Saint Louis, Missouri, United States - Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "Bad Things" Tuesday, 24 June 2014

Saint Louis, Missouri, United States - Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "Bad Things" Tuesday, 24 June 2014 
The LORD will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The
 LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.(Psalm 121:7-8)
It is my hope that you regularly give thanks to the Lord that His benevolent hand keeps you safe from the multitude of bad things which could happen to you, but don't. And if you're wondering what kind of bad things? I would reply all kinds of bad things, bad things which are almost impossible, bad things which are unimaginable, bad things whose odds are so small they can hardly be calculated. 
And to that you might say, "This sounds silly. Can you give me an example?"
To which I respond: be glad to. Let me begin this way: Pam and I have many good friends in North Carolina; the Daily Devotions have many subscribers in the Tar Heel State. We are glad that you, and North Carolina, are still with us. I say that, because in 1961, we almost lost you. That happened when a bomber broke apart over North Carolina and dropped two nuclear bombs in the area around Goldsboro.
One of the bombs had completed five of the six steps needed for detonation. The other bomb completed all of the steps necessary to go off, but it didn't. Why? Because its parachute didn't open, and the switches that were needed to set off the blast were damaged in the fall. In both cases, the bombs, each of which was 250 times more powerful than that which destroyed Hiroshima, didn't go off.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara commented: "By the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was averted."
So there you have it. Other than this small, but very important addition, what Robert McNamara calls, "the slightest margin of chance," I call the benevolent hand of God.
Now I would not have you believe that a nuclear weapon falling from the sky is a normal thing. It isn't. The fact that it is an uncommon occurrence is what makes it newsworthy. Even so, every day, there are millions of terrible things which could happen to us, but don't. And they don't happen because the Lord who loves us has prevented their occurrence.
Indeed, the Lord who sent His Son to forgive our sins and save our souls is continuously watching over and preserving us. Even in the days before atomic bombs, Luther knew this to be true. That is why he wrote:
"... I believe that God ... richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true."
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, it is most certainly true that You love us, keep us, and save us. May we never forget all that we owe You and Your Son for His sacrifice. This we pray in His Name. Amen.
Lutheran Hour Ministries has always stood for bringing Christ to the Nations, but we also want to share the Savior with those who are close by. If you would like to know more about how you can be prepared to bear witness to the Savior, we are having an outreach conference called SENT, in Detroit, from July 24 - July 27. You 
can learn more at www.lhm.org/conference. 
In Christ I remain His servant and yours, 
Pastor Ken Klaus 
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour®
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Through the Bible in a Year
Today Read:
Song of Songs 6: Friends
1 Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women?
    Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?
Beloved
2 My beloved has gone down to his garden,
    to the beds of spices,
    to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
3 I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.
    He browses among the lilies,
4 You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah,
    lovely as Jerusalem,
    awesome as an army with banners.
5 Turn away your eyes from me,
    for they have overcome me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
    that lie along the side of Gilead.
6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes,
    which have come up from the washing;
    of which every one has twins;
    no one is bereaved among them.
7 Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.
8 There are sixty queens, eighty concubines,
    and virgins without number.
9 My dove, my perfect one, is unique.
    She is her mother’s only daughter.
    She is the favorite one of her who bore her.
The daughters saw her, and called her blessed;
    the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.
10 Who is she who looks out as the morning,
    beautiful as the moon,
    clear as the sun,
    and awesome as an army with banners?
11 I went down into the nut tree grove,
    to see the green plants of the valley,
    to see whether the vine budded,
    and the pomegranates were in flower.
12 Without realizing it,
    my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots.
Friends
13 Return, return, Shulammite!
    Return, return, that we may gaze at you.
Lover
Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite,
    as at the dance of Mahanaim?
7:1 How beautiful are your feet in sandals, prince’s daughter!
    Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
    the work of the hands of a skillful workman.
2 Your body is like a round goblet,
    no mixed wine is wanting.
Your waist is like a heap of wheat,
    set about with lilies.
3 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
    that are twins of a roe.
4 Your neck is like an ivory tower.
    Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bathrabbim.
    Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus.
5     Your head on you is like Carmel.
    The hair of your head like purple.
