A Man More Precious

Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it.
For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine.
“I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir*.
[Isaiah 13:9-12 NKJV]

Reading these verses made me realise afresh that God is fully cognisant of the jeopardy we are in at this time. His answer is the same today as it was in Isaiah’s time - I will punish the world for its evil - and His solution beautifully everlasting - I will make a man more rare (the KJV says ‘a man more precious’) than fine gold.

We do not think of our God as cruel, but to those - the wicked, the proud and the terrible - experiencing His wrath, He will seem the cruelest imaginable. God will see what we have made of His creation as if it were a mosaic - a fractured thing; a man-made distortion of His reality - and His desire as The Creator is to repair the damage, to see it restored to His original vision. And so God made ‘a man more precious’.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. [John 3:16 NKJV]

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“Take My Hand, Precious Lord” - Elvis Presley

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OSWALD CHAMBERS - RUN TODAY’S RACE
Wednesday 1st July 2020
I have no right to ask God for miracles when my next duty stands neglected.

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* The golden wedge of Ophir - The word (כתם kethem) rendered 'wedge' means properly "gold;" yellow gold; what is hidden, precious, or hoarded; and is used only in poetry. It indicates nothing about the shape of the gold, as the word, wedge would seem to suppose. 'Ophir was a country to which the vessels of Solomon traded, and which was particularly distinguished for producing gold; but respecting its particular situation, there has been much discussion. The 'ships of Tarshish' sailed from Ezion-geber on the Red Sea, and went to Ophir.
[from ‘Barnes Notes on The Bible’]

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