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Archives for January 2017

THE BOOK OF JOSHUA, CHAPTER 4, VERSE 21

January 25, 2017 by Dr. Mike Bagwell

It’s another miracle!

Performed, maybe “worked” is a better verb, by our great God!

The Jews, under Joshua’s leadership, were ready to cross the River Jordan and enter the Promised Land. And just like God “parted” the waters of the Red Sea for them to escape Egypt … He did it again! Except this time He parted the waters of the Jordan River, leaving the wilderness behind!

A River that was overflowing, in fact, out of its banks!

And once the transit was completed, God had the people collect “12 stones” (each retrieved from the middle of the temporarily “dry” river bed). Large stones, apparently, to be carried on the shoulders of 12 strong men! And these were (under command of God) piled in the middle of Israel’s first “other-side-of-Jordan” encampment, a place named Gilgal.

12 stones?

Yes, for a reason, too.

God explains to Joshua, and to us.

“And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. And those TWELVE STONES, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, WHAT MEAN THESE STONES? Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.” Joshua 4:19-22

A collection of rocks, God’s Idea, as a reminder of this great episode of Grace and Mercy and Deliverance … from the Hand of the Almighty!

“Object Lessons” … we might call them.

So that when others ask “What does this mean?” we can answer … with specificity, our loving Heavenly Father in His Power and Wisdom did such and such, another act of His great Faithfulness!

Examples?

Grandma’s Bible, the one from which she read and studied and memorized all those years!

That picture frame enclosing a favorite Scripture Verse of some giant in the faith! (My Mom had one, displaying one of her favorite verses, Isaiah 26:3.)

Even the pulpit of some great preacher of yesteryear! (I personally have seen two of these, gleaning further determination to stay true to the Word of God, to my calling in life.)

Maybe even the baptistry where new believers follow Christ into the “watery grave.” A picture of Jesus’ Death and Burial and Resurrection!

I’ve even known a few adventuresome Christians to travel to some out-of-the-way place where great Revival once occurred, praying for some specific need in their lives, their family’s life! Or asking God to “do it again” in America!

I’ve even ridden through once strong-in-the-faith college campuses, pleading for God to rise up another institution to stand boldly for the Word of God!

The possibilities are limitless!

What mean these “stones,” or anything else of spiritual “significance?”

Yes … use the young folk’s curiosity to teach them about our great, powerful God in Heaven!

“Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.”

Praise the Lord!

Dear readers here today, this Lesson can be practiced … by us all.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

Today I am placing several photos of last Saturday’s 4 hour Bible Class (Ephesians 6:10-18, the Whole Armour of God Paragraph) on the “Standing with the Bagwell’s” Page. Intensive Study of God’s Word, I love the idea.

 

 

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THE BOOK OF JOSHUA, CHAPTER 3, VERSE 7

January 24, 2017 by Dr. Mike Bagwell

A promise … from God to Joshua!

Unusual as it is, the Lord fulfilled it too!

Still is doing so, really!

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I BEGIN TO MAGNIFY thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” Joshua 1:7

The Lord solidified Joshua’s leadership position among the Jews!

God magnifying a man?

Read it again please, “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel.”

Wow!

The verb “magnify” is “gadal,” meaning “to make great!” Also having the idea “to grow up, to nourish up.” In a continuous action sense, daily God will do this for Joshua! The verb is framed in the Piel stem as well, indicating intense action on God’s Part!

And come to think of it … Joshua did NOT face the rebellion and anarchy and insurrection that Moses (often) did! God indeed so “magnified” him!

But the verb “begin” is interesting as well. It is spelled “chalal” in Hebrew and clearly means “begin” 52 times in the King James Version. But it occurs 141 times in the Bible! And most of those times it is translated in ways like this: “break, wound,” and related terms, some even stronger!

Lesson?

Maybe God makes us “great” by humiliating us! By showing us often we are mere clay, dirt, housing the precious substance of the Grace of God!

Wow!