    The king is held captive in its tresses.
6 How beautiful and how pleasant you are,
    love, for delights!
7 This, your stature, is like a palm tree,
    your breasts like its fruit.
8 I said, “I will climb up into the palm tree.
    I will take hold of its fruit.”
Let your breasts be like clusters of the vine,
    the smell of your breath like apples,
Beloved
9 Your mouth like the best wine,
    that goes down smoothly for my beloved,
    gliding through the lips of those who are asleep.
10 I am my beloved’s.
    His desire is toward me.
11 Come, my beloved, let us go out into the field.
    Let us lodge in the villages.
12 Let’s go early up to the vineyards.
    Let’s see whether the vine has budded,
    its blossom is open,
    and the pomegranates are in flower.
    There I will give you my love.
13 The mandrakes produce fragrance.
    At our doors are all kinds of precious fruits, new and old,
    which I have stored up for you, my beloved.
8:1 Oh that you were like my brother,
    who nursed from the breasts of my mother!
If I found you outside, I would kiss you;
    yes, and no one would despise me.
2 I would lead you, bringing you into my mother’s house,
    who would instruct me.
I would have you drink spiced wine,
    of the juice of my pomegranate.
3 His left hand would be under my head.
    His right hand would embrace me.
4 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,
    that you not stir up, nor awaken love,
    until it so desires.
Friends
5 Who is this who comes up from the wilderness,
    leaning on her beloved?
Under the apple tree I aroused you.
    There your mother conceived you.
    There she was in labor and bore you.
6 Set me as a seal on your heart,
    as a seal on your arm;
    for love is strong as death.
    Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol.[a]
    Its flashes are flashes of fire,
    a very flame of Yahweh.[b]
7 Many waters can’t quench love,
    neither can floods drown it.
If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love,
    he would be utterly scorned.
Friends
8 We have a little sister.
    She has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
    in the day when she is to be spoken for?
9 If she is a wall,
    we will build on her a turret of silver.
if she is a door,
    we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
Beloved
10 I am a wall, and my breasts like towers,
    then I was in his eyes like one who found peace.
11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon.
    He leased out the vineyard to keepers.
    Each was to bring a thousand shekels[c] of silver for its fruit.
12 My own vineyard is before me.
    The thousand are for you, Solomon;
    two hundred for those who tend its fruit.
Lover
13 You who dwell in the gardens, with friends in attendance,
    let me hear your voice!
Beloved
14 Come away, my beloved!
    Be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices!
Footnotes:
a. Song of Solomon 8:6 Sheol is the place of the dead.
b. Song of Solomon 8:6 “Yahweh” is God’s proper Name, sometimes rendered “LORD” (all caps) in other translations.
c. Song of Solomon 8:11 a shekel is about 10 grams or about 0.35 ounces, so 1000 shekels is about 10 kilograms or about 22 pounds.
Acts 7:22 Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works. 23 But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers,[a] the children of Israel. 24 Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian. 25 He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.
26 “The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’ 27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’[b] 29 Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30 “When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. As he came close to see, a voice of the Lord came to him, 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’[c] Moses trembled, and dared not look. 33 The Lord said to him, ‘Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.’[d]
35 “This Moses, whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This is that Moses, who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me.’[e][f] 38 This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living revelations to give to us, 39 to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt, 40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.’[g] 41 They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands. 42 But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky,[h] as it is written in the book of the prophets,
‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices
    forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
43 You took up the tabernacle of Moloch,
    the star of your god Rephan,
the figures which you made to worship.
    I will carry you away[i] beyond Babylon.’
Footnotes:
a. Acts 7:23 The word for “brothers” here and where the context allows may be also correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”
b. Acts 7:28 Exodus 2:14
c. Acts 7:32 Exodus 3:6
d. Acts 7:34 Exodus 3:5,7-8,10
e. Acts 7:37 TR adds “You shall listen to him.”
f. Acts 7:37 Deuteronomy 18:15
g. Acts 7:40 Exodus 32:1
h. Acts 7:42 This idiom could also be translated “host of heaven”, or “angelic beings”, or “heavenly bodies.”
i. Acts 7:43 Amos 5:25-27
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