Submission

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Delight

 I delight in Your decrees; I will not neglect Your word. Psalm 119:16 Delight isn't a word we tend to associate with decrees. Maybe a vulnerable person might have delighted in some of the covid decrees; or a pedestrian in the highway code. Without decrees, we'd be living in anarchy. In the busyness of life, it would be all too easy to neglect God's law. Even though David was tremendously busy as the king of Israel, he always guarded his time in God's word. If he managed, we have no excuse. In His earthly ministry, Jesus was often so popular that He scarcely got any time to Himself. Yet He still often got up early, while it was still dark, and communed with His heavenly Father. He clearly memorised Scriptures in His armoury against satanic temptations. We devote time to what we delight in. Even if we don't enjoy work for example, we do it so we can earn money to spend on things we delight in. If we delight in God's word, we will make time to meditate on it. '
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Power

 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.Exodus 9:16 ESVhttps://bible.com/bible/59/exo.9.16.ESV  Secular historians point to the lack of extra-biblical evidence of Hebrew slavery in Egypt and ensuing exodus. But here in this verse, God describes how this anonymous Pharoah has been immortalised in the annals of the Hebrews, so that God is proclaimed in all the earth. The mighty men of the world might think they can stand against God and win, but resistance is futile!  The more stubborn Pharoah was, the more the Lord was able to display His power. The more insistent Pharoah was of keeping his slaves, the more unreasonable he appeared. It was a battle of wills, and the will of Yahweh prevailed.  In the end, Pharoah will have been broken by the plagues. In the final plague, his own firstborn son was killed, the next in line to the throne of the world superpower. He might have tried to put a brave face on it, but he
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Revelation 9:13-10:11

I appreciate that this is quite a long passage, but I wanted to include chapter ten in order to be able to strike a more positive note! Chapter nine is pretty discouraging, in talking about the lack of positive spiritual impact that suffering can bring. Nowadays, we tend to talk of pandemics rather than plagues, but when we read of plagues in the Bible, we can't help but compare them with the present day. So to read in John's revelation from God that the survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic won't repent is pretty depressing.  John must have felt like packing up and going home. He must have wanted to throw in the towel, humanly speaking. No doubt John applied chapter nine to his own days, as we do to ours, and we trust our children will do to theirs', should Christ's return be later than our departures. If reading chapter nine in isolation seems to tempt us to despair, reading it in the context of chapter ten encourages us to look upwards and see Him there, who made
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