Yahweh appeared to Solomon again when he dedicated the Temple (1 Kings 9: 2) and said, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting My Name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.” (1 Kings 9: 3) Yahweh is talking about Mount Moriah (i.e., the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem.

“For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” (Thomas Jefferson)

____________________

Facebook Group His Name is Yahweh:

I use the Facebook group His Name is Yahweh to notify people when I post a new SnyderTalk.  If you are not already a fan, you should consider signing up.  Click here to visit the site.

____________________

Email Distribution List:

I have created an email distribution list that I use to notify people when I post a new SnyderTalk.  If you would like to be on that list, send your email address to nhsny@yahoo.com.  If you know others who are interested in SnyderTalk content, tell them to send me their email address, and I’ll put them on the list.

____________________

Websites you need to see:

____________________

Scripture:

Today I’ll show where Yahweh’s Name belongs in James 1:

James 1

  1. James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. 
  2. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 
  3. knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 
  4. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
  5. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 
  6. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 
  7. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from Yahweh, 
  8. being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 
  9. But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; 
  10. and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 
  11. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away. 
  12. Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 
  13. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 
  14. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 
  15. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. 
  16. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.
  17. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. 
  18. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.
  19. This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;
  20. for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. 
  21. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. 
  22. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 
  23. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 
  24. for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 
  25. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. 
  26. If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. 
  27. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

____________________

SnyderTalk® Commentary:

Currently, I am putting up bite sized pieces of His Name is Yahweh in SnyderTalk Commentary.  If you haven’t read it, it will be a treat for you.  If you have read it, you will probably enjoy reading it again.  Don’t hesitate to share it with your friends.  You can download the entire manuscript for free at His Name is Yahweh, or you can buy it in Kindle format from Amazon for just $5.

I have left out several footnotes.  Please go to the website His Name is Yahweh and download the manuscript.  It has all the footnotes, and it’s free.

Yahweh Appears to Solomon Twice

Solomon became king in Israel after David, and Yahweh blessed him mightily.  Solomon’s kingdom was unmatched in the world during his time.  His wealth and power were immense, and people traveled from distant lands simply to hear him speak because of his wisdom.

Shortly after Solomon became king, Yahweh appeared to him in a dream and said, “Ask what you wish Me to give you.” (1 Kings 3: 5)  Since he was young and inexperienced, Solomon asked Yahweh to give him “an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil.” (1 Kings 3: 9)  Obviously, God was pleased with Solomon’s request because He gave him what he asked for, but He also gave him great wealth and power that he could have asked for but did not.

Yahweh appeared to Solomon again when he dedicated the Temple (1 Kings 9: 2) and said, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting My Name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.” (1 Kings 9: 3)

This verse should cause alarm bells to ring out in the minds of people who believe Yahweh’s Word.  Anyone who thinks he can bargain with the Temple Mount is asking for trouble.  Mount Moriah is not a bargaining chip.  For reasons known only to Him, Yahweh chose Mount Moriah, and He made it perfectly clear that His Name will reside there forever.

God told Solomon He would bless him continually if he would simply obey His Word and follow after Him the way David had done.  Wealth, power, and wisdom should have been enough for Solomon, but they were not.  He turned his heart and his mind to other things, and it cost him dearly.

Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, and it describes his journey through life.  He sought to discover anything that could be discovered, and Ecclesiastes is a litany of the things Solomon did and the things he learned.  There was a great debate about whether to include Ecclesiastes in the Bible, but eventually it was included for only one reason, its conclusion.  The last two verses in Ecclesiastes sum up what Solomon learned in his quest to know everything:

“The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.  For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14)

This conclusion is absolutely correct.  It is a shame Solomon had to do the things he did to learn it.  In 1 Kings 11: 9-11, Yahweh makes clear just how disappointed in Solomon He became:

“Now Yahweh was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not observe what Yahweh had commanded.  So Yahweh said to Solomon, ‘Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear your kingdom from you….’” (1 Kings 11: 9-11)

You may be wondering what Solomon did that made Yahweh so angry.  The details are in the Bible:

“Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonite, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which Yahweh had said to the sons of Israel, ‘You shall not associate with them, neither shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.’  Solomon held fast to these in love.  He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.” (1 Kings 11: 1-3)

Before he died, Solomon built places of worship for Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Molech the god of the Ammonites. (1 Kings 11: 5-7)  He did these things to make his wives happy and to keep peace in his household, but there is no good excuse for what Solomon did.  Idolatry was commonplace in Israel, and King Solomon set the example that many people followed to their own detriment.

Yahweh was true to His Word.  When Solomon died, God tore Israel into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.  Eventually, the Assyrians took Israel into captivity and scattered the people throughout the world.  Today, the Northern Kingdom is known as “the ten lost tribes of Israel.”  Most of the descendants of people from the Northern Kingdom are still scattered throughout the world.  Later, the Babylonians took the Southern Kingdom into captivity.  Most of them were allowed to return to Israel when Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonian Empire.

____________________

News Items of Interest:

Commonsense: Dr. Gavriel Avital has either taken a lethal dose of Kool-Aid, or he is just another wannabe.  Your guess is as good as mine.  Dr. Avital, you should take a look at the Page in the column on the right titled “Climate Change”.  It would also do you some good to examine the Page titled “Yahweh Has a Human Form”.  I hope my Israeli readers will pass this message on to him.

I thought this website might interest my readers: Pharyngula.  It’s from an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris named P.Z. Myers.  He proudly boasts that he’s a “godless liberal”.  In this post, Myers refers to Gavriel Avital as an “incompetent putz” for believing in creation.  Let’s get our facts straight Associate Professor Myers.  Dr. Avital said he believes in teaching creation as a possibility.  I hope that distinction doesn’t confuse you.

In a May 22, 2009 Blowback piece (i.e., letter to the editor) in the Los Angeles Times, Myers said,

“Charlotte Allen is very, very angry with us atheists—that’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from her furious broadside in The Times on May 17.  She can’t stand us; we’re unpopular; we’re a problem. What, exactly, is the greatest crime of modern atheists?  We’re boring.”

Associate Professor Myers, I’m not as gentle as Ms. Allen, so I’ll get right to the point.  I don’t think you’re boring, but your economy of thought is stunning.  Why are you so afraid?  Do you think people will conclude that God exists if they are allowed to consider that possibility?  You claim you are a liberal, but obviously you believe your only hope for winning converts is to restrict people’s thinking.  Is that what you call “liberal”?

No, Associate Professor Myers, I don’t think you’re boring.  I think you’re a numbskull.  Like most people, I do believe in microevolution, but macroevolution is another story.  I won’t go into detail in this post, but you can find out more about my thinking by referring to previous SnyderTalk posts.

I hope Dr. Avital will rethink his position.  It’s better to do what you think is right and suffer the consequences than to do what you know is wrong just to get ahead.

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

Malacca Strait

____________________

His Name is Yahweh:

There is a wealth of material available for free download on www.hisnameisyahweh.org including the book His Name is YahwehHis Name is Yahweh is also available at Amazon on Kindle for just $5.  If you haven’t read His Name is Yahweh, you should.  The importance of Yahweh’s Name is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

Available on Amazon Kindle and it can be downloaded at www.hisnameisyahweh.org