DONNIE DAILY GEMS FOR WEDNESDAY MARCH 15:
WORD OF WISDOM
The Word of God is more sure than anything we see, hear, feel, or think.
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DAILY DEVOTION
The Right Side of Heaven
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In
my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told
you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there
ye may be also."
John 14:1-3
I read about a little girl who was taking a walk with her father on a night
when there were no clouds and the stars were shining brightly. Looking up at
the twinkling lights she exclaimed, "Oh Daddy, if the wrong side of Heaven
is so beautiful, what must the right side be!" We are told perhaps less than
we would like about Heaven in the Word of God, but we are assured that it is
wonderful and perfect. And because of the salvation freely offered to us by
God's grace, it is our eternal destination.
The reality is that with our finite minds, we are incapable of understanding
what the timeless perfection of Heaven will truly be like. It exceeds the
scope of our imaginations. "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).
However limited our ability to grasp the wonders of Heaven may be, there is
this sure and certain thing that we are promised-we will be eternally in the
very presence of God, free forever from sin, sickness, death, disease and
tears. David said, "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I
shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" (Psalm 17:15). The
promise of Heaven is given to us as a source of hope and comfort. God knows
the challenges and burdens we face, so He offers us the hope of eternity
with Him.
The certainty that Heaven is our eternal destination will keep our hearts
from being troubled.
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DAILY BIBLE READING
Judges 13-15New King James Version (NKJV)
The Birth of Samson
13 Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the
Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.
2 Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites,
whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children. 3 And
the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, "Indeed now,
you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a
son. 4 Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink,
and not to eat anything unclean. 5 For behold, you shall conceive and bear
a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a
Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of
the hand of the Philistines."
6 So the woman came and told her husband, saying, "A Man of God came to me,
and His countenance was like the countenance of the Angel of God, very
awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was from, and He did not tell me His
name. 7 And He said to me, 'Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now
drink no wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child
shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.'"
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, and said, "O my Lord, please let the Man
of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the
child who will be born."
9 And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came to the
woman again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not
with her. 10 Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to
him, "Look, the Man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to
me!"
11 So Manoah arose and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he said
to Him, "Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?"
And He said, "I am."
12 Manoah said, "Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy's
rule of life, and his work?"
13 So the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, "Of all that I said to the woman
let her be careful. 14 She may not eat anything that comes from the vine,
nor may she drink wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean. All that
I commanded her let her observe."
15 Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, "Please let us detain You, and
we will prepare a young goat for You."
16 And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, "Though you detain Me, I will
not eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to
the Lord." (For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the Lord.)
17 Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, "What is Your name, that when
Your words come to pass we may honor You?"
18 And the Angel of the Lord said to him, "Why do you ask My name, seeing it
is wonderful?"
19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it
upon the rock to the Lord. And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his
wife looked on- 20 it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the
altar-the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar! When Manoah
and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. 21 When the
Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew
that He was the Angel of the Lord.
22 And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, because we have seen
God!"
23 But his wife said to him, "If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would
not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor
would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such
things as these at this time."
24 So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew,
and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon
him at Mahaneh Dan[a] between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Samson's Philistine Wife
14 Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the
daughters of the Philistines. 2 So he went up and told his father and
mother, saying, "I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the
Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife."
3 Then his father and mother said to him, "Is there no woman among the
daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you must go and get
a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?"
And Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, for she pleases me well."
4 But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord-that He was
seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the
Philistines had dominion over Israel.
5 So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came to the
vineyards of Timnah.
Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. 6 And the
Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one
would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But
he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.
7 Then he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well.
8 After some time, when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the
carcass of the lion. And behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the
carcass of the lion. 9 He took some of it in his hands and went along,
eating. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and
they also ate. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of
the carcass of the lion.
10 So his father went down to the woman. And Samson gave a feast there, for
young men used to do so. 11 And it happened, when they saw him, that they
brought thirty companions to be with him.
12 Then Samson said to them, "Let me pose a riddle to you. If you can
correctly solve and explain it to me within the seven days of the feast,
then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.
13 But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen
garments and thirty changes of clothing."
And they said to him, "Pose your riddle, that we may hear it."
14 So he said to them:
"Out of the eater came something to eat,
And out of the strong came something sweet."
Now for three days they could not explain the riddle.
15 But it came to pass on the seventh[b] day that they said to Samson's
wife, "Entice your husband, that he may explain the riddle to us, or else we
will burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us in
order to take what is ours? Is that not so?"
16 Then Samson's wife wept on him, and said, "You only hate me! You do not
love me! You have posed a riddle to the sons of my people, but you have not
explained it to me."
And he said to her, "Look, I have not explained it to my father or my
mother; so should I explain it to you?" 17 Now she had wept on him the
seven days while their feast lasted. And it happened on the seventh day that
he told her, because she pressed him so much. Then she explained the riddle
to the sons of her people. 18 So the men of the city said to him on the
seventh day before the sun went down:
"What is sweeter than honey?
And what is stronger than a lion?"
And he said to them:
"If you had not plowed with my heifer,
You would not have solved my riddle!"
19 Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to
Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave the
changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle. So his anger was
aroused, and he went back up to his father's house. 20 And Samson's wife
was given to his companion, who had been his best man.
Samson Defeats the Philistines
15 After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson
visited his wife with a young goat. And he said, "Let me go in to my wife,
into her room." But her father would not permit him to go in.
2 Her father said, "I really thought that you thoroughly hated her;
therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better
than she? Please, take her instead."
3 And Samson said to them, "This time I shall be blameless regarding the
Philistines if I harm them!" 4 Then Samson went and caught three hundred
foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch
between each pair of tails. 5 When he had set the torches on fire, he let
the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both
the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive
groves.
6 Then the Philistines said, "Who has done this?"
And they answered, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has
taken his wife and given her to his companion." So the Philistines came up
and burned her and her father with fire.
7 Samson said to them, "Since you would do a thing like this, I will surely
take revenge on you, and after that I will cease." 8 So he attacked them
hip and thigh with a great slaughter; then he went down and dwelt in the
cleft of the rock of Etam.
9 Now the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves
against Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against
us?"
So they answered, "We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has
done to us."
11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of
Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines rule over
us? What is this you have done to us?"
And he said to them, "As they did to me, so I have done to them."
12 But they said to him, "We have come down to arrest you, that we may
deliver you into the hand of the Philistines."
Then Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not kill me
yourselves."
13 So they spoke to him, saying, "No, but we will tie you securely and
deliver you into their hand; but we will surely not kill you." And they
bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the
Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his
arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose
from his hands. 15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his
hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. 16 Then Samson said:
"With the jawbone of a donkey,
Heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have slain a thousand men!"
17 And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone
from his hand, and called that place Ramath Lehi.[c]
18 Then he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the Lord and said, "You
have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant; and now shall
I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?" 19 So God
split the hollow place that is in Lehi,[d] and water came out, and he drank;
and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name En
Hakkore,[e] which is in Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel twenty
years in the days of the Philistines.
Footnotes:
a.Judges 13:25 Literally Camp of Dan (compare 18:12)
b.Judges 14:15 Following Masoretic Text, Targum, and Vulgate; Septuagint and
Syriac read fourth.
c.Judges 15:17 Literally Jawbone Height
d.Judges 15:19 Literally Jawbone (compare verse 14)
e.Judges 15:19 Literally Spring of the Caller
New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James VersionR. Copyright C 1982 by Thomas
Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
