William Bode

https://soundcloud.com/wkbode/sets/blog https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/william-bode/id635644278 Monday, April 29, 2013 The role of a prophet of God. Ezekiel 2:1-10 NLT “Stand up, son of man,” said the voice. “I want to speak with you.” The Spirit came into me as he spoke, and he set me on my feet. I listened carefully to his words. “Son of man,” he said, “I am sending you to the nation of Israel, a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me. They and their ancestors have been rebelling against me to this very day. They are a stubborn and hard-hearted people. But I am sending you to say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says!’ And whether they listen or refuse to listen—for remember, they are rebels—at least they will know they have had a prophet among them. “Son of man, do not fear them or their words. Don’t be afraid even though their threats surround you like nettles and briers and stinging scorpions. Do not be dismayed by their dark scowls, even though they are rebels. You must give them

Originally wrttien 12/23/11 https://soundcloud.com/wkbode/theology101 Psalm 144:3-4 3 O LORD, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them?4 For they are like a breath of air; their days are like a passing shadow. Psalm 144 http://www.youversion.com/bible/nlt/ps/144/3-4 ------------------- The impact of this passage depends to some extent on your theology. Simply, Do you correctly understand who and what God is? God is eternal! That is, God has always been and will always be. God is above and outside of time and space. He can enter time and space as we know but unlike us God exists equally beyond past, present, and future. God is life. All that is life comes from God and is sustained by God. There is no life without God. God is described with some accuracy by three uncommon words, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. We say God is omnipotent and by that we mean God has all power. No person, being, or circumstance is beyond the power of God. God or

Saturday, April 27, 2013 The compatibility of bringing grief and showing compassion. Lamentations 3:31-33 NLT For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love. For he does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow. ___________ I've finished reading Jeremiah and Lamentations this week. I've also been preparing a Bible study on Joshua chapter 11. I'm very concerned for you and for me. I think we have deliberately misrepresented God. We think we know what's best. We are quite sure we know right from wrong. So we think we know how God should act. We stand in judgement over God. We gather others who hold the same opinion as us and feel smug. We feel self - righteous. We're confident we know how God behaves. God is a nice God. Or we dream up an evolved God, a new God, a changed God of the New Testament. BUT God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! God does not change. What God does is right. We are not be

Friday, April 26, 2013 The tables have turned. Audio Blog iTunes Jeremiah 50:4-5, 20, 31 NLT “In those coming days,” says the Lord, “the people of Israel will return home together with the people of Judah. They will come weeping and seeking the Lord their God. They will ask the way to Jerusalem and will start back home again. They will bind themselves to the Lord with an eternal covenant that will never be forgotten. In those days,” says the Lord, “no sin will be found in Israel or in Judah, for I will forgive the remnant I preserve. [to Babylon] “See, I am your enemy, you arrogant people,” says the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Your day of reckoning has arrived— the day when I will punish you. Jeremiah 50:34 NLT But the one who redeems them is strong. His name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. He will defend them and give them rest again in Israel. But for the people of Babylon there will be no rest! ------------- Go? Stay? Flee? Settle? Return? If you have read Jeremiah with me then you might be

Thursday, April 25, 2013 A dark skinned man brings light to darkest days. Audio Blog iTunes Jeremiah 38:7-13 NLT But Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an important court official, heard that Jeremiah was in the cistern. At that time the king was holding court at the Benjamin Gate, so Ebed-melech rushed from the palace to speak with him. “My lord the king,” he said, “these men have done a very evil thing in putting Jeremiah the prophet into the cistern. He will soon die of hunger, for almost all the bread in the city is gone.” So the king told Ebed-melech, “Take thirty of my men with you, and pull Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies.” So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to a room in the palace beneath the treasury, where he found some old rags and discarded clothing. He carried these to the cistern and lowered them to Jeremiah on a rope. Ebed-melech called down to Jeremiah, “Put these rags under your armpits to protect you from the ropes.” Then when Jeremiah was ready, they pulled him out. So Jere

