Today's Readings and Stuff -- Tuesday, 11 December 2018

Well into the double digit dates for December.  That's about as positive as I can be right now.  "Official" Winter is now less than two weeks distant.  Three weeks from today will, Lord willing, mark the beginning of 2019.  Makes a person feel ancient:  I deal more and more frequently with person who've never seen a calendar with 19xx on it. 

We spent our day "watching" the great-nephew next door.  His mom was at work, his dad had worked all night long, but was spending several hours on his "side business" of auto repairs.  So we watched the little guy.  Niece came home from work while her husband was at the auto parts store getting a replacement water pump for the customer.  We came home somewhat wearied.  Wife had had very little sleep last night, again.  So we came home, warmed up some left over soup (home-made turkey vegetable based on that donated turkey back at Thanksgiving).  She sat back in her recliner and promptly went down on a 2-1/2 hour nap, sorely needed.  So did dishes as quietly as possible, did a few other of the chores around the house that are my lot. and tried hard to let her sleep and prevent the cats from waking her.  She woke up just a few minutes ago, took one of her "as needed" meds, and is recovering consciousness.  We'll try to "crash" early:  we're on call to watch the Little Guy again tomorrow.  Niece has some sort of an event at the school where great-niece is in all-day kindergarten.  So we'll hopefully have a somewhat easier day.  Hopefully.

We are well and truly into the pre-Christmas season.  We don't have cable TV but can "stream" some TV programs to keep Wife occupied.  So much of what is displayed, and I'm referring especially to the "seasonal" ads and programs, are anything but Christ-honoring, little to no mention of the great love that the Father has shown in the birth of the Son.  I won't get into descriptions of some of the trash displayed, I think we're all fully aware of it.  No, some of it isn't evil, not as such.  But what all too much of it does, is to divert our attention, take up our time and energy, and certainly direct our focus away from the Lord.  It's something we have all fallen into at some point to some extent. 
That diverted focus in turn permits entry of other things that, progressively, can be evil.  I've not forgotten my long ago days when the P.I. firm that employed me also provided security of sorts at various party venues, halls and such, where liquor flowed in these "Christmas parties" that many businesses held for employees at certain levels, or for customers, or the like for various clubs, etc.  Reports regularly reached me, and sometimes I'd have stuff in my assignments for follow up, of the conduct at some of these.  Little by little, bit by bit, people who should have known better fell into the "well, that's not so bad" temptation for bad conduct that got worse and worse with time.  Some of them "good church-goers".  As the apostle warned, " a little leaven, leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9).  It's true.  Happens when we, even for a moment, take our eyes off the Lord.
Let us not fall into that.

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Amos 5

1Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

2The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

3For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.

4For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

5But seek not Beth–el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer–sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth–el shall come to nought.

6Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth–el.

7Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

8Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

9That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

10They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

11Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

12For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

13Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

14Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

15Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

16Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

17And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

18Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

19As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

20Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

22Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

23Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

24But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

25Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

26But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

27Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.

Amos 6

1Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

2Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

3Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

4That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

5That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;

6That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

7Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.

8The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.

9And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

10And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord.

11For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.

12Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:

13Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

14But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the Lord the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness.

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Revelation chapter 9

1And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

4And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

6And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

7And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

8And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

9And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

10And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

11And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

12One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

13And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,

14Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

15And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

16And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

17And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

18By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

19For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

20And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

21Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.