Friday Faithfuls Two: Esther

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

"Go, gather all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.  I and my maids will fast as you do.  When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law.  And if I perish, I perish."   -- Est. 4:16

That is a quality decision.

In the face of a life and death situation, Esther made a life and death decision...she would do the illegal thing and go before the king without an invitation.

No food and no drink (not even water?) for three days is an extreme fast. It is a stop-everything-and-pray-around-the-clock event. 

When you are desperate, desperate measures are called for.

So the Jews of Susa and Esther and all her serving girls stopped everything and prayed for three days, all agreeing on one thing...that the king would give her favor and stop the coming slaughter of all the Jews throughout the territory of the Medes and the Persians, which would have pretty much annihilated the entire Jewish race.

There have been a couple of times in my life I have been on a 'desperation fast'...but nothing at that level.  More of a 'we have to do the right thing' so we pray for wisdom and discernment...but the life of the nation depended on God moving on their behalf.

And we think our times are stressful.  We are not to that place yet.

But I would hope and pray that we would know how to pray and hope in a desperate situation.

Friday Faithfuls Two: Nehemiah

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Oh, Nehemiah.  A man of rigid integrity and high temper.  But he led the people to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in an astonishing 52 days...and about half of that was with half the people working and half guarding them, and the ones who were working went about with their weapons in their hands, because the enemies of God's people had threatened to attack them to prevent them from completing the work.  So they were pretty severely handicapped and they STILL rebuilt the wall in 52 days.

It's an amazing story, but there's more than wall building in the face of opposition in the book of Nehemiah.  There's also the record of the Jews who had returned falling into the old practices of their forefathers...intermarrying with the pagan people around them, which was the first step down the slippery slope to pagan worship. Nehemiah had a pretty confrontational response to that... Plus, the people were oppressing their fellow Jews...loaning them money at interest so that the poorer people were forced to sell their children into slavery to cover the debts.

They were more concerned with their welfare than they were with the well being of their fellow countrymen...who were, after all, distant cousins...and Nehemiah was Not Pleased.

He called the moneylenders in to a big meeting and pretty much tore them up, concluding with 

So I continued, "What you are doing is not right.  Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?"   -- Neh. 5:9

What they were doing was giving fuel to their unbelieving neighbors to judge them as unrighteous.  No different than any other money grubbing group.  It was bringing a reproach to all of God's people.

Even today, this holds true.  When a handful of folks who proclaim themselves Christians behave in a way that is self-centered, it brings reproach on all of God's people.  It's one of the enemy's favorite strategies to get folks to ignore the message of Jesus...holding up for examination the behavior of people who are not Christ-like. It's interesting...today, Nehemiah would probably be ridden out of office in disgrace for the rather violent way he went about enforcing the instructions in the Law, but at that time his actions actually caused the people to stop and consider what they were doing and repent.

And it is worth noting that the Jews did NOT fall back into the pagan practices of their neighbors from that point on...Nehemiah nipped that in the bud and it never again became an issue.

But here's the question it raises now...am I doing something out of selfish personal interest that is bringing reproach on all the people of God?  

That calls for repentance...which means to stop, turn around, and go the other way.

Stop.

Go the other way.

The money lenders of Nehemiah's day stopped charging interest on loans and they paid back the interest they had collected from their countrymen.  That's what I'm talking about.

Friday Faithfuls Two: Ezra

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Ezra always strikes me as one of the overlooked books of the Old Testament.  I'm not sure I've ever heard a sermon based on Ezra...  But it is an interesting book.  It's written in two parts; the first part being the historical record of the first return of the Jews to  Judea/ Jerusalem, and the second being the account of Ezra and his ministry.  Mr. Scofield tells me in the preface to Ezra that 50 years passed between part 1 and part 2.

Maybe it's because we're in the midst of our own corporate fast, but what caught my attention today was verse 8:21...

There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey four us and our children, with all our possessions.

On the brink of departing for Jerusalem (a journey that would take them four months, according to Ezra 7:9), Ezra proclaimed a fast that lasted three days, if I'm reading it right (from 8 :15).  Not only were they traveling with families, including small children, but they also had a small fortune in gold and silver and bronze that they had been given to take back.  It wouldn't do for them to fall into the hands of bandits, or even a local magistrate with a greedy nature.  So they fasted and prayed for safe journeying.

And, Ezra reports in 8:31, "The hand of our God  was on us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way."  They arrived safely in Jerusalem, with the treasures for the house of God intact.

Now, Ezra *could* have requested an armed escort...but he felt it was important to show that the trust of the people was not in force of arms, but in the arm of God. (8:22-23).  The safe journey was not just a testimony to the king...but also to the people, who needed to know that they could trust God to take care of them.  It gave THEM a testimony to look back on; not just the testimony from the days of the Exodus.  They knew the dangers of their journey and they knew they needed...and received...protection from God.  The three days of fasting and prayer was as probably more to prepare the people to expect God's protection than it was to ask God to provide it.

Am I using the fast to prepare myself to see God move?

Friday Faithfuls Two: 2 Chronicles

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

If 1 Chronicles is a tedious read of lists and genealogies,  2 Chronicles is a roller coaster of reversals...this king served God, this one didn't...that one didn't...this one did until (something happened) and then he walked away...violence, murder, revival, apostasy...it's a wild ride.

So much in it caught my attention as I was skimming through; the construction and dedication of the temple made me want to weep.  So much good effort!  Such honor given to the Lord!  And...he responded with fire falling on the altar, just as it had in the wilderness when the tabernacle was dedicated. Can you imagine what that was like? And yet...Solomon lost his focus as he aged and allowed pagan worship into the country.  The nation divided and never again achieved the level of prosperity and favor it had under the prime years of Solomon.

But the verse that jumped out at me and made me pause is 2 Chronicles 31:1:

When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles.  They destroyed the high places and the altars through out Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim and Manesseh.  After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned their own towns and to their own property.

'This' that 'had ended' was actually an over-the-top celebration of Passover that went beyond its required time; they had an extra seven days of worship and consecration.

Y'all, they had a spontaneous revival meeting.  A REAL, Holy-Ghost revival meeting... and we know that because afterward, the people went out and destroyed their idols.

And as I read that, I realized that idol destruction is a hallmark of a changed life.  We can have incredible meetings where the atmosphere is electric and signs are manifesting and the prophetic word is flowing...but if we don't go out and destroy the idols, it was just a wild church service.  

The idols must be destroyed...not put away, not covered up, DESTROYED.    An idol cannot be toyed with...one can't tell oneself it's not that big a deal, keep it around because there are some fond memories of something associated with it or there has been too much money invested in it or it's popular or whatever; it will regenerate from whatever root left to it.

Was it a real revival?  Or just a good service?  

Are the idols gone?

Can I say...ouch?

The January Fast

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Fasting wasn't something we practiced when I was growing up; it just wasn't on the radar of our little independent Baptist Church, which was primarily focused on evangelism. Plus, they were definitely dispensational and considered a lot of...um, stuff...to have been for the first century church and I rather think fasting was one of those things.

But we are in a different church, with a different tradition.  And although I miss the Christmas carols that started the Sunday after Thanksgiving I am glad to have an annual 'selah' after the holidays.  I never thought I'd say I was looking forward to fasting, but, surprise, surprise, I actually was looking forward to it this year.

And it starts today...for 21 days.  We have been challenged to read through all four gospels during the three weeks, which is about 4 chapters a day.  I decided I'd do it a little differently and dug up our Narrated Bible, which is a Bible in which the text has been edited to be in chronological order. 

 

 The gospels are all mixed up together into what, as best as can be determined, is chronological.

But since it's all mixed up I can't pace myself by chapters.  It runs from pages 1349 - page 1484; a total of 136 pages...roughly six and a half pages a day.  It does include some commentary, which I quickly found broke up the continuous feel of the narrative so I decided I *could* skip the commentary and just read the listed scripture.  Not that the commentary wasn't worth reading...it's just that my desire was to read the continuous scripture narrative.

Which, surprisingly, the editor began with Mark 1:1 and not John 1:1.  But after the initial surprise...I agree with him.  It does flow better that way.

The first day's reading is the combined accounts through the presentation of the newborn Jesus at the Temple, with the accompanying testimony of Simeon and Anna.  

I've always found that reading Scripture in a way that's different from how I've read it before puts a little different light on it and I notice things I'd not seen before, so I think this could be interesting.

Happy 2022!