Today's Readings and Stuff -- Saturday, 23 March 2019

We are to be off shortly (well, after I do some more of the around-the-house chores, etc.) to the Great Event, a birthday bash for the Great-Nephew's 12th birthday party.  A big deal indeed.  Last night was a gathering for brother-in-law's 55th birthday.  So a weekend full of Command Performances.  It's important to Wife, one of the array of things that she missed terribly when we were living a thousand miles away.  So we are, to an extent, playing a bit of catch up.  And, to be fair, those kids, the nieces and nephews and greats seem to love us  (love her, I imagine) which is not a bad thing and it's very important to her.  She didn't grow up having these things, what with her less-than-virtuous mother, a drunk father who spent quite a few years in a POW camp and, when home, more than a few weekends in the drunk tank at the county jail, and when she turned about 14, working.  We tried to do what we could for our kids, but as we were often FAR away from here, the interaction with the extended family simply wasn't often possible.  So, as I said, she's catching up on some of this.
But in a way, I feel a failure in it.  Most of these family members are either unfamiliar with the Lord, or are actively or semi-actively hostile to the Faith.  Like my Wiccan sister-in-law.  Her son, the father of this great-nephew whose birthday we celebrate today, who has rarely seen his own real father, the one his mother divorced when he was quite young.  And his mother NEVER allowed him to experience the love of God.  Ever.  We see quite a lot of that, not just in that family, but all around us.
It doesn't help that many of the church organizations in the area have within them some of the same wicked behavior as those around their neighborhoods, and by that I mean in positions of leadership and responsibility.  I see, for example, that one fellow in our township, just arrested on a child pornography case, was up until around that time in a "ministry" with a local non-denominational "outreach" church, and another one before that.  I don' think the Lord was glorified in any of that, and it certainly makes faith proclamations look a bit weak. 

Still going over the reports of the arrests and injuries from last night's festivities.  The "usual".  Reminds me sometimes of the behaviors of the cities into which the New Testament church was   There are certainly some parallels.  Just not seeing much of the "after".


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Deuteronomy 9

1Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,

2A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!

3Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee.

4Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.

5Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

6Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.

7Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord.

8Also in Horeb ye provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lordwas angry with you to have destroyed you.

9When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:

10And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

11And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.

12And the Lord said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.

13Furthermore the Lord spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

14Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.

15So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.

16And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the Lordyour God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the Lord had commanded you.

17And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.

18And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

19For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you. But the Lordhearkened unto me at that time also.

20And the Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.

21And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.

22And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth–hattaavah, ye provoked the Lord to wrath.

23Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadesh–barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

24Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

25Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the Lord had said he would destroy you.

26I prayed therefore unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

27Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:

28Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

29Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.

Deuteronomy 10

1At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.

2And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.

3And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.

4And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me.

5And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me.

6And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Moserah: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead.

7From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of waters.

8At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.

9Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised him.

10And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also, and the Lord would not destroy thee.

11And the Lord said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.

12And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

13To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord'sthy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

15Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.

16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

17For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:

18He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.

19Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

20Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.

21He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.

22Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.