THE LORD SPOKE (September 5)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: Proverbs 8-10

Proverbs 10:19 - When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.

• Would you like to sin less? Talk less!
• Adding many words will multiply sin and divide friends.
• A ton of words will tungle the tange every time.
• “Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a good thing to say.” (Will Durant)
• Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
• “The only edged tool that gets sharper with use is the tongue.” (Washington Irving)

Writing proverbs about the tongue is not a hard thing to do. What's hard is to tame the tongue. Really hard! In fact, James tells us that “no man can tame the tongue” (3:8). Earlier he said that, “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check” (3:2). We go on diets and get into exercise programs to discipline our bodies. Is there something like that which we should do for our tongues?

Proverbs mentions several categories of tongues - both good and bad:

• lying tongue (6:17; 26:28)
• healing tongue (12:18, 15:4)
• deceiving tongue (17:20)
• guarded tongue (21:23)
• gentle tongue (25:15)
• flattering tongue (28:23)
• teaching tongue (31:26)

That should give us something to aim at. The solution is going to come from God’s Word, be sure of that. If we would fill our hearts with Scripture and God’s thoughts, it's bound to have the desired result. Here’s what Jesus had to say about that:

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)


New Testament: Revelation 11

Where is the Ark of the Covenant? At the end of Revelation 11 it is located in heaven. That must have some bearing on the question today.

Following the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians, there is no more mention of the Ark in the Old Testament. We are left with three possibilities:

1. It was destroyed at the same time as the Temple (but why no mention?).
2. It was taken to Babylon along with the other Temple utensils (but then, why is it not mentioned along with all the other items, either going or returning, and why is it not in the rebuilt Temple?).
3. It was hidden away by the priests before the Babylonians got there.

Of the three, the last seems to be the most likely. That leads to at least three possibilities:

1. It was hidden underground in the area of the Temple by the priests before the arrival of the Babylonians. This is the most widely accepted idea among orthodox Jews today and Rabbi Goren (the chief rabbi at the time of the Six-Day War) fed this theory with some unsubstantiated claims. Indeed, the entire area of the Temple Mount is honey-combed with cisterns and some connecting channels, providing innumerable possibilities.
2. It was secreted away to an off-site hiding place (across the Jordan River has been commonly suggested but there is no evidence at all. Forget Petra!). There are various later developments in this theory. For example, the Knights Templar are said to have carted it away during the Crusades to France, or Britain, or Ireland.
3. It was taken to Egypt by Jeremiah and the Jewish refugees and eventually found its way down to Ethiopia. This seems so far-fetched but the persistence of the story and some attempt to account for the Falashas justifies including it on the list.

If it’s going to be located in heaven in Revelation 11, does that mean that it’s there now? Perhaps not. The Bible tells us that there will be a temple rebuilt at some point before or during the Tribulation. It’s possible that the Tribulation Temple will be the one still standing in the Millennium, but it seems more likely that it will be destroyed again and an entirely new (and much larger) Temple will be built during the Millennium. The present topography of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount won’t accommodate the dimensions of the Temple measured and described by Ezekiel. Chronologically, Revelation 11 comes before Christ’s millennial kingdom so it could be that the Ark of the Covenant is relocated in heaven in relation to the events of the Tribulation.

Will it show up in the meantime? That’s a big question but one thing is pretty certain - it’s not likely that the Ark of the Covenant is stored in some warehouse in Washington, DC.