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 Come and learn a lesson https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/william-bode/id635644278 Jeremiah 35:1-19 NLT This is the message the Lord gave Jeremiah when Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah: “Go to the settlement where the families of the Recabites live, and invite them to the Lord’s Temple. Take them into one of the inner rooms, and offer them some wine.” So I went to see Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah and grandson of Habazziniah and all his brothers and sons—representing all the Recabite families. I took them to the Temple, and we went into the room assigned to the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, a man of God. This room was located next to the one used by the Temple officials, directly above the room of Maaseiah son of Shallum, the Temple gatekeeper. I set cups and jugs of wine before them and invited them to have a drink, but they refused. “No,” they said, “we don’t drink wine, because our ancestor Jehonadab son of Recab gave us this command: ‘You and your descendants must nev

Tuesday, April 23, 2013 Rebellion, gone Listen to the audio blog on SoundCloud or iTunes I will cleanse them of their sins against me and forgive all their sins of rebellion. Jeremiah 33:8 We are all prone to giving up. It is so easy to be a quitter. And we have good reason to feel despair We have offended God. In our rebellion, we have broke his every law. We have treated his kindness with disregard and we have flaunted our hard hearts and sin. We think that we will change but we fail. We put our foot in it and hurt people with our words. We lack the discipline to exercise properly or to eat sensibly. We fail to do the good we know we should. We procrastinate. We are lazy. Or we are full of pride at our hard work and accomplishments but fail to realise the full potential of the good we could do for others and satisfy only ourselves. We see our neighbor in need and pass him by. We know of the pain and suffering of so many but think only of how to better our own situation and choose to forget the hards

Monday, April 22, 2013 endless galaxies of your unknown Jeremiah 31:33-34 NLT “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” __________________________ How your heart? I don't mean the health of your blood pumping organ. I'm asking how's your heart? This isn't a question of your love life (although I'm sure it's related). I'm not asking if you've found that special someone to spend the rest of your days with in blissful matrimonial union. No I'm asking about how you are within yourself? When no one is looking and your guard is down.

Sunday, April 21, 2013 God isn't playing God, He is God Audio Blog Now on iTunes as a podcast Awaiting His return! God isn't playing God, He is God Originally posted on Google Groups 1/10/12 ____________________ For the LORD hardened their hearts and caused them to fight the Israelites. So they were completely destroyed without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses. Joshua 11:20 _____________________ Joshua 11 is an uncomfortable chapter to read, especially if you do not want to accept God as good and right. We want to make God in our own image, but not even a true image of ourselves but a made up false God. God fights for his people. God utterly destroys the enemies of his people. God does not want his people to trust in the might of military technology. God required his people to disable it all the horses and the chariots. God controls the hearts of the enemies. God demands obedience from his people. A couple little footnotes, Joshua and Caleb were the two spies who forty years previous said God woul

Saturday, April 20, 2013 A heart to know me.-- A Tale of Two Figs. Audio Blog https://soundcloud.com/wkbode/consider-the-following-a-heart Now on iTunes as a podcast : https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/william-bode/id635644278 Jeremiah 24:6-8 NIV My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord . They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart. _______________________ Lost Baby Boot on Rustlings Road, Sheffield. The prophet Jeremiah had a difficult job. God wanted him to deliver a lot of bad news. Thankfully for us, and God's people then God's message of judgement always has little moments of hope. (Just as an aside today's daily Bible reading, for me, includes the famous 70 years passage that gets Daniel all worked up, but that's for another time.) God uses a couple baskets of fi

Friday, April 19, 2013 Social welfare is the strongest defence. Jeremiah 22:3, 13, 16-17 NIV This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord. “But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion.” _________________ Leeds City Hall When they march it feels like the ground actually shakes. Hanging sweet in the air is the smell of oiled leather and sweaty horses. The din of soldiers speaking a foreign language echos in the valleys outside the city. Had Nebuchadnezzar king of B

Thursday, April 18, 2013 Dirtbags? Jeremiah 18:1-10 NIV This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord : “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord . “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. _____ _____ ___

