✝ Daily Encouragement (3/7/24) "Like Firmly Embedded Nails"
Published: Thu, 03/07/24
A daily, Bible-based perspective of hope, encouragement and exhortation. The online Bible teaching ministry of Stephen & Brooksyne Weber.
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![]() Home Archives About Us ![]() ![]() Thursday, March 7, 2024
![]() "Like Firmly
Embedded Nails"
Message summary:
We need God's Word driven into our lives and have His truth in our hearts like firmly embedded nails. Keep this in mind as you live for Jesus today! "Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promise"
(Hebrews
10:23).
Listen to our message on your audio player.
"The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails--given by one Shepherd" (Ecclesiastes 12:11). ![]()
But first I needed to remove the nails from the 2x6 boards and many were
very hard to remove being, in the words of our text today, "firmly embedded" or "nails firmly fixed". Even with my large pry bar and all my aging strength I was still unable to remove some of them.
There are teachings in the Bible that require a bit of historical research to understand even though they were likely more easily understood at the time they were written.
Today's verse is an example concerning the words of the wise. We believe
Solomon is referring to God's Word as he writes of "the words of the wise" and "their collected sayings" - "given by one Shepherd".
There are two illustrative similes used in this text to describe the words of the wise. We will consider "like firmly embedded nails" in this message. (For additional study on the goad see below) ![]() The photo to the right brings back some memories. Those rusty nails were driven many years ago into some gnarly hardwood, perhaps a fence post, like that on my Uncle Gentry's farm near Harwood Missouri when I was a child. At some point the nails were bent in probably to keep them from snagging something and now after many years they show the rust as they've weathered moisture and age. At this point these nails are very firmly embedded in the wood. Can you imagine trying to get them out?
Nails in their crudest form date back to 3,000 BC, some 2,000 years before
Solomon lived. Our spiritual application is in regard to having the truths of God's Word firmly embedded in our hearts.
We have a role in allowing God's Word to be firmly embedded in our
hearts. We read, study, listen to godly teaching, memorize and hide God's Word deep in our hearts. The Word in time becomes firmly embedded like the nails in the photograph. When Satan's siftings are experienced we might be put through the grinder of fear or doubt, but in Christ we remain steadfast, firm, and
immovable!
![]() Ecclesiastes ends with this powerful truth that completes the thought: "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:13,14). We need God's Word driven into our lives and His truth hidden deeply in our hearts like firmly embedded nails. Keep this in mind as you live for Jesus today! "Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promise" (Hebrews 10:23).
Be encouraged
today,
Hebrews
3:13
Stephen & Brooksyne
Weber
![]() Additional study:
The words of the wise are "like goads”.
![]()
I joined my neighbor once as he was preparing to load finished hogs into a
truck on the way to market and saw the workers using a prod to goad them along into the truck.
One version renders the verse: "Sayings of wise men are like cattle prods , and those sayings collected by experts are like firmly fixed nails, given by one Shepherd."
We do use goad today as a verb which means to "provoke or annoy so as
to stimulate some action or reaction".
The goad is a long stick with a pointed end. Perhaps its most peculiar use involved Shamgar who killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad (Judges 3:31). I still recall an Old Testament professor explaining this verse and pointing out an ox goad is a "stick with a prick on the end". An obscure verse rarely considered indicates their value in the economy of the day. By way of a spiritual analogy the goad is similar to the conviction of the Holy Spirit revealing truths that function like "goads" (pointed sticks) convicting us of sin and prodding us on to live in the right way. Consider Acts 2:37 describing the response of the crowd at Pentecost to Peter's message; "When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'" Later the word actually is used at Saul's testimony of his conversion, "I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads'" (Acts 26:14). When God uses His Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, or as a means of directing us, it may initially be a very painful or uncomfortable stirring within our hearts!
Today's Suggested Music and Supplemental
Resources
A consideration of nails brings to mind the nails at the
cross
"He Took the Nails"
Watch on
YouTube
The
Browders
"He Chose the Nails" Brief teaching
video
by Max
Lucado
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Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. © 1984 by International Bible Society; NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. and the King James Version.
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Stephen & Brooksyne Weber
717-823-0592
Daily Encouragement Net
https://www.dailyencouragement.net
Mail service provider is aweber.com
495 Kraybill Church Rd
Mount Joy PA 17552
USA
Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options