Thursday, June 23, 2011

Red Sky at Night....

As we drove home from church last night the sky was just beautiful ! A vast canvas for our Creator God to display His awesome artistic abilities! The picture I took just does not do it justice but the colors were fantastic...shades from the palest pinks and blues (made me think of the pink & blue dresses we wore on choir tour from FBC once!) to tones of grayish silver and gold were painted in great brush-like strokes in the clouds.

My parents used to tell me this when we saw a sky like the one I saw last night: "Red at night, sailor's delight. Red in morning, sailor take warning!" Usually this holds pretty true. I always just thought it was one of those "old sayings" but several years ago I came across these verses in Matthew 16:2-3...."He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"

So I'm assuming that the little poem about the red sky actually originally came from the Bible. Then I noticed the last sentence, "O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?", and I began to wonder. Why is it that in our generation it's not hard for people to understand or believe in science or politics or modern inventions & technology but yet so many people reject the Bible and the teachings of Jesus? People have come so far in education but in the process have taken several giant steps backward in spirituality!

May God help us to be able to not only "discern the face of the sky" but also to be able to "discern the signs of the times"!

Marilyn

6 comments:

Myra said...

This is so true.

Talk about ‘coincidence’, I read that passage to my husband this week because for some reason we were talking about ‘red sky at night’ and I told him that was from the bible (not the sailor part, though).

I enjoy your blogs so much!!

Hope you have a blessed day.

Karin said...

Love that photo and yes, we learned that Scripture very early in life. I guess I had never heard that it came from sailors, lol! Lovely post!

Leah Adams said...

I found another common phrase that probably originated in the Bible. "Like mother, like daughter". It is in Ezekiel. I had no idea!!

Marilyn in Mississippi said...

Leah, the first time I read that verse in Ezekiel about daughters being like their mothers it scared me to death because my daughter was just a pre-teen at the time!!

Karin, I'm sure this little poem was just 'adapted' for sailors. I'm imagining that the people had just noticed over time that when the sky was red at night the next day was nice and visa versa. I think Jesus was just saying that it was "common knowledge" in those days.

Thanks so much to everyone for the comments.

Marilyn

Yolanda said...

Marilyn,

Bill says this little saying all the time and so when you shared this in your Red Sky at Night...it really seemed like you were right here in my home, talking to Bill an I.

I love ya much-

elaine @ peace for the journey said...

We think we know so much... and we pride ourselves with personal knowledge. Oh that we could read the Word and truly set the compass for our lives!

Great pondering, today.

peace~elaine