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Do you really want to be a fisherman? Jeremiah 16:14-18 NLT “But the time is coming,” says the Lord , “when people who are taking an oath will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt.’ Instead, they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the people of Israel back to their own land from the land of the north and from all the countries to which he had exiled them.’ For I will bring them back to this land that I gave their ancestors. “But now I am sending for many fishermen who will catch them,” says the Lord. “I am sending for hunters who will hunt them down in the mountains, hills, and caves. I am watching them closely, and I see every sin. They cannot hope to hide from me. I will double their punishment for all their sins, because they have defiled my land with lifeless images of their detestable gods and have filled my territory with their evil deeds.” __________________ Okay folks get your thinking caps on.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013 The nature of sin. Audio Blog Jeremiah 14:20-22 NLT Lord, we confess our wickedness and that of our ancestors, too. We all have sinned against you. For the sake of your reputation, Lord, do not abandon us. Do not disgrace your own glorious throne. Please remember us, and do not break your covenant with us. Can any of the worthless foreign gods send us rain? Does it fall from the sky by itself? No, you are the one, O Lord our God! Only you can do such things. So we will wait for you to help us. _______________________________ Sin by definition is an offence against God. God is the source of good. So evil is the absence from a situation of God's character, rule or word. Evil is man's suppression of God from thier lives. If you or I continue down our path of sin and wickedness we are trying to get as far away from God as possible. But as we abandon God, we leave behind light, forgiveness, mercy, grace, hope, love, life, and righteousness. Every selfish act, every unthankful act of in

Street Musicians at Debenhams by William Bode

Recorded outside in the Leeds City Centre Monday, April 15, 2013 Spock versus Kirk? Jeremiah 4:3-4, 14, 18-19 NLT This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: “Plow up the hard ground of your hearts! Do not waste your good seed among thorns. O people of Judah and Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power. Change your hearts before the Lord, or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins. O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart that you may be saved. How long will you harbor your evil thoughts? “Your own actions have brought this upon you. This punishment is bitter, piercing you to the heart!” My heart, my heart—I writhe in pain! My heart pounds within me! I cannot be still. For I have heard the blast of enemy trumpets and the roar of their battle cries. ------------------ We say we live in a an age of reason. And yet our science fiction still sees a need for the heart. Passion versus proof, gut verses intellect, these are the arguments of our day just as they have b

Sunday, April 14, 2013 An Invitation Jeremiah 3:12-15 NLT Therefore, go and give this message to Israel. This is what the Lord says: “O Israel, my faithless people, come home to me again, for I am merciful. I will not be angry with you forever. Only acknowledge your guilt. Admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God and committed adultery against him by worshiping idols under every green tree. Confess that you refused to listen to my voice. I, the Lord, have spoken! “Return home, you wayward children,” says the Lord, “for I am your master. I will bring you back to the land of Israel — one from this town and two from that family— from wherever you are scattered. And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will guide you with knowledge and understanding. _____________________ Stephen Lawhead writes novels of historical fantasy fiction that move me. In his series The Celtic Crusades he describes a character named Padraig, who is a Welsh Monk on a journey to the Crusades in Jerusalem. During tha

Saturday, April 13, 2013 Why reward the rebel? Isaiah 65:1-2, 12b NLT The Lord says, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name. All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people. But they follow their own evil paths and their own crooked schemes... ... For when I called, you did not answer. When I spoke, you did not listen. You deliberately sinned—before my very eyes— and chose to do what you know I despise.” ____________________________________________ Is your face turning red? I suppose you are like me and you read those lines penned by Isaiah so long ago and you can't help but feel like a person in family court but all alone. There is your Dad explaining to the judge how all his Fatherly love and overtures of help were ignored. It's not like you didn't need any help either, so you feel like slinking into your seat until you are absorbed by the oak bench. Oak would

Friday, April 12, 2013 Plea for a forgetful God? Isaiah 63:17, 19; 64:5-9 NLT Lord , why have you allowed us to turn from your path? Why have you given us stubborn hearts so we no longer fear you? Return and help us, for we are your servants, the tribes that are your special possession... Sometimes it seems as though we never belonged to you, as though we had never been known as your people. You welcome those who gladly do good, who follow godly ways. But you have been very angry with us, for we are not godly. We are constant sinners; how can people like us be saved? We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind. Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy. Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins. And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand. Don’t be so a

Thursday, April 11, 2013 What's the problem? Isaiah 59:1-16 NLT Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore. Your hands are the hands of murderers, and your fingers are filthy with sin. Your lips are full of lies, and your mouth spews corruption. No one cares about being fair and honest. The people’s lawsuits are based on lies. They conceive evil deeds and then give birth to sin. They hatch deadly snakes and weave spiders’ webs. Whoever falls into their webs will die, and there’s danger even in getting near them. Their webs can’t be made into clothing, and nothing they do is productive. All their activity is filled with sin, and violence is their trademark. Their feet run to do evil, and they rush to commit murder. They think only about sinning. Misery and destruction always follow them. They don’t know where to find peace or what it means to