February 2 Daily Discovery
February 2 Daily Discovery
Read Micah Chapter 1
Judgment Upon Both Kingdoms
Following the reign of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel was divided between the northern and southern areas. The northern kingdom was called Samaria and the southern kingdom was called Judah.
The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2 Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.
3 For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.
4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.
5 For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?
6 Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof.
~ Micah 1:1-6
Idolatry is Judged
The First Commandment
And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
~ Ex. 20:1-6
The First & Great Commandment
33 And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.
34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
~ Matt. 22:33-40
Jesus answered the question, "what's the greatest commandment?", and then added to it, that the second commandment was like it: love your neighbor as yourself.
God made man in His own image. Every human being is God's image-bearer. When we love man, we are loving God through man, which is why this question is asked in John's love-book:
If a man say, “I love God,” and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? - I John 4:20
Pending Captivity
Israel (Jacob), was the northern kingdom, Samaria was its capital, and it had a total of 19 kings, ruling over a period of 208 years total, and NONE of them honored the God of Israel.
Judah was the southern kingdom and its capital was Jerusalem, and it had a total of 20 kings, all from the tribe of Judah and 8 of them honored the God of Israel. The record of them bears this identification: they "did what was right in the sight of the Lord."
The northern kingdom was the first to go because of its sins that stemmed around its rejection of God and idolatrous practices. They were carried away by the Assyrians during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah and Hoshea was the king of Israel.
Day of the Lord
In addition to the pending (imminent) captivity, there was a future "day of the Lord" - final judgment that was to come to Israel and to the entire world.
It is described as a FIERY judgment in which things made of stone (mountains & buildings) would "melt like wax" from the extreme heat.
Noah's flood is in our past.
The first major, earth-wide cataclysm recorded in the Bible was the destruction of the world via a world-wide flood (Noah's flood).
Evidence of this is all over the world.
The day of the Lord is in our past, too.
You can see the evidence of this all over the world as well. Huge cities that were made primarily of stone have melted into what looks like mountains, but upon close examination, we can see openings that would have been functional doors and windows and we can also see places that were protected a bit and they reveal the bricks and block works that were used in construction.
Where are we on the Biblical time-line now?
I believe we are in what is called "Satan's Short Season" that is mentioned in Revelation 20.
20 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
~ Rev. 20:1-3
After the 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth, the devil is let out for an undisclosed period of time. Welcome to your present!
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
~ Rev. 20:7-9
What is in our future?
Read Revelation chapters 20 - 22. What's in our future?
- The final war (Gog & Magog)
- The final judgement. (the great white throne judgment)
- The new heaven and new earth.
Great things are in our future!
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Continue Your Search
Do you see any: Commands to Obey, Warnings to Heed, Promises to Claim, Examples to Follow, Vices to Avoid, Praises to Emulate, Prayers to Use, Principles by which to Live, Questions to Ask or Actions to Take?
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