March 5, 2021Yesterday, while I was driving my parents to a clinic in Montreal, where they received their first dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, I reminded them of the snow storm that hit the largest city in Quebec fifty years ago. I said that the snow began falling at around Noon on Friday and kept falling until Sunday evening. I was thinking that it was so nice that the sky was clear and the roads were not icy or snow-covered yesterday. A lot has changed in the past fifty years. You can see some differences in the following report about the “storm of the century”: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-storm-of-the-century-began-50-years-ago-today-and-lasted-for-days. In looking on the Internet this morning, I discovered that I had remembered things differently than what had happened. The snow storm that hit southern Quebec from March 3 to 5, 1971 began on a Wednesday and ended on a Friday. So, today marks exactly 50 years since that huge snow storm ended and I now know that what I thought for so many years was wrong. I think it’s because I began shovelling on Friday afternoon and didn’t stop much until Sunday evening.
How many times do we think we know something and later discover that we were wrong? It might be more than we care to admit. As we look at the book of Proverbs in the Bible, we see many wise sayings by Solomon, whose reputation was proclaimed far and wide. The queen of Sheba (modern-day Yemen) heard about the fame of Solomon and went to “test him with hard questions” (1 Kings 10:1). What she asked Solomon is not recorded, but after “she spoke with him about all that was in her heart” (v. 3), the monarch proclaimed: “It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me … Blessed be the Lord your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel!” (vv. 6-9).
In the first book of the New Testament, Matthew reports two different reactions to Jesus’ healing of a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute (12:22-24): the multitudes were amazed and the Pharisees attributed Jesus’ power to Beelzebub. Then, we read: “But Jesus knew their thoughts” (v. 25). We may be able to fool some people, but we will never fool the Lord. When some scribes and Pharisees told Jesus that they wanted to see a sign, He answered them by citing the sign of the prophet Jonah: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (v. 40). Jesus then said that the men of Nineveh and the queen of the South “will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it” (vv. 41-42), exposing the sin of unbelief in the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees who rejected the teaching of “a greater than Solomon.”
When I was in kindergarten, I painted a large whale and was surprised when my teacher told me that it was going to hang in the city hall of Saint-Laurent, a borough on the island of Montreal. I drove by that city hall yesterday and didn’t think about that painting, but many other times I have thought about it. I did not do much painting after that, preferring to write instead. If you are reading this and wondering if you are like the scribes and Pharisees that did not embrace the teachings of the Lord Jesus, I urge you to read the Scriptures and ask God to transform your life. Whether you remember everything you did in the past accurately or not is far less important than what you do today and from now on. May God help us to see things as He sees them and to live for His glory!
Scripture for the weekend: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction; for whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights.” Proverbs 3:11-12 (NKJV)
Thought for the weekend: “God says you can be one of two kinds of stars. You can be like the ones described in the book of Jude: ‘Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever’ (Jude 13 KJV); or you can choose a considerably brighter future and become the kind of star Paul describes in Philippians 2:15-16: ‘Children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life’ (NIV).” – Dr. David Jeremiah (from his Study Bible)
Steve