Still, Joshua had the Word of God on it. “That they (the Israelites and other peoples of the world) may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”

The preposition “with” is powerful!

Spelled “im” in Hebrew, it means “in fellowship and companionship!”

With Almighty God!

I don’t know if I’ve ever written a 3 “Wow” Lesson or not …

But here goes … Wow!

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”

I stand amazed!

Now I’m remembering Psalm 75:6-7. “For PROMOTION cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and SETTETH UP another.”

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Really I sit amazed, in front of a keyboard on a cold Tuesday morning in January, 2017. A text or two today, concerning the Lesson, might be encouraging! At 770-844-7627, my cell number.

 

 

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THE BOOK OF JOSHUA, CHAPTER 3, VERSE 5

January 23, 2017 by Dr. Mike Bagwell

I am not advocating a system of “works” today. I am not saying that a man can be “right” with God via moral living, or whatever. Salvation is given by “Grace,” a freely bestowed and eternal state of right standing before Almighty God.

But still I’d like to use Joshua 3:5 as our Text for the Bible Study this morning. It contains a vital truth about God’s dealings with His people, after they have been saved.

“And Joshua said unto the people, SANCTIFY yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do WONDERS among you.”

Wow!

I am sitting here thinking … perhaps one of the reasons why we no longer see many of God’s “wonders” among us, is that we no longer properly “sanctify” ourselves!

The verb “sanctify” here translates the Hebrew word “qadash,” literally meaning “to prepare, dedicate, consecrate” or even “to set apart” oneself! And it’s an imperative here, a clear and direct command from God to the Israelites!

If God is going to do those mighty wonders … the Jews must prepare themselves, clear all known sin out of their lives!

God even gives them a day’s notice … as if we followers of the Lord should need to be told to live right! What a kind, loving God He is!

And if Israel does so clean herself … God will do what?

“Wonder,” simply spelled “pala” in Hebrew, is translated “hard” things five times in the Bible, but “marvelous” many times more! In fact, twice the word suggests a “performance!” God, if you will allow me to say it reverently, “putting on a show!” To His Glory!

Wow again!

Lesson is over for today.

There may be exceptions to the rule, but here it is in the Bible. The more holy (more godly, more purely) I conduct myself … God is then more apt to do those wondrous acts around me, before me, for me.

And this was true in Joshua’s time even of a Nation!

Amazing!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

 

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THE BOOK OF JOSHUA, CHAPTER 2, VERSE 1

January 20, 2017 by Dr. Mike Bagwell

What a story!

And factual to the core, having literally occurred!

Really all of Joshua chapter 2 reads like a classic “spy” novel, except it is instead non-fiction, the absolute truth!

Here’s its first verse, number one of twenty-four: “And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim TWO MEN to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, named RAHAB, and lodged there.”

Where did Joshua learn to send “spies” like this?

From Moses. “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search (spy) the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them.” Numbers 13:1-2

No doubt Joshua was a good learner!

Furthermore … Joshua’s spies had a plan.

They would locate and use a “house” somewhere in the City Jericho … as a base of operations for their covert mission. But HOW they chose the place is not recorded for us!

Yet God, surely, had gone before them, preparing their way!

Their hostess (a harlot named Rahab) already had been “touched” with a holy fear of the Almighty! And she was favorable to the two (likely young) Jewish boys, soldiers.

Long story short … Rahab protected the men.

And wanted for her (and her family) to be “saved” when the Jewish attack finally came!

All of which transpired, exactly as planned.

Virtually … the next thing we know of Rahab, she is married!

And a mother!

Matthew gives us the details, five hundred years later!

“And SALMON begat Booz of RAHAB; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias.”  Wow, Matthew 1:5-6.

We now know the name of Rahab’s husband. He was a Jew, as one might suspect. “Salmon,” to be precise. He and Rahab were parents to a baby they named “Boaz!” (Yes, the Greek spellings are a little different than the Hebrew, but the names are essentially the same.)

