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Haggai 1
Give Careful Thought to your Ways!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Saturday, October 5.
Have you ever been distracted by your circumstances? Whether for a moment or for fifteen years, it is easy to lose focus on what you set out to do. Israel returned from Babylonian captivity with a clear purpose in mind – to reestablish Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. But they got frustrated and discouraged by the constant opposition they faced, even though King Cyrus had authorized their return and work in 538 BC (Ezra 4:4-5). The historical situation of the prophet is clearly stated in Haggai 1:1-4:
In the second year of Darius the king, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘This people says, “The time has not come, even the time for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt.” ’ ” Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?”
It was now 520 BC, the second year of King Darius, when the efforts to rebuild the temple began, encouraged by two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, as we learned from the post-exilic history book of Ezra (Ezra 4:24-5:2). There was a fifteen-year gap in construction efforts because of the discouragement caused by the opposition against the returned remnant of Israel, led by Zerubbabel, the governor of Jerusalem. They all needed redirection, so God sent them His prophets to say, “You are distracted; return to Me and My purposes.”
Seize the moment and give careful thought to your ways – “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Are you distracted?
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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Zephaniah 3
Trust Leads to Transformation!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, October 4.
The prophet’s call to rejoice at the end of Zephaniah is an invitation to believe in God’s faithfulness. This call to faith is captured in the stark contrast of Israel, the before and after snapshots found in the last chapter of Zephaniah. The transformation of souls brought about by the day of the Lord, as described in Zephaniah 3, illuminates the heart of God for His beloved creation:
- Beforehand in verses 1-4, “Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, the tyrannical city! She heeded no voice, she accepted no instruction. She did not trust in the Lord, she did not draw near to her God. Her princes within her are roaring lions, her judges are wolves at evening; they leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are reckless, treacherous men; her priests have profaned the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law.”
- Afterward in verses 12-13, “But I will leave among you a humble and lowly people, and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel will do no wrong and tell no lies, nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths; for they will feed and lie down with no one to make them tremble.”
The purpose of the day of the Lord is to transform people from pride to humility, tyranny to righteousness, roaring lions to gentle lambs. The salvation of souls is the heart of God, and His great love for humanity is why He must confront sin with holiness (Zephaniah 3:8-11). Whatever your circumstances, remember that God is faithful to work His will in and through you, which is to conform you into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, who is “gentle and humble in heart” (Romans 8:28-29; Matthew 11:29).
Seize the moment and trust God during the transformation process of your soul – “Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!” (Zephaniah 3:14).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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Zephaniah 2
Hide in a Safe Place!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, October 3.
Throughout our rural communities in the Midwest, there are giant sirens positioned throughout the counties. They remain quiet reminders of the danger that lurks by living in tornado alley. While they are tested every Friday at noon, they are used only when a tornado has been spotted in the vicinity. When the siren sounds, there is a prescribed response – hide in a safe place! Unfortunately, too many of us do the opposite – we sit out on the front porch watching the storm.
The prophets of the Old Testament are like tornado sirens. They were sent by God when there was grave danger, but the people tended to respond to them like mere entertainment, rather than heed the warning of the watchmen on the wall. Their call to repentance was a loving invitation to seek safety by hiding in God through a faith relationship with the only One who could protect them from the coming storm, just as the prophet declared to Judah in Zephaniah 2:1-3:
Gather yourselves together, yes, gather, O nation without shame, before the decree takes effect – the day passes like the chaff – before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger comes upon you. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth who have carried out His ordinances; seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger.
There is a broken place inside of each of us that struggles to do the right thing when we hear the warning siren of the Lord in our lives, and it puts us in danger every time. The next time the siren goes off, you are invited to heed the warning and seek shelter. Whereas curiosity killed the cat, repentance will save a soul.
Seize the moment and hide in a safe place – “God is our refuge and strength” (Psalm 46:1).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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Zephaniah 1
Love your Household!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, October 2.
The prophet Zephaniah was the great-great grandson of King Hezekiah, and, as a member of the royal household, he had access to the inner workings of the Judean government. That would have been great in good times, but not during the tumultuous times when wave after wave of exiles were marched off to Babylon, with the destruction of Jerusalem on the horizon. With that historical context in mind, the major theme of his prophetic work is the urgency of the coming day of the Lord, with the Hebrew word for “day” occurring twenty times in his short book, as emphasized in Zephaniah 1:10-18. Yet, prior to that horrific depiction of what was coming upon the people, in Zephaniah 1:7-9, he called for the punishment of those in privileged positions of the royal household:
Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is near, for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated His guests. Then it will come about on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice that I will punish the princes, the king’s sons and all who clothe themselves with foreign garments. And I will punish on that day all who leap on the temple threshold, who fill the house of their lord with violence and deceit.
