Yesterday we heard how Nehemiah stood up for all the people in financial difficulty. The nobles were rich, and everyone else was suffering,—some even having no option but to sell their children into slavery. He convinced the nobles to forgive debts, and had them take a solemn oath about that. The wall was finished in just 52 days, but Nehemiah was getting more and more threats from Sanballat and his cronies.
https://www.bible.com/bible/116/neh.7.nlt
We heard the challenge and mocking of the Assyrian chief of staff who brought the Assyrian King’s message to Jerusalem with a huge show of force. The challenge was shouted out in Hebrew for all the people to hear. What a thing to happen to a king that 2Kings 18 praises with these words:
1Hezekiah son of Ahaz began to rule over Judah in the third year of King Hoshea’s reign in Israel. 2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah,athe daughter of Zechariah. 3He did what was pleasing in the LORD’s sight, just as his ancestor David had done. 4He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had been offering sacrifices to it. The bronze serpent was called Nehushtan.b
5Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time. 6He remained faithful to the LORD in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the LORD had given Moses.
https://www.bible.com/bible/116/isa.37
We finished the wonderful book of Philippians yesterday. I count three wonderful promises in that 4th chapter. But note: This time I feel that all of them are really conditional promises— even the last one. If we are going to have God’s peace with us, guarding our hearts and minds, and if we want God to supply our needs, then we must give attention to how Paul told the Philippians to live and what they were doing in support of Paul’s mission.
I encourage everyone to spend more time looking at the treasures of Philippians, and the same goes for the book we start today— Colossians.
Colossians was written around the same time as Philippians, and Philemon was a member of this church. This letter has another wonderful poetic portion in chapter one exalting Christ. In all of my recent presentations in Indonesian seminaries, I have introduced our translation by reading Colossians 2 and the first part of chapter 3. The things Indonesians don’t understand in their Bibles— and the things I hope you will understand in the NLT, are spiritual realities. The things that are true of us spiritually which cannot be seen with physical eyes. If we understand those things, we get the opportunity to believe them. If we believe them, we can meditate on them. If we meditate on them, we find them working powerfully in our lives to transform us and release us from our persistent sinful cravings.
https://www.bible.com/bible/116/col.1
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