Consider The Clouds

Our Daily Bread is hosted by Les Lamborn

READ: Job 37:1-16

Do you know how the clouds are balanced? —Job 37:16

One day many years ago my boys and I were lying on our backs in the yard watching the clouds drift by. “Dad,” one asked, “why do clouds float?” “Well, son,” I began, intending to give him the benefit of my vast knowledge, but then I lapsed into silence. “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’ll find out for you.”

The answer, I discovered, is that condensed moisture, descending by gravity, meets warmer temperatures rising from the land. That moisture then changes into vapor and ascends back into the air. That’s a natural explanation for the phenomenon.

But natural explanations are not final answers. Clouds float because God in His wisdom has ordered the natural laws in such a way that they reveal the “wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge” (Job 37:16). Clouds then can be thought of as a symbol—an outward and visible sign of God’s goodness and grace in creation.

The Lamb Who Is The Lion

y C. P. Hia

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Our Daily Bread Radio is hosted by Les Lamborn

Read: Revelation 5:1-12

At the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . [and] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. —Philippians 2:10-11

Bible in a Year:
Psalms 61-63

In Revelation 5, the apostle John portrays Jesus, the Lion of Judah (v.5), as a wounded Lamb (v.6). Referring to this word picture, preacher Charles Spurgeon asked, “Why should our exalted Lord appear in His wounds in glory?” His reply: “The wounds of Jesus are His glory.”

Typically, the symbol of a lamb does not represent power and victory. Most people prefer symbols of strength that invite admiration. Yet God chose to be incarnated as a baby born into a poor carpenter’s home. He lived as an itinerant preacher and died “as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7) on a Roman cross. 

The Danger of Symbols

"He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)" — 2 Kings 18:4

Having just witnessed their brothers and sisters in the northern kingdom of Israel being driven away to exile by the Assyrians, King Hezekiah of Judah began to institute some sweeping reforms to turn the nation away from idolatry. As we see in our verse, he began by smashing all the sacred stones and cutting down the Asherah poles.

But then, Hezekiah seemed to take his reforms a step further – he broke into pieces the bronze snake that Moses had made. But why? If this was something that Moses had made, surely it could not have been idolatrous, and so what right did Hezekiah have to break such a sacred object?