In the same way, as the second person of the Eternal Royal Household, the Trinity, Jesus warned the people about the coming day of the Lord in Matthew 24-25, and, like Zephaniah, He did so on the heels of declaring judgment over the religious leaders who had the privileged position to help the people, but they would not even lift a finger to help them (Matthew 23:4). So, Jesus made a way for all to be saved by allowing Himself to be lifted up on the cross for our salvation (John 3:14-16).
Seize the moment and love your household as Christ first loved you (1 John 4:19; Ephesians 5:25).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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Habakkuk 3
Take the High Road!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, October 1.
The final chapter of Habakkuk is a haunting song; it’s a petition for God’s deliverance from difficult circumstances, and it triumphantly concludes in Habakkuk 3:17-19:
Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places.
This closing song begs the question: Is success your god, or is God your strength? I know the right answer, but my practicing reality is often the former, to my own instability and exhaustion. I have a suspicion that I’m not alone. It is human to do so because we are affected adversely by our circumstances when they are not going our way, as we hear from the prophet in verse 16, “I heard and my inward parts trembled, at the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us.” Can we agree that it’s hard work to wait quietly and trust God when things are not going well? The off-ramp to faith is to take matters into our own hands and do something about it. But that will only make matters worse! We are invited to wait quietly and trust in God’s strength, even when that feels passive, inconsequential, and unproductive. Even when our feelings betray us, we are to wait quietly upon the Lord, who is our strength and our stability.
Seize the moment and take the high road – Believe God (1 John 5:4-5)!
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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Habakkuk 2
Be a Faithful Watchman!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, September 30.
One of my favorite promises of God is Psalm 46:10, “Cease striving [Be still] and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” This promise was given in a more peaceful time than Habakkuk’s historical context, yet our faith calls us to believe that not a single word of God will fail, regardless of the circumstances. Even though the Babylonian threat was looming over Judah, we should not be surprised that the prophet yoked himself with the great prophetic tradition of Isaiah 62:6-7 (cf. Jeremiah 6:17; Ezekiel 3:17), by describing himself as a watchman on the wall in Habakkuk 2:1-3:
I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the rampart; and I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, and how I may reply when I am reproved. Then the Lord answered me and said, “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; but the righteous will live by his faith.”
The power of the prophet was not found within himself, but in the revelation given to him by God. Though Israel had been visibly decimated at the hands of the Assyrians and there was no known escape for Judah from the Babylonians, God assured His people of what they could not see through His faithful watchman in Habakkuk 2:20, “But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.”
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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Habakkuk 1
Ask Honest Questions!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Saturday, September 28.
I’m not sure who the first person was to teach children that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but it may have been the prophet Habakkuk who tested the theory on God. After the fall of the Assyrians (read Nahum), the Babylonians had become the dominant power in the region, and by the end of the seventh century they were knocking on Jerusalem’s door. The prophet cries out to God in Habakkuk 1:2-3, “How long, O Lord, will I call for help, and You will not hear? I cry out to You, “Violence!” Yet You do not save. Why do You make me see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness?” What profound questions to begin this short prophetic work by Habakkuk, a contemporary of Jeremiah.
After his introduction, the prophet records a troublesome revelation from God to the people of Judah in verses 4, “For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans [Babylonians].” Why is God orchestrating calamity upon the surviving southern tribes of Israel after Assyria destroyed the northern ten tribes? For eight verses, God describes the Babylonians, then, in response to that, the prophet braves a series of honest questions to God in verses 12-17:
Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? … [Then] Why do You look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they? Why have You made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler over them? Will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing?”
Seize the moment and ask God honest questions – “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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Nahum 3
Clap your Hands in Celebration!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, September 27.
The desire for justice is built into the human psyche; it’s a God-given instinct, an aspect of what it means to be made in the image of God. I grew up watching old-fashioned Westerns. I loved it when the good guys won, and the bad guys got what was coming to them. Happy endings are satisfying, and when we get one, we clap our hands in celebration! The prophet concludes his oracle of judgment in Nahum 3:18-19, with concluding words of celebration – rejoice because evil has been vanquished and God has prevailed:
Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria; your nobles are lying down. Your people are scattered on the mountains and there is no one to regather them. There is no relief for your breakdown, your wound is incurable. All who hear about you will clap their hands over you, for on whom has not your evil passed continually?
Assyria had been tried and found guilty in the divine court of God’s judgment, and the penalty for their sin was the death of their long-standing empire. All who had suffered under their evil regime breathed a collective sigh of relief and clapped their hands over their defeat. It was a good day because justice had been done. Anyone who has had a crime committed against them or knows of someone who has been the victim of injustice, knows the deep desire for a righteous judgment against the offender. We desire justice to be done and for it not be perverted. Our soul cries out for God to make all things right! This is the promise of Nahum!
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
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