Salvogesis

Tomorrow we begin hamper registration at the corps. Hamper registration and hamper distribution are always an interesting time in any Salvation Army. We just came from Toronto where Christmas was quite a bit different than it is here. But the other day as I was readying application forms, appointment cards and Angels for the Angel Tree I was reminded of one hamper distribution day we had in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. Our building there is a former elementary school - like it was here for a bit. It is big and at Christmas time it is full of people; so it’s Hamper Day 2010 and everything is going well – we have so many volunteers helping from the community, it is great. In the morning I receive a phone call: someone is asking if he can register for a hamper that day. I explain to him that not only do we not register people for hampers on hamper pick-up day but that the deadline for registering was three weeks ago. He is way too late. He is persistent though. He is bound and det...

“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: ‘This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.” Did you know that some scholars consider that they are actually one book? Ezra-Nehemiah has two distinct sections pertaining to 1) the Temple (Ezra 1-6) and 2) Holiness (Ezra 7- Nehemiah 13) [1]  and some people even lump them together with 2 Chronicles as one whole work – if you flip back to the last two verses of 2 Chronicles you will notice that Ezra begins – with overlap – right where 2 Chronicles leaves off. [2] When I was going through teacher training many years ago, we were always advised to establish prerequisite knowledge prior to commencing a unit. There are a num...

15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.   [He told them to stop it!]   16 But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.   [They wouldn’t stop it!] .  17 He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians,  who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged.   [God stopped it for them!]  God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar. God totally wipes out the nation-states of first Israel (which should have been a warning to the southern kingdom) and now -in our text today- Judah because, Verse 14: “ …all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling ...