June 24 ▪ Day 175

Scripture Readings

Psalms 40:8
Jonah 3–4
Revelation 7–9
Proverbs 25

Verse Focus (Psalms 40:8)

I desire to do your will, my God;
     your law is within my heart.

Meditation

Psalms 40:8 says, “I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.” As the CSB translates the second half of the proverb, “your instruction is deep within me.” Within the context of the passage, these are Jesus’ words because this is a Messianic psalm. But they are also the words that every believer wants to make their own.

I believe the desire to do God’s will does spring from having God’s Scripture in your heart. When the psalmist talks about having the law within his heart, he speaks of the Torah — the first five books of the Bible, and all the commands and instructions that are contained in those books. The first step to obeying those commands is reading them and understanding them. And we develop understanding through meditation — by putting Scripture into our hearts and minds. Once we internalize Scripture in that fashion, it transforms us and changes us. We become people who want to do God’s will.

As believers, we do want to do God’s will. At least intellectually. When it comes to actual practice, we can occasionally balk, like Jonah. And that’s why the Holy Spirit is so critical. The Holy Spirit is the one who writes the law into our hearts. But reading and memorizing Scripture is also part of the process — the Holy Spirit grants us insight. The Holy Spirit will also remind us of the things we have read, and the things we know about Jesus.

Father God, this verse today is our prayer. We desire to do your will. May your Holy Spirit write your words deep in our hearts. May we be faithful to what you call us to do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Jonah 3 begins with the word of the LORD coming to Jonah “a second time (v. 1).” What mercy there is in this phrase! Jonah gets a second chance. We often fear that we’ve messed things up so badly with God that we have failed in our purpose. But Jonah’s story gives us hope that redemption is possible.

So Jonah goes to Nineveh and he proclaims that the city will be demolished in 40 days. It seems like he doesn’t even call for repentance — it is just the message of coming destruction. However, the word of prophecy is powerfully effective. As verse 5 says, “And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.” Even the king gets off his throne to wear sackcloth. The king of Nineveh issues a decree that neither man nor animal may eat or drink water; even the livestock are to wear sackcloth. As the king directs in verse 8, “Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing.”

God sees their repentance, and so as the chapter ends the LORD relents from his planned destruction of Nineveh.

In Jonah chapter 4 we learn that the prophet is furious at this turnaround. He wanted the Ninevites to perish. With a little creative revisionism, Jonah declares that this is why he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the first place — because he knew that the LORD would end up being gracious and merciful to them. In his anger, Jonah prays that God will take his life. “It is better for me to die than to live,” he says in verse 3.

God asks Jonah in verse 4, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

So Jonah finds a place east of the city with a view overlooking it. He is still hoping that the city will burn. He waits to see what will happen. It is apparently quite hot.

While Jonah is waiting to see what will happen, the LORD causes a leafy plant to grow up over Jonah and give shade to his head. Verse 6 tells us that Jonah was “exceedingly glad because of the plant.” But after one day of comfort, the very next day God causes a worm to attack the plant and it withers and dies. Without the shade of the plant, Jonah becomes faint. He prays for death again, saying in verse 8, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

God asks Jonah if it’s right for him to be angry about the plant. “Yes, it’s right,” says Jonah in verse 9, “I’m angry enough to die!” But God rebukes Jonah. Jonah cared about the plant, even though he didn’t tend or care for it. Shouldn’t God also care for Nineveh and its inhabitants? And so the story ends.

It is somewhat of a peculiar ending. We don’t know if Jonah repented of his anger. Even in his anger, Jonah models the somewhat tortuous path to faith. Whether his anger sprang from the fear of looking foolish (what he said was going to happen didn’t happen), or whether he felt that God could have enabled the Ninevites to repent without Jonah (which, of course, He absolutely could have done), or whether he was angry for some other reason — we understand how he feels. We also are not always happy with how God rules the world. And sometimes it is our greatest successes that expose our worst flaws. Jonah was actually wildly successful as a preacher. Instead of being happy, though, he was angry. Jonah clearly felt these pagans deserved judgment. The warmongering in his heart contrasts ironically with his name, Jonah, which means dove — typically a symbol for peace.

God has the last word in the book of Jonah, and it is a word of mercy for the Gentiles. This greatly expands the Jewish view of teshuva, the ability to repent and be forgiven by God. The Jews had been impatient at God for not destroying the heathen. But here the reader learns that God is still postponing His judgment of the heathen. Indeed, He desires all peoples to repent and be forgiven.

