076: Numbers 14; Psalm 34; Luke 22:1-38

NUMBERS 14:Yesterday in Numbers, we again found out what the Lord thinks when we grumble against him! Let's remember Miriam. Then the Lord commanded to send out the spies, but after taking stock of the land of Canaan, they brought an evil, unbelieving report— forgetting all the miracles the Lord had done to bring them out of Egypt.

Psalm 34:Today we read Psalm 34, which is another acrostic psalm. I cannot write a better introduction than the one already written by the ancient Rabbis.

LUKE 22a:Yesterday in chapter 21, we heard Jesus' prophecy about what will happen in judgment upon Jerusalem before his return.

Jesus said about his prophecies in chapter 21:32-33, “I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” If we take away the part about Jesus coming again in a cloud, then many of the people there would have lived long enough to see the other things Jesus talked about in that chapter. But if we include His coming again in a cloud, then to define what Jesus meant by ‘this generation’, we have other Scriptures that imply to us that God defines a ‘generation’ as all the people in a historical epoch of perhaps thousands of years. Then the next verse says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Well, here we are, after more than 2000 years, still reading his words. Jesus said that at a time when it would have been highly unlikely for his words to be preserved. But his words and those of the apostles have been preserved in more manuscripts than the sayings or writings of any other historical figure before the invention of the printing press. When papyrus didn’t last, believers copied the books on leather. Not only will Jesus’ words outlast heaven and earth, but we should be amazed at the incredible quality of God’s Word. Other ancient books are not of this literary quality. And compared to something like the Islamic Al-Koran and Hadith, the whole Bible is remarkably free of things that modern generations feel the need to sweep under the table. There are prophecies in the Bible (such as those in Luke 21) that cause us to wonder how they could happen, but God has shown us in so many fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies, that He likes to surprise us by fulfilling his prophecies in ways humans could not predict.