Yard Sale Mysteries

So I'm at a yard sale yesterday and picked up a copy of "The Mystery of the Shemitah" for fifty cents. It's been a best seller in Christian circles. I thought what the heck only fity cents. I didn't even know what a shemitah was back when this all was being discussed not so long ago but now I know. I admit I've only skim read the book. I don't know is the best I guess I can say. I need to digest it a little better but surely observance of the seventh year shemitah resulting in blessings or curses may be true. The seventh year shemitah is the seventh year in which the land was to lay untilled and all debts were to be forgiven. And the Lord did sent them into exile in Babylon for 70 years for disobeying the sevent year prohibition on the land. But how do we know God deals with all the nations through this "mystery of the shemitah" the same way He dealt with Israel? I say this because the author seems to interpret all of history from the shemitah angle - being blessed by it or being cursed by lack of observing it. That may be too grand of a sweep for me. And again, if the blessing or curses coming fom it hold sway over all nations then can we be sure the shemitah was meant to be universal in scope for all time and include all nations. Does God deal with all nations the way He has dealt with Israel, blessings if you obey Me and curses if you disobey Me, or has Israel suffered the most because it is chosen in a peculiar nation above others and to whom more is given more is required? I could bear witness with the author of things to come amidst strong prophetic warnings before they happen but no one has mentioned the shemitah angle in this way in all of church history and surely some church father or scholar would have been onto it before now. I felt a bit uneasy in what I was reading but maybe I'm spoiled or too elitist or something. Some of the reviews I have read didn't go too light on the book and maybe for good reason. Anyway, these are just musings from having skim read the book. But the yard sale served up a mystery for fifty cents and I couldn't resist. But I also walked away with "The Pursuit of God" by Tozer for fifty cents also!

Thanks for sharing your musings, I suspect your uneasiness is justified. Anything dealing with the prophetic seems to sell like hotcakes these days; people desperately want to know the future, not realizing that prophecy is not primarily given so that we might know the future but rather so that our faith may grow when we see the things spoken of come to pass.

The Tozer book will definitely pay a much greater reward on your investment, spiritually speaking.

In Christ,

Tozer was a true yard sale treasure. It may be time to read that one again.

Well,

"In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. Ther are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct "interpretations" of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water."

"This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be a cloud the size of a man's hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking. It can result in resurrection life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of God in our day."

(Preface to "The Pursuit of God" - Tozer)

Ouch! and wow!

May we all display the same passion for our Lord in our day as he did in his!

In Him,

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from the misty lowland where I have wandered for so long. In Jesus' Name, Amen."

("The Pursuit of God" - Tozer)

"The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart."

That passage has always socked me in the gut.