Today's Readings and Stuff == Sunday, 08 September 2019

Welcome.  Today is the 2nd Sunday in September.  The year is passing all too quickly.  And the time of decent weather will be behind us VERY soon:  we're only two  weeks from the Autumnal Equinox, with official Winter looming.  Ick!

Wife wanted to visit someone this afternoon, so we did.  One of those "honorary" aunts from her youth and childhood.  She and her husband of some 48 years had retired and moved to South Carolina.  OK.  But her husband was a twin, and his twin brother and his wife were right next door, as had been the case for their entire lives.  The wives did not like each other, never did.  Then early this year, her husband died.  So two ladies with issues, and it got tough for her.  Living 900+ miles from any family, any support, any of that made it worse.  Now, a complication all too frequent in this area is the results of "serial monogamy".  Both her husband and his twin brother had had previous marriages, and children from them.  Her brother-in-law's one son regarded her as his "little mom": his biological mother is not in the picture and his biological father, that brother-in-law really isn't in his life.  So she was and is his "little mom".  Two weeks ago or less, he made the drive down south, got her and her lifetime of "stuff", and moved her up here into a spare room in his place.  Quite a lot of heavy-duty emotional stuff in her life in the last few years, and it has been hard on her.  So we paid a visit, which was good for all.

Now, back shortly after Wife and I were wed (with our 31st anniversary this Wednesday),  I came to know the Lord as savior.  She and husband were living across the road from us, and she had us accompanying her to her church.  Which was OK, but when we left the area a year or so later, I made a point of never entering a church house of that denomination (Disciples of Christ) ever again.  Being accused of "bibleolatry" for holding Scripture in higher regard than their trendy whim of the month had something to do with that.  Anyway, she visited today that assembly she'd once faithfully attended, supported, and had a role in.  By her measure, it has become FAR too liberal, even more than it was then.  So she was asking about the assembly we've been attending, and has an invitation to visit.  Perhaps something can come of this.

Song of the day, and a good one.  "Spirit Of God Descend Upon My Heart"\

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Isaiah 17

1The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

2The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

3The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.

4And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.

5And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel.

7At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.

8And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images.

9In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.

10Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips:

11In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

12Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

13The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

14And behold at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

Isaiah 18

1Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:

2That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!

3All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.

4For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

5For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.

6They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

7In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion.