spirit" to those wicked people? Do you know God would make those wicked people to pay for all their wickedness?You need to know that God can do that even without our knowing and God has been doing that since His creation!

So fear not! God has His own way to deal with wicked people, and God has His own way to bless His faithful servants! May be you are thinking why Gideon had this kind of sad ending. Do you aware that he has many wives and 70 sons and then a concubine? How can a faithful servant of God have that kind of lifestyle? Well, Satan doesn't have many ways to attack people. It is always three areas: Money, Power and Sex. What kind of trap do you think Gideon fell into causing the destruction of his whole family? Have you got that?

I always say, "Those who kill will eat their own fruit!"

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to be very careful of our lifestyle so that our marriage and our family are being blessed and protected by you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. What's wrong with Gideon to cause him that kind of sad ending of his whole family?

2. How do you understand God's work in this passage?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading that I recited loudly and copy the Bible is:

Psalm 119:95-112

Ezekiel 10:1-11:25

Hebrews 6:1-20

Proverbs 27:1-2

Photos of my copying the Bible using Time with Abba passages

Golden Verse