Why do the disciples of Jesus not fast like the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees? 1) Their circumstances are different (their bridegroom is with them). 2) The message Christ brings does not just amend the old way; it is radically different and brings complete change.
Gideon wins the war against the Midianites, righteously refuses to be king and judges Israel for forty years. Yet in making the ephod, he sets Israel up for their next plunge into idolatry and rebellion.
When God’s people get away from the Lord, they begin to give Him the leftovers. Their service to God becomes a weariness to them.
These chapters look prophetically to the day of the Lord. This will be a day when God will come in wrath and will judge the wicked. However, all is not lost. Those who fear the Lord will be remembered and will be spared. To them, the Sun of righteousness will rise will healing and will care for them as calves that are brought up in the stall. In closing, they are told to look backward to the law of Moses and forward to the coming of Elijah as the herald of the day of the Lord and the Messianic Kingdom to follow.
Bible Unmolested – During the American Civil War, one of the Baptist church buildings in northeast Tennessee, Mossy Creek, was “irreparably damaged. Troops were quartered near this church at different times during the war. A soldier in the Eleventh New Hampshire Regiment, who was at Mossy Creek during February, 1864, recorded the treatment that had been given the church’s facilities by the invading armies.
