Daily Readings and Thought for September 9th. “THAT WE SHOULD BE SAVED FROM OUR ENEMIES”
Today we started reading the gospel of Luke. This is the Gospel that starts with an account of the father of John the Baptist, a priest in the Temple, who is made deaf and dumb because he questioned the words of the angel Gabriel who appeared to him as he was ministering in the Temple.
It was only after John was born that he was able to speak again. At that time he was “filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied” [v.67] and said, among other things, that their newborn son “will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation … “ [v.76,77]
This happened! But we then noted what else he said that hasn’t happened yet! John repeated the words of the “prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us” [v.70,71] The reason why these words were not fulfilled then was because they rejected their Messiah. Today there is extensive dislike of the Jews, although they are back in the land: it is surprising though, that they have relative peace.
We must specially note the vision that the Holy Spirit gave to John’s father of the time when “we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness” [v.74,75] Again, these are words that await fulfilment – and only today is the scene in the Holy Land such that this seems imminent.
Finally, come to Luke’s 3rd chapter where we read that the preaching of John Baptist included the following prophecy about the work of Jesus, “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” [v.17]. The fulfilment of this also appears to be imminent!
The world is overflowing with “chaff” – modern communication is making this more evident – but modern methods of communication may be a factor in facilitating the final ingathering (Matt. 22 v.10). May all who read this be among the wheat and “be saved from” our godless world.
