Would you allow your child to go in the water if the lifeguard who was watching couldn’t swim? Vigilance is more than just watching, it is being ready and able to take action. Constantly seeking the face of our Creator and doing all we are able to live the way He designed us is just a part of what believers should be doing. Believers MUST display their faith in such a way that others know they are subject to the Creator’s authority and not man made doctrine.

Goeie dag

Baie Dankie vir al julle gebede ??

Hier is die video opname van die skrifgedeeltes vir die week ?
Ek glo die Woord sal ook vreugde en vrolikheid in jou en jou geliefdes se harte wees ?
Baie seën vir die week wat voorlê?

Vrede vir jou

Goeie dag

Baie Dankie vir al julle gebede ??

Hier is die video opname van die skrifgedeeltes vir die week ?
Ek glo die Woord sal ook vreugde en vrolikheid in jou en jou geliefdes se harte wees ?
Baie seën vir die week wat voorlê?

Vrede vir jou

"We do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies."

Da 9

Happy first day everyone! It is the second day of the 3rd month. What a great opportunity to start refreshed and rejuvinated!

"I do not ask for any crown
But that which all may win
Nor seek to conquer any world
Except the one within."
- Louisa May Alcott

A quote I believe John Wooden may have liked.

The success he taught was of doing your absolute best. Giving 100%, because you cannot give more than 100%: if you give less, that value is lost forever.
"All that thine hand shall find to do, do it with all thy power: for there is neither work nor invention, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest." Ec 9

As it is always in our power to do our best, it is thus likewise always in our power to reject the sin that fills our hearts.
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 1Cor 10

Thus every man is given an ironclad choice, and any who chooses to reject their sin will receive God through his cleansing mercy in Christ.

#SabbathPosts 2023/05/20

Thought for Today: Sunday May 21:

May YHVH remove every hindrance that keeps you from knowing His Love in a way that changes you. May He change every circumstance that sends a lying message to you. May He highlight every trial He is using to train you into a warrior. And may He remind you that all of heaven is on your side. You are very close to His heart. Rest in that fact and be blessed.

BIBLE STUDY LESSON 13

SERIES P --- YHVH’S PROPHETS

DESTRUCTION AND EXILE

HOW JERUSALEM WAS DESTROYED

From Jeremiah 51:59-52:34

This is an account of some of the earlier days of King Zedekiah’s reign as king of Judah and the events that led to the destruction of Jerusalem. On one occasion Jeremiah took YHVH’s message to Seraiah the son of Neriah and grandson of Maaseiah, the quartermaster of King Zedekiah. It was during the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign when Jeremiah wrote on a scroll many of the terrible judgments YHVH would send against Babylon and gave the scroll to Seraiah. [When you are exiled to Babylon, read all these words,] Jeremiah instructed Seraiah. [Then say, ‘Adonai, You have promised to destroy Babylon so completely that neither man nor beast will live in it again and it will be desolate forever.’] [When you have finished reading the scroll, tie a stone on it and throw it into the Euphrates River. Then say, [‘As this scroll sinks into the river, so shall Babylon sink because of the punishment Adonai will send upon her, never to rise again.’] Zedekiah, like Jehoiakim, was a wicked king. He was twenty-one when he became king and ruled for the next eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamatul, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. Adonai grew increasingly angry at the evil in Jerusalem and Judah until He cut His people off from Him. Then He permitted Zedekiah to rebel against the king of Babylon. During the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with his army against Jerusalem, set up camp around the city, and laid siege to it for the next two years. By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was so severe in Jerusalem that there was nothing to eat. The Babylonian army broke through the walls and invaded the city, but Zedekiah and his soldiers escaped through a gate between the two walls, at a point behind the palace garden. They tried to go through the Babylonian army camps toward the Arabah, but King Zedekiah was captured in the plains of Jericho, and his army was scattered, Zedekiah was then taken to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where King Nebuchadnezzar passed judgment on him, killed his sons and his nobles before his eyes, and then blinded him by gouging out his eyes. The king of Babylon put Zedekiah in chains and took him to Babylon, where he put him in prison until he died. On the tenth day of the fifth month, which was also the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuzar-adan the captain of the king’s bodyguard came to Jerusalem and burned the city, including the temple, the palace, and all the houses. His army broke down the walls of the city. Then he gathered the survivors, including the craftsmen and the Jews who had earlier deserted to the Babylonians, and took them back to Babylon with him. However, he left some of the poorest people behind so that they could take care of the vineyards and plough the fields, thus keeping the land under cultivation. Nebuzar-adan cut up the great bronze pillars of the temple, as well as the bronze laver and its base, and took the metal to Babylon. He also took back with him the bronze vessels of the temple -- pots, shovels, snuffers, basins, and pans. The gold and silver vessels of the temple were taken as well. It is difficult to estimate the weight of the bronze that was taken from the pillars and the layer and its base. They had been made in the days of King Solomon. Each pillar was twenty-seven feet high, eighteen feet in circumference, and were hollow with the bronze about three to four inches thick. Bronze ornamental work made up the top seven and a half feet of the pillars with one hundred and ninety-six bronze pomegranates around it. Nebuzar-adan took a number of the leaders of Judah to King Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah. These included Seraiah the chief priest, Sephaniah the second priest in charge, three temple guards, an army officer, seven members of the king’s council who were found in the city, and the secretary of the army commander who drafted the people of the land into the army. Sixty other important men who were hiding were discovered and taken as well. At Riblah the king of Babylon put these men to death, but he took the survivors to Babylon. During the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, he had taken three thousand and twenty-three people of Judah as captives to Babylon. Now, eleven years later, he took eight hundred and thirty-two people from Jerusalem. Five years later Nebuzar-adan took another seven hundred and forty-five, so that a total of forty-six hundred people were taken. Thirty-seven years after King Jehoiachin had been. imprisoned in Babylon, Evil-merodach became king of Babylon. On the very first day of his reign, he brought Jehoiachin from prison, spoke kindly to him, and placed him in greater favour than all the other kings who had been brought to Babylon. Evil-merodach gave Jehoiachin new clothes and brought him daily to eat at the king’s table. Until the day he died, he was given an allowance to take care of all his daily needs.

COMMENTARY

HOW PRISONERS OF WAR WERE TREATED

In the days of the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, the sight of an approaching army spread fear inside the city to he attacked. Defeat was almost certain, and the choice between death and capture was a terrible one. The moment they broke through the walls, enemy soldiers invaded the town, looting temples and palaces. unless a treaty was made, fixing the amount of tribute, the soldiers set fire to houses, walls, public buildings and trees. With hands or feet in chains, and rings through their lips or noses, the prisoners of war were led before the victorious king. He sentenced some to slavery by putting his foot on them. A few he pardoned. Others, given to the executioner, were tortured before they died. The more fortunate were beheaded or thrown into furnaces immediately. Even captive kings and officers did not escape such treatment. Some sentenced to be deported faced death too, along the way to Mesopotamia. Ancient records show that food supplies from Mesopotamia often met the convoys several weeks later than scheduled. By that time, many of the deportees, already weakened by hunger, disease and fatigue, had died. Some who survived the trip worked as slaves of the state on roads, fortresses, irrigation canals and royal farms. Those sentenced to be temple slaves cared for the flocks and grounds owned by powerful Babylonian priests. Prisoners of war sold as private slaves in the market stood the best chance of buying back their freedom, since slaves in Babylonia and Assyria could own businesses and were allowed to keep money. More fortunate deportees settled as free people, even though under strict supervision. Some, like the Jews in Babylon, were allowed to keep their own religions. The policy of deportation was meant to force conquered peoples to blend in with the Mesopotamians. Once they intermarried, the conquerors reasoned, they would be less likely to rebel. Many deportees found their new societies ready to accept foreign ideas and talents. Palestinian bakers, weavers, merchants and scribes practiced their trades profitably. Shipbuilders from Ionia, Egypt and Philistia filled the Euphrates with sturdy vessels. The work of Phoenician craftsmen graced Mesopotamian temples and palaces.

"As Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so Yahweh will rejoice over you to destroy you"

De 28