Welcome

About 4,000 years ago a faithful man, Abraham, was promised a land inheritance by GOD.  GOD said to him: “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it” (Genesis 15:7). However, this promise was not fulfilled in his lifetime.  But he believed he would receive it in the future. He is described in the Bible as one of those who “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off” (Hebrews 11:13).

At the start of 2 Kings 5 we are given a comprehensive description of Naaman: (v1) “Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favour, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valour, but he was a leper.”

Naaman was a Gentile military man, of high status and reputation. He had evidently been successful against the enemies of Syria – including Israel – and the LORD had already been working in his life. He was a courageous warrior – but after that long list of positives there is a stark and blunt comment – he was a leper. There was no known medical cure for leprosy in those days. It was a dreaded disease which resulted in a slow death – so it is a very appropriate type of sin.

Readings: 2 Kings 5; Lamentations 1; 1 Corinthians 14

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians contains some astonishingly hard-hitting, and, perhaps, surprising things. How many members of our community have you ever met who openly deny that Jesus was raised from the dead? It’s almost unbelievable; but it happened in the first century (see 1 Corinthians 15:12). This was just one of the issues Paul sought to rectify in his two epistles. Such was the love he had for these men and women; he didn’t cast them off. They were like sons and daughters to him (4:15). And, like any faithful parent, he wanted only what was best for his children.

Readings: 1 Kings 19; Jeremiah 45-46; 1 Corinthians 4-5

Today, we do not hear God speaking. We have difficulty imagining what it must have been like to hear a divine voice (the voice of an angel perhaps) from heaven, but many servants of God (and sometimes others who were His enemies) had that experience. Nor have we heard the voice of Jesus; and we may envy the disciples who talked with the Master two thousand years ago.

Readings: 1 Kings 12; Jeremiah 38; Mark 12

God’s purpose is to fill the Earth with people who have a love and an enthusiasm for the things of The Truth. And this love and enthusiasm should be demonstrated in the way we live our lives today; we must not “light a candle and put it under a bushel” (Matthew 5:15) and wait until the return of our master.

In our first study we considered the impact of one decision in David’s life which we are not even told specifically he took – the decision to make a covenant with Jonathan. This time we will look at one of the most well-known and significant decisions of David’s life that we are told about. In II Samuel 11 we get the terrible and shocking incidents with Bathsheba and then Uriah her husband. Without dwelling on the incident too much, v 2:

“Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.”

David desires this woman and takes her, v 4:

Readings: 1 Kings 4-5; Jeremiah 31; Mark 5

1 Kings 5

How we deal with others always has a lasting impact. In 1 Kings 5:12, Solomon was able to prepare the material for the building of the temple by cooperating with Hiram because of his God-given wisdom. David set a good example to Hiram and future generations benefited.

Jeremiah 31

Actions have consequences, don’t they? The law of cause and effect is something we learn from an early age. If we are good, we tend to get a reward, if we are bad then we get something more unpleasant. While some actions have very rapid consequences there are other times when the consequence of the choices we make, take more time to unravel.

We will be spending two studies looking at David and focusing on two decisions or actions he took and the consequences of those actions, some of which were instant while others took longer to emerge.