Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Good morning, nice people.
I need to leave soon with the sawmill in tow to do a job in Sherwood. We cancelled it for yesterday as rain was predicted—but then it hardly rained a drop. Thursday was supposed to be a better option. But alas!—it’s raining right now.
Half of yesterday was consumed with changing the main drive belt on the mill. I’ve tallied 1639 hours on this machine. The drive belt should be replaced before 1000 hours. After reassembling, I had one bolt left over. I hope I don’t find out where it was supposed to go today.
Becki agreed that the composition below from 2012 was worth resending. Have fun with your day.
Blessings on you and yours.
Love, Dad/Ray.
This passage paints another picture that displays the ugliness of human nature without God. Please pay attention. Take note that the main actors of this real life drama who are causing all the ugly are actually the religious elite of their society—claiming all the while to be absolute representatives for God. There’s religion for you! Religion without relationship (personal relationship with God) becomes about as perverse and diabolical as it ever gets. History supports that.
Here is a lesson worth remembering: INTENSITY OF PASSION AND LOUDNESS OF EXPRESSION MAY GOVERN POLITICS OR WIN VERDICTS, BUT HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH TRUTH. (Coming to think of it, I’m observing that our own U.S.A. Government is largely governed by the noise of “squeaky wheels”—“special interest groups”—or lobbyists.) There was certainly a lot of noise and chaos displayed in this ordeal surrounding Jesus’ arrest, trial, and condemnation. Can you imagine being in such a mob that is agitated to such fever pitch, made up of people who cannot bear anything reasonable, cannot behave orderly, and can only vent their anger with shouting? In this scene the prevailing noise was, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” (v. 21). Be reminded of the stark contrast between such human behavior as compared with God’s standard. His method of communicating truth to the human heart remains on the level of a “gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12). And only those who have adjusted their internal settings with A HEART AFTER GOD are able to detect those divine signals.
Yesterday’s emphasis was on the importance of prayer. You can be sure that there wasn’t much prayer going on in the camp of “the chief priests and teachers of the law”—at least not REAL prayer. Yes, they said prayers all the time—that was their specialty. But their heart attitudes did not allow for authentic prayer that prioritized relationship with the Most High—and reveled in the grace of that relationship. Let me repeat: Please pay attention. There are major lessons here.