Theme: IT SHALL BE WELL WITH THE RIGHTEOUS
Text: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.” – 1 Peter 4:12.
Comment: What St. Peter referred to as “fiery trial” is the wave of tribulations a true convert will experience in his personal life for identifying with the cause of truth and righteousness. These persecutions are from Satan the devil who is determined to frighten the believer and to make him run to strange gods for help. See 2 Kings 1:1-17.
Truly, the problems that afflict man today are many and varied, filling him with “labour and sorrow” such that it is even a miracle that people not only live up to the three score and ten years but also enjoy additional years of grace as stated in Psalm 90:10. In the words of the prophet Job, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not”. – Job 14:1,2.
Apart from the troubles people have to contend with daily, the devil who is “going to and fro in the earth, and … walking up and down in it”, (Job 1:7), targets the children of God to make things unbearable for them. One should stand firm and trust in God, Who “will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:13.
Theme: COMMENTARY ON HEBREWS 11:32 - 40
Text:“For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.” – Jeremiah 32:3.
Comment: Because the king and people of Judah had given themselves to the worship of the devil, God Almighty used Jeremiah the prophet to warn them, telling them that if they would not repent, He would make Jerusalem and the temple they took pride in to suffer the fate of Shiloh, where the name of God was in earlier times before it was destroyed and abandoned. (Joshua 18:1; 19:51; 1Kings 14:2.) For warning the people against sin the leaders determined that Jeremiah must die. (Jeremiah 26:1-10) However, some of the elders, together with Ahikam, an officer of the king, intervened to prevent them from their wicked plot.
Again, when the Chaldeans besieged Jerusalem, Jeremiah was instructed by God to tell them to submit to their rule to avoid death and destruction. This was seen as treason for which the leaders of the people convinced King Zedekiah to cast Jeremiah into.a well. But God also delivered him. When we stand up for the truth, even in the face of danger, God will give us victory in the end. St. Paul in his writings recalled God delivered them “from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10).. He added that God Almighty shall deliver him “from every evil work, and will preserve him unto his heavenly kingdom. – 2 Timothy 4:18