Today we continue our reading in Revelation by looking at chapters 7 through 9. Chapter 5 gave us a vision of worship in heaven, while chapter 6 begins judgment on the nations by means of the seven seals. Only the first six seals are described; however, the sixth seal is a doozy — some kind of transformation happens to the heavens and the earth.

Chapter 7 begins by John telling us that “after these things (v. 1)” he saw four angels restraining the four winds of heaven from executing some kind of judgment against the earth. They must not harm the earth, sea, or trees until the servants of God are sealed on the forehead by God’s seal. And we get a count of 144,000 from Israel that will be sealed — 12,000 from each tribe.

In addition to the 144,000 from Israel, there is “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language (v. 9)” standing before the throne and the Lamb. They are wearing white robes. The multitude is worshiping God and the Lamb. As they sing their praises, the 24 elders, angels, and four living creatures also join in the worship. John is told that this multitude contains those who are “coming out of the great tribulation (v. 14).” They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

Chapter 8 describes Jesus opening the seventh seal. There is a period of solemnity immediately after the seventh seal is opened. An angel fills the censer of incense that offered the prayers of the people on the altar with fire from the altar and then throws it down onto earth, and then seven angels prepare to blow seven trumpets. Each trumpet signals a type of judgment and destruction on the earth. The first four trumpets each destroy a different aspect of the earth, and in each, an entire third of the targeted elements die.

Revelation 9 describes the judgment coming from the fifth and sixth trumpets, also known as the first and second woes. The first woe describes an apocalyptic war between Satan’s forces of evil and the rest of the world. There are “locusts” that look like horses but have human faces, long hair, lion’s teeth, and tails that sting like scorpions. They are ruled by a king named Destruction. The stings of these locusts will torment people for five months; however, they are not allowed to hurt anyone with the seal of God on his or her forehead. We are told in verse 6, “In those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.”

The second woe, or the sixth trumpet, releases angels that have been bound at the great river Euphrates. They are released “to kill a third of mankind (v. 15).” There are 200 million mounted troops — these look like horses with the heads of lions. Fire, smoke, and brimstone comes out of the mouths of these horses. They also have tails like serpents that are able to wound. However, in verse 20 we are told that the two thirds of mankind who were not killed by these troops refuse to repent of “the works of their hands.” They also refuse to give up worshiping demons and their idols of “gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood.” They refuse to repent of their others sins as well — murder, sorcery, sexual immorality, and theft.

So that’s the briefest review of these chapters. Now let’s talk about them some. In chapter 7 we have the sealing of Israel’s 144,000 and a vision of a vast multitude of people saved by the blood of the Lamb. Does this happen chronologically after the sixth seal rolled up the sky as a scroll and removed the mountains and the islands from their places? Or is it an interlude, out of time? We see people being protected by having a seal put on their foreheads. It literally saves their lives during the first woe. But wouldn’t God have wanted to protect his people from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, too? Wouldn’t God have taken steps to protect the people killed in the judgments of the first six seals?

If you recall, according to one interpretation of Revelation, the judgments are actually cyclical — rather than a series of three different sets of judgment (seals, trumpets, bowls), we are actually seeing the same judgment over and over again, but using different symbols to describe the judgment.

In Revelation 7, John talks about the four angels holding back the four winds of heaven from performing their judgment on the earth. In Jeremiah 49:36 and Daniel 7:2 we also have references to these four winds of judgment. However, it occurs to me — and these are my own musings so take it with a grain of salt — that God’s spirit is often called breath or wind. So potentially the four winds of heaven may be referring to four spirits of God — and thus, possibly, to the four horsemen that we read about in Revelation 6. Of course this might only be true if we indeed do have repeating symbolic visions of the judgment that earth will undergo. Or if perhaps this scene is an interlude, happening out of chronological sequence with the prior scenes.

Another curious feature about chapter 7 has to do with the 144,000 that are sealed. Those with eagle eyes and a good knowledge of the Old Testament will have realized that there’s a problem with the list of tribes. The tribe of Dan is missing. And Joseph is usually replaced by his two sons — Ephraim and Manasseh. But this list includes Joseph and Manasseh — so Ephraim is apparently missing, too. Obviously, the text doesn’t tell us why. But scholars have come up with a number of different explanations, usually relating to Dan’s history of idolatry as described in the book of Judges. For those wanting to learn a bit more, I thought this article on the Internet gave a well-reasoned answer: Verse by Verse Ministry: Why is the Tribe of Dan missing in Revelation 7?

Chapter 8 describes the first four of the seven trumpets of judgment. Are these the same as the seals? Or are these new judgments? I can’t really say. I know that some people get really specific with interpretation. Some people will tell you that the first trumpet was fulfilled during World War I, and the second trumpet was World War II, while the third trumpet was the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. Perhaps they are right.

People are different, and what helps them is also different. For me, I hope to get truth and insight from this book of prophecy. But knowing the exact times of the end? Jesus told us that only the Father knows these things. If matching Biblical prophecy to current events helps you to understand the urgency of being watchful and ready, that’s a good thing. But I’ve also seen that the attempt to decode heavenly mysteries can lead one astray — I’ve certainly seen a lot of false prophecy arising out of the attempt to match world history to the scenes described in Revelation. So I am cautious in my interpretations. I’m also comfortable with some of these unknowns — possibly too comfortable. But in terms of the big picture, these chapters speak of the terrible judgment and deaths of huge portions of the population. And how can that not spur us on to speak of the grace and forgiveness available through Christ Jesus?

Revelation 9 speaks of bizarre “locusts” and the battle troops of the four angels bound at the river Euphrates. The descriptions seem symbolic rather than literal. Of course, it’s occurred to me that John may not have had the language to describe the things he saw. Could the locusts be some type of meld of man and machine? The wings with their noise reminded me of helicopters one time when I was reading this chapter (v. 9). And when I read about battle troops of horses with lion’s heads, my fanciful mind thinks of genetic manipulation. But the more likely interpretation involves precision troops that advance in ranks, with the battle strength of horses and the fierceness of lions.

The “big picture” takeaway from this chapter is the grief that mankind refuses to repent. Even when the world is literally falling to pieces — with war, torment and despair, and sudden death (one in three people dying!) — people are even more set in their ways. They worship what they can do themselves, or they worship things that are ultimately useless. And they continue in their iniquities. This, to me, is the real tragedy of Revelation.

In Proverbs 25 we now begin a fourth collection of wisdom. These are proverbs of Solomon, collected by King Hezekiah’s men. Why Solomon didn’t include these proverbs in with his own collection is a mystery. Perhaps these proverbs came after Solomon had written the introduction to Proverbs and made his original collection of proverbs. At any rate, for the next few chapters we will be reading more proverbs of Solomon.

Verse 11 is a perennial favorite for me. “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Verse 20 is also one that always stands out to me with its warning to be sensitive to the sorrows of another person.

Today, it is verse 16 that catches my eye. “If you find honey, eat just enough — too much of it, and you will vomit.” Honey doesn’t feature in our diets today as much as it may have in ancient times, but we all know what it feels like when we’ve had too much sugar. Too much birthday cake and children will vomit. Even remembering an incident of overindulgence can make your stomach go queasy.

The interesting thing about this proverb, for me, doesn’t have to do with moderate consumption of honey. Yes, this verse is a warning against gluttony — but that’s not what intrigues me. No, for me, it’s because of the parallel to Scripture. There are multiple verses that liken God’s word to honey, including Proverbs 24:14 from yesterday’s reading. Is this verse telling us that we can have too much Scripture? I think it might be. Maybe not. But we know that overindulging in just about anything can make you sick. Why wouldn’t that also apply to religious activities? I see this verse as encouraging us to develop study habits that are sustainable and can be repeated day after day, rather than doing so much on one day that you stop reading the Bible for a while. I actually used to do that when I would try to “catch up” on a reading plan, but it would backfire on me. Reading too much turned out to be counter-productive to my attempts at quiet time stability. It worked a lot better when I stopped trying to make up for past mistakes.

Verse 27 from today’s chapter says, in the CSB, “It is not good to eat too much honey or to seek glory after glory.” The Hebrew in the last phrase is a bit obscure, so different translations have a bit of a different flavor. The NIV says, “It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to search out matters that are too deep.” Hmmmm. Perhaps this is a warning that we should be careful in our study of Revelation? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll let you decide. 🙂

Father God, help us to gain true wisdom and insight from what we read in the Bible. If it’s true that we can overindulge in Scripture, then help us to have the right amount of Scripture in our lives. We long to get to know you and to know your Word. Thank you for the wisdom in these books. Thank you for what Jonah teaches us, and for the warnings in Revelation. May your Holy Spirit guide us as to how we should apply what we read in the Bible to our daily lives. In Jesus’ name, Amen.