Tag Archives: Blessings vs. Curses
No exceptions for abortion, EVER!!! Reply to Donald Trump
Even in the case of rape, incest or protecting the life of the mother, the Bible is clear, there should be no excuse ever for allowing abortion.
Amos 8
Amos 8
A Vision of Ripe Fruit
1 Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.
I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”
Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. 3 In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”
4 Listen to this, you who rob the poor
and trample down the needy!
5 You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over
and the religious festivals to end
so you can get back to cheating the helpless.
You measure out grain with dishonest measures
and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.[a]
6 And you mix the grain you sell
with chaff swept from the floor.
Then you enslave poor people
for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.
7 Now the Lord has sworn this oath
by his own name, the Pride of Israel[b]:
“I will never forget
the wicked things you have done!
8 The earth will tremble for your deeds,
and everyone will mourn.
The ground will rise like the Nile River at floodtime;
it will heave up, then sink again.
9 “In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth while it is still day.
10 I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning
and your singing into weeping.
You will wear funeral clothes
and shave your heads to show your sorrow—
as if your only son had died.
How very bitter that day will be!
11 “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread or water
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from border to border[c]
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
13 Beautiful girls and strong young men
will grow faint in that day,
thirsting for the Lord’s word.
14 And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria—
who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan
and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba[d]—
they will all fall down,
never to rise again.”
PBS Kids’ “Arthur” features same-sex marriage
PBS Kids’ “Arthur” features same-sex marriage
Amos 6
Amos 6
1 What sorrow awaits you who lounge in luxury in Jerusalem,[a]
and you who feel secure in Samaria!
You are famous and popular in Israel,
and people go to you for help.
2 But go over to Calneh
and see what happened there.
Then go to the great city of Hamath
and down to the Philistine city of Gath.
You are no better than they were,
and look at how they were destroyed.
3 You push away every thought of coming disaster,
but your actions only bring the day of judgment closer.
4 How terrible for you who sprawl on ivory beds
and lounge on your couches,
eating the meat of tender lambs from the flock
and of choice calves fattened in the stall.
5 You sing trivial songs to the sound of the harp
and fancy yourselves to be great musicians like David.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful
and perfume yourselves with fragrant lotions.
You care nothing about the ruin of your nation.[b]
7 Therefore, you will be the first to be led away as captives.
Suddenly, all your parties will end.
8 The Sovereign Lord has sworn by his own name, and this is what he, the LordGod of Heaven’s Armies, says:
“I despise the arrogance of Israel,[c]
and I hate their fortresses.
I will give this city
and everything in it to their enemies.”
9 (If there are ten men left in one house, they will all die. 10 And when a relative who is responsible to dispose of the dead[d] goes into the house to carry out the bodies, he will ask the last survivor, “Is anyone else with you?” When the person begins to swear, “No, by . . . ,” he will interrupt and say, “Stop! Don’t even mention the name of the Lord.”)
11 When the Lord gives the command,
homes both great and small will be smashed to pieces.
12 Can horses gallop over boulders?
Can oxen be used to plow them?
But that’s how foolish you are when you turn justice into poison
and the sweet fruit of righteousness into bitterness.
13 And you brag about your conquest of Lo-debar.[e]
You boast, “Didn’t we take Karnaim[f] by our own strength?”
14 “O people of Israel, I am about to bring an enemy nation against you,”
says the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies.
“They will oppress you throughout your land—
from Lebo-hamath in the north
to the Arabah Valley in the south.”
Amos 5
Amos 5
A Call to Repentance
1 Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing:
2 “The virgin Israel has fallen,
never to rise again!
She lies abandoned on the ground,
with no one to help her up.”
3 The Sovereign Lord says:
“When a city sends a thousand men to battle,
only a hundred will return.
When a town sends a hundred,
only ten will come back alive.”
4 Now this is what the Lord says to the family of Israel:
“Come back to me and live!
5 Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel;
don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba.
For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile,
and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
6 Come back to the Lord and live!
Otherwise, he will roar through Israel[a] like a fire,
devouring you completely.
Your gods in Bethel
won’t be able to quench the flames.
7 You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed.
You treat the righteous like dirt.
8 It is the Lord who created the stars,
the Pleiades and Orion.
He turns darkness into morning
and day into night.
He draws up water from the oceans
and pours it down as rain on the land.
The Lord is his name!
9 With blinding speed and power he destroys the strong,
crushing all their defenses.
10 How you hate honest judges!
How you despise people who tell the truth!
11 You trample the poor,
stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent.
Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses,
you will never live in them.
Though you plant lush vineyards,
you will never drink wine from them.
12 For I know the vast number of your sins
and the depth of your rebellions.
You oppress good people by taking bribes
and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13 So those who are smart keep their mouths shut,
for it is an evil time.
14 Do what is good and run from evil
so that you may live!
Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper,
just as you have claimed.
15 Hate evil and love what is good;
turn your courts into true halls of justice.
Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies
will have mercy on the remnant of his people.[b]
16 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, says:
“There will be crying in all the public squares
and mourning in every street.
Call for the farmers to weep with you,
and summon professional mourners to wail.
17 There will be wailing in every vineyard,
for I will destroy them all,”
says the Lord.
Warning of Coming Judgment
18 What sorrow awaits you who say,
“If only the day of the Lord were here!”
You have no idea what you are wishing for.
That day will bring darkness, not light.
19 In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion—
only to meet a bear.
Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house—
and he’s bitten by a snake.
20 Yes, the day of the Lord will be dark and hopeless,
without a ray of joy or hope.
21 “I hate all your show and pretense—
the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
22 I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.
I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.
23 Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,
an endless river of righteous living.
25 “Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel? 26 No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—the images you made for yourselves. 27 So I will send you into exile, to a land east of Damascus,[c]” says the Lord, whose name is the God of Heaven’s Armies.
Footnotes:
Is Mothers Day Pagan
Is Mothers Day Pagan? Is Mothers day in the Bible? Should we be celebrating it?
Bible Sabbath Fellowship Friday May 10th, 2019 @ 9pm est.
Host Paul Nison and 9 other guest fellowship and discuss Torah related topics.
If you would like to be on the panel email me at the website
http://www.TorahLifeMinistries.org contact tab.
Support us:
https://www.patreon.com/TorahLIfeMinistries
Spiritual Use of Cannabis (Marijuana)
Spiritual Use of Cannabis (Marijuana)
Bible Sabbath Fellowship Friday May 3rd, 2019 @ 9pm est.
Host Paul Nison and 9 other guest fellowship and discuss Torah related topics.
If you would like to be on the panel email me at the website
http://www.TorahLifeMinistries.org contact tab.
Support us:
https://www.patreon.com/TorahLIfeMinistries
Hosea 10
Hosea 10
The Lord’s Judgment against Israel
1 How prosperous Israel is—
a luxuriant vine loaded with fruit.
But the richer the people get,
the more pagan altars they build.
The more bountiful their harvests,
the more beautiful their sacred pillars.
2 The hearts of the people are fickle;
they are guilty and must be punished.
The Lord will break down their altars
and smash their sacred pillars.
3 Then they will say, “We have no king
because we didn’t fear the Lord.
But even if we had a king,
what could he do for us anyway?”
4 They spout empty words
and make covenants they don’t intend to keep.
So injustice springs up among them
like poisonous weeds in a farmer’s field.
5 The people of Samaria tremble in fear
for their calf idol at Beth-aven,[a]
and they mourn for it.
Though its priests rejoice over it,
its glory will be stripped away.[b]
6 This idol will be carted away to Assyria,
a gift to the great king there.
Ephraim will be ridiculed and Israel will be shamed,
because its people have trusted in this idol.
7 Samaria and its king will be cut off;
they will float away like driftwood on an ocean wave.
8 And the pagan shrines of Aven,[c] the place of Israel’s sin, will crumble.
Thorns and thistles will grow up around their altars.
They will beg the mountains, “Bury us!”
and plead with the hills, “Fall on us!”
9 The Lord says, “O Israel, ever since Gibeah,
there has been only sin and more sin!
You have made no progress whatsoever.
Was it not right that the wicked men of Gibeah were attacked?
10 Now whenever it fits my plan,
I will attack you, too.
I will call out the armies of the nations
to punish you for your multiplied sins.
11 “Israel[d] is like a trained heifer treading out the grain—
an easy job she loves.
But I will put a heavy yoke on her tender neck.
I will force Judah to pull the plow
and Israel[e] to break up the hard ground.
12 I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness,
and you will harvest a crop of love.
Plow up the hard ground of your hearts,
for now is the time to seek the Lord,
that he may come
and shower righteousness upon you.’
13 “But you have cultivated wickedness
and harvested a thriving crop of sins.
You have eaten the fruit of lies—
trusting in your military might,
believing that great armies
could make your nation safe.
14 Now the terrors of war
will rise among your people.
All your fortifications will fall,
just as when Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel.
Even mothers and children
were dashed to death there.
15 You will share that fate, Bethel,
because of your great wickedness.
When the day of judgment dawns,
the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
Footnotes:
- 10:5a Beth-aven means “house of wickedness”; it is being used as another name for Bethel, which means “house of God.”
- 10:5b Or will be taken away into exile.
- 10:8 Aven is a reference to Beth-aven; see 10:5a and the note there.
- 10:11a Hebrew Ephraim, referring to the northern kingdom of Israel.
- 10:11b Hebrew Jacob. The names “Jacob” and “Israel” are often interchanged throughout the Old Testament, referring sometimes to the individual patriarch and sometimes to the nation.