Sackcloth Warning
“Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath he had sackcloth on his body” (2 King 6:30 NKJV).
It was a dark time in Samaria. Syria had surrounded the city of Samaria which caused a great famine. War had produced much want. One day as the king of Israel was walking upon the wall around Samaria, a woman appealed to him for help. She said she and another woman had agreed to eat their own children. She had boiled her son, and they ate him. However, when it was time to boil the other woman’s son, the other woman reneged on her promise. The story so distressed the king that he tore his royal robes and walked away. As he walked away, the people could see that underneath his robes was sackcloth. Sackcloth was not ordinary underclothing; it was made out of coarse goats’ hair and wearing it next to the skin was tortuous. The itch was terrible and the scratchy discomfort unbearable. Many might desire to be king but when the glamorous royal robe is pulled back to disclose the sackcloth, one realizes that being king was not all so great after all. This is true of many things.
It is true of position - Do not covet high position. There are many problems associated with high position as we have seen with this king. Do not be fooled by the glamorous royal robes of high position. Remember that underneath are the great problems of the sackcloth. Be content where you are.
It is true of possessions - People often sacrifice much in order to gain possessions in this life. But often after possessions are gained, we discover the sackcloth that goes with it. It will never satisfy but will instead bring much discomfort. The things of the world simply do not satisfy and often bring more problems than blessings.
It is true of pleasures – Here we are speaking of sinful pleasures. When we are tempted, all we see is the glamorous and glimmering robes of sin. Yet underneath these deceitful robes is the sackcloth of guilt, ruin, loss of virtue, broken homes and marriages, and wrecked lives.
(Adapted from Butler Daily Bible Reading)
Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be The Glory)
Quotation of the Week
“To ignore and miss God’s will is to sin!”
Anonymous
Word Study
Departure
In 2 Peter 1:15 we read, “And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind!” (NASB)
Departure is the Greek word exodos (εξοδος). It is made up of two words – “ek” which means out, and “hodos” which means way. The more familiar spelling Exodus is simply a transliteration of the Greek Exodos into English. Literally, the word means the road out or the way out. It means an exit, departure, death.
Exodos was used as a euphemism describing one’s departure from among the living. Marvin Vincent writes that exodos means a journeying and thus corresponds to the Latin decessus, a going away, hence we have our word decease.
In Classical Greek exodos can refer to a military expedition, an exit from something, or even an argument. Further in commercial terminology an exodos can be a payment or an expense. Exodos is the title given to the Second Book of Moses by the translators of the Septuagint. Later, Israel’s departure from Egypt is thus tagged the ‘Exodus.’ In the New Testament, Luke 9:31 seems to use the word euphemistically for death. Here in our verse, Peter refers to exit out of earth. Yet, he is not just ‘dying,’ but departing for home!
Bible Facts
“Forty” is the number of testing and trial - It rained 40 days during the Flood (Gen. 7:4); Moses spent 40 years in the desert (Ex. 3); Israel spied out the land for 40 days (Num. 13:25); Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai (Ex. 24:18); Israel wandered 40 years in the desert (Num. 14:33); Jonah preached repentance to Nineveh for 40 days (Jonah 3:4); Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness before being tempted (Matt. 4:2); there were 40 days between the resurrection and ascension of Christ (Acts 1:3).
Bible Quiz
When Jonah finally went to the city where God sent him, how long was that city given to repent?
**Answer to last week’s trivia: The Lord sent Jonah to preach against Nineveh. Jonah however, decided to go his own way. To which city did he go instead? Tarshish (Jonah 1:3)
That’s in the Bible
“Stand or fall by something”
“Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14:4 NKJV).
‘Do or die,’ ‘make it or break it,’ ‘stand or fall’ - each phrase has essentially the same meaning. They all refer to someone who is putting his or her reputation on the line in the effort to accomplish some goal. Here in Rom. 14:4, the Bible is talking about how we answer to our masters (supervisors) and those in authority over us. We stand or fall before our leaders just as we do before God.
Did You Know – Christian History
Robert Jermain Thomas was born in 1839 in Rhayader, United Kingdom. He was a Protestant Christian missionary who served with the London Missionary Society in late Qing Dynasty China and Korea.
Thomas began preaching at age 15. He graduated from New College, London University in 1863. That same year he was ordained, married, and then sailed to China. Within three months, his wife Caroline died. A year later he resigned from the LMS, feeling that unreached fields should be given priority over already occupied Shanghai. Yet shortly after he asked to return and to be sent to Mongolia.
While he was waiting for reinstatement, a chance meeting with two Korean traders, secret Catholics, led him to negotiate a trip to that forbidden country to distribute Bibles for the National Bible Society of Scotland. He spent two and a half months there in 1865 and learned some of the language. Against advice he returned to Korea in 1866 as interpreter on an armed American trading ship, arriving at a time when uninvited foreign trade was still forbidden and a raging persecution against secret Catholic believers resulted in the execution of thousands. The ship was attacked near Pyongyang and no one survived. Thomas was reportedly beheaded giving a Bible to his executioner. He was the first Protestant martyr in Korea.
In a miraculous turn of events, God worked in the heart of the man who killed Thomas. Convinced by Thomas’s beaming face that he had killed a good man, he kept one of the Bibles, wallpapering his house with it. People came from far and near to read its words. A church started, and a nephew of Robert’s killer became a pastor. Today 40% of South Koreans are Christians and the nation has some of the largest congregations in the world but the North remains largely closed to the gospel. According to Sungho Choi, lecturer at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology, Korean Christians may not know that Wales is a country with its own language and history, but they do know that Wales is the place from where Thomas came to them.
A Little Humor
A businessman needed a million dollars to close an important business transaction. He went to church to pray for the money. He knelt and started praying next to a man who was praying for a hundred dollars he needed to pay an urgent debt. The businessman took out his wallet and pressed the hundred dollars into the other man’s hand. Overjoyed, the man got up and left the church. The businessman then closed his eyes and prayed, “And now, Lord, that I have your undivided attention....”
Thought Provoking Church Sign
“Life is a one-way street; we are not coming back!”
