Read To Me Daily Semester 4Sample

JOEL 2:28-3:
An attack by an army of locusts must be so frightening! What descriptions! And it is even worse when God is bringing the attack as an act of judgement. Yet Joel offers hope. He encourages the people to come back to God and beg for the Lord’s help. We will pick up today re-reading the famous part of Joel 2.

In the final verse of Joel chapter 2, we have the famous words, [2:32 ESV] “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

Note that this involves a Jewish figure of speech called a metonymy. In English or most other languages, people don’t call out for help to someone’s name. We call out to a person, not to the person’s name. So in English, because we don’t use or understand the Jewish metonymy properly, this verse can be translated, “Everyone who calls on the LORD shall be saved.” In other words, in this metonymy, the ‘name of Yahweh’ stands for the whole person of Yahweh.

ISAIAH 44b:
In the first part of chapter 44 of Isaiah, God said:

Is. 44:3 NLT For I will pour out water to quench your thirst
and to irrigate your parched fields.
And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessing on your children.
4 They will thrive like watered grass,
like willows on a riverbank.
5 Some will proudly claim, ‘I belong to the LORD.’
Others will say, ‘I am a descendant of Jacob.’

Then God gave a lecture on the futility of idols. I love the irony in the verses we will read today, and here's a good example:

Is. 44:19 NLT The person who made the idol never stops to reflect,
“Why, it’s just a block of wood!

2TIMOTHY 3:
We heard the wonderful encouragements to Timothy in chapter 2. Note that Paul did not explain everything to Timothy, but invited him to ponder what he had said. I urge all of us to similarly ponder and spend time meditating on what Paul said. 

Note what Paul says about God’s Word in contrast to his being in chains: “The word of God cannot be chained.” Yay, God! May your Word accomplish what you have sent it to do!

Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, please keep us securely placed on the two great foundations stones Paul mentioned: First, You know who your children are. And that means that if we are followers of Jesus, You will lead us away from false beliefs and practices. And secondly, we must turn away from wrongdoing. Lord, make it a holy desire within us to be one of your special vessels— the ones that You use for special purposes. May we be clean and ready today to be used by You for any good deed that can be done to glorify You. And we note, Lord, that we are not told to stand up in the face of youthful passions, but to run away. Nail that verse permanently in our memory, because even we old people need to run from such passions. Lord, I thank You for the fellowship in my own local church, and I pray that my listener will have a similar place where fellow believers join together in love and without arguments. In the context of such fellowship, let us patiently encourage one another to more fully believe in You and live lives that glorify You.