So Rahab is mother to Boaz and grandmother to Obed and great-grandmother to Jesse? Yes, clearly so. That makes her then the great-great grandmother to David, King David of Israel!

And so forth, down through the centuries until Jesus Christ is born, God’s Son!

Rahab, in the “godly line” that gave us Jesus, the humanity of God incarnate?

Yes!

What an event of Grace!

What a biography!

Truly fact is often stranger than fiction!

More beautiful, too!

Oh, one more thought, a possibility anyway.

What was Rahab’s husband’s name?

I remember, we just learned it … Salmon.

I’ve wondered for years … at least it is imaginable … Salmon well could have been one of the very spies (there were two of them, you recall) who first came to Rahab and offered her the marvelous Grace of God! Whom Rahab protected, at great risk!

Is Joshua 2:1 a love story, or the start of one?

Was it maybe “love at first sight?”

If so, no wonder Rahab was so impassioned in her desire to save the spies, no matter what it might have personally cost her!

And if things happened that way, God has once again shown His sweet Mercy and ingenious Wisdom in the lives of us human beings!

We used to put it this way, when I was a boy:

Rahab + Salmon!

And if that be the case, the equation fully reads …

Rahab + Salmon = Boaz!

And then you (we all really) know the rest of the story!

Can I prove this? 

No, certainly not the part about Salmon being one of the spies.

But the rest of the account, yes!

It’s the inspired Word of God.

But “love” got into this story somewhere!

(Wish we could have heard all the conversation between this presumably pretty gentile girl and her two guests during that whole time!)

Mercy, God is good!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Husbands, think back today to the hour God led you to the girl who is now your wife! Then thank the Lord for the “love story” you can tell!

 

 

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THE BOOK OF JOSHUA, CHAPTER 1, VERSE 8

January 19, 2017 by Dr. Mike Bagwell

I doubt any writer could inspect Joshua chapter 1 without commenting on that great 8th verse. I suspect it ranks as one of the greatest promises in all the Bible.

The Lord meant it to encourage Joshua too, undoubtedly. I say that because the very next verse seems to have linkage with its neighbor, verse 9 I mean.

“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Joshua 1:8

Then subsequently, verse 9. “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

Wow!

Let’s discuss these truths.

The expression “this book of the law” is a synonym for the writings of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy) at least. But I think the phrase also represents (now) the whole (completed) Word of God, all the Bible!

Keep its words, Joshua, in “thy mouth!”

Then immediately God commanded his new General … “meditate” therein day and night.

These two expressions have similarities.

The noun “mouth” is “peh” in Hebrew, with its root verb suggesting the action of “breaking, shattering, destroying” something! Yes, the words we speak are that dangerous! Think of this! A “danger warning” is built into the very word God chose to represent our tongues, our vocabulary, our speaking!

And the verb “meditate?”

It is spelled “hagah” in Hebrew and basically means “to mutter, to growl, to speak” lowly, almost under one’s breath! (In other words, get a piece of God’s Word and think about it all day, rolling it off your tongue, uttering its phrases all through the night!)

By the way, we learn to mediate on the Word … in order to obey the Word! (“That thou mayest observe to do!”) That’s a given in all Bible study!

And then IF (instead of hurting people with my words) I use my tongue to talk the Bible … to edify myself … God will then do some things! God will send some parallel blessings along with that “pondering” and all that “doing” His Word!

And those are?

“Then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Prosperity and success!

The first word (translated “to make one’s way prosperous”) means “to break out, to make progress.”

And the second (“having good success”) means ” to become wise!”

This is thrilling!

Then (verse 9 as I said earlier) it seems that God’s Word might be equivalent to (in some ways) to God’s very Presence!

Again … consequently … “the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

The order now …

Get some Scripture in your mind.

Talk it, speak it quietly (meditate) all day (and night).

Determine to obey it, letting it impact your life.

Then let God do the rest, blessing you as He sees fit, as He has promised.

And you will thereby be (and likely stay) encouraged!

Amen!

Like I said, how could any Preacher omit sharing this thought?

This great promise?

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

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