Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear ones.

Some of our morning routine was cut short since we needed to leave by about 7:30am to attend a kind of dedication at Legion Park in Woodburn. I was asked to participate since I had done some of the sign work for the Park. Interesting presentation.

Before returning all the way home, we were able to buy 4 gallons of honey and some more garden plants. Some of my plants aren’t doing very great in our garden effort.

It’s well on its way toward being a hot one—just like the weather report was predicting. I’m kind of drippy right here. I can hear someone say, “You can say that again!”

Have a blessed day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

This passage paints another picture that displays the ugliness of human nature without God. Please pay attention. The ugliness is made worse when noting that the main actors of this real drama who are causing all the ugly are actually 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 gets. History supports that.

Here is a lesson worth remembering: INTENSITY OF PASSION AND LOUDNESS OF EXPRESSION MAY GOVERN POLITICS AND WIN VERDICTS, BUT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TRUTH AND RIGHT BEFORE GOD. There was a lot of noise and chaos displayed in this ordeal. Can you imagine being in such a mob being agitated to such a fever pitch to the point that no one can bear anything reasonable or orderly, and can only vent their anger with shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” (v. 21)? Be reminded of the stark contrast between man’s high-emotion and high-volume style of communication as compared with God’s standard. His method of communicating with 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’s pay careful attention.