Isaiah 54-56

Isaiah 54-56

 

I feel like I always say this, but these were some meaty chapters J  So much I wanna write about!!!  Charles Spurgeon has at least 28 full (and very lengthy) sermons over these 3 chapters alone in Isaiah.  There is so much richness and content, that meaty…or juicy are the only words I can think of to describe them!!  On a side note, growing up one of my favorite songs to sing was based on chapter 55:12…and I was that kid who sang it at the top of my lungs in the grocery store.  God gave my parents patience for sure!!!!!  Made me smile to read that verse today.

 

I have talked about teaching first grade Sunday School at my old church in Albuquerque, going through the ABC's of God.  The very first week of the school year we learned (and I say we) the letter "Q" for "Questions."  These were the three questions we would be seeking and answering every week:  Who is God?  What is He like?  How should I act towards Him?  Knowing I have to stick with a topic or a theme, (there are many in these chapters) I am attracted to my God.   These chapters are almost like a painting, words as a medium to show us the answers to the questions up above…and what a Masterpiece He is!!!!!

 

So let's check it out:  Who is God?  What is He like?  These are a few of the answers I found:

·      Maker (Creator)

·      Husband (to Israel and the Church)

·      LORD Almighty (is His name)

·      Holy One (of Israel)

·      Redeemer (Savior, a rescuer) (this is repeated a couple times)

·      God of ALL the earth

·      Compassionate

·      Gets angry, but Forgives (He comes back to us)

·      Eternal (is everlasting)

·      Keeps His promises

·      Defender to the ones He loves

·      Merciful

·      Forgives (freely pardons) (55:7)

·      Divine (He is so much greater than us, we can not even fathom it!)

·      Offers and gives salvation

·      Righteous

·      Has a great house and welcomes ALL who love and worship Him (Jews and Gentiles)

 

Get the idea!!!!   I try not to forget that God os the main character.  This precious book is His and His glory shines in the chapter and verses, word by word.   I'm joyful that there is an aching and yearning to know who God is…to continue to get to know Him, to Love Him!   We can only find SATISFACTION in Him, no food, drink, or anything money can buy will be able to provide this.   The first few verses of chapter 55 are all about finding true: physical, mental, and spiritual satisfaction in God.  It's the only way.  But as we saw above, what an amazing God we have!  We are blessed to have the hearts and eyes to see Him!  To know Him!  Be intimate with Him!  If you struggle with this, focus on one or two of these attributed and spend some time just thinking about it, praying about how we can focus on Him, or praise Him for being the way He is!  As chapter 55 says, "Give ear [listen] and come to me, hear me, that your soul may live."  My friends listen up!  Listen to what God is saying to you.  Don't be a Jonah and run away.  Be still and listen, that you may know He is God.  That is the way to salvation. 

 

To close up, I wanted to ramble off a little story.  This morning I was a little cranky because it was so hot.  The a/c in my car stopped working some months ago, and jus haven't gotten around to it.  Not a great situation.  I was complaining in my head that it was so hot, my metal earrings were getting super hot and even burning my neck!  Ugh!  No bueno.  So, as the day progressed, bam!  Crazy rainstorm moves in and pouring rain!!!!!  And what follows rain?  A rainbow.  Well, I was at work so I don't know if there was a rainbow or not, but I did see on Facebook, that my friends saw a rainbow in Albuquerque today.  In Isaiah 54:9-10 we are reminded the promise/covenant God made with Noah so long ago.  This promise was represented with a rainbow: a reminder that God would never destroy the earth again the way He did with the flood.  Think about how many rainstorms there are happening at any given time, at any point and location across this great globe.  I truly believe that at every second of the day (and night) that somewhere out there, someone is able to see a rainbow.  God's promises are everlasting just like He is.  They are constant, solid, and truth.   I hope you continue to fall in love with our Father.   

July 17

Isaiah 53:3-5

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God

~ C. S. Lewis

I can still remember the first time I heard Romans 5:8. It was a moment where a light bulb turned on in my head. My dad is a pastor and I grew up in the church hearing about the love of God. I don't think there was ever a time when I doubted God's existence, but it took awhile for that knowledge to change the way I was living. I was at a youth group meeting when one of my friends quoted this verse. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." I was floored by this truth. God loves me even when I am far from Him. Even years later, the words of this verse overwhelm me.

While reading today's passage, again, I couldn't help but be astonished at how great God's love is. There are many, many prophecies in the Old Testament that point to the Messiah. Isaiah 53 definitely stands out among them as having specific and vivid details that we know were fulfilled in the death of Jesus. I was reminded of Romans 5:8 and how amazing it is that Christ died for the sinful. I had another "light bulb moment" when I realized that God devised a plan to send us a Savior, showed us glimpses of His plan at various times in history, and carried out this plan that cost Him greatly... all while we were still sinners. God didn't just decide to sacrifice His Son for our sins on a whim. From the moment sin first entered the world, God knew what it would cost and how painful it would be to restore His relationship with us. As time went on and people kept sinning, He never veered from His plan. God intentionally, purposely, and deliberately gave His Son for us. That is a kind of love that I cannot wrap my around. Thank you, God, for loving us more than we could ever comprehend!

Monday July 16th

" See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me."

                                                                                                               Isaiah 49:16

 

I love this verse.  I love the imagery that it creates in my minds eye.  I can see a loving Jesus holding out his hands with his with nail-pierced, blood-encrusted palms held up ward and outward on my behalf. I knew I wanted to write about this verse today.  I started to and then I stopped myself.  What I had written about was the technical, the intellectual, the mind tingling aspects, I wrote about the Hebrew meanings and significance of them on this verse.  But something stopped me.  God was asking me to step back and ask myself a question, "Lord, what do you want me to see in this verse?  What do I need to learn from this verse?"  God wanted me to look at this passage from a heart tingling perspective, from a place deeper then just my mind.  He was inviting me to experience him and his love through this verse not just to gain knowledge of him.  So I read it again:

 

" See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me."

 

That's when I saw it.

 

This verse was in the Old Testament not in the New where Jesus death occurs (duh).  Isaiah 49:16 does not say "I WILL engrave you on the palms of my hands" but rather it says, hundreds of years before Christ's birth and death, that God "HAS" already engraved me, engraved you on the palms of his hands.  Then the intellectual knowledge started to sink into the spiritual depths of my heart. 

 

The Hebrew word for engraved is defined by so much more: to cut, to inscribe, to establish, to ordain, to decree, to be a leader, a ruler, a law-giver.  It almost always has to do with writing or drawing. So many of these words are in verses throughout the OT that have to do with God's grace and mercy given to me, that speak to the future work of Christ on the cross:

 

18 When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.  Ex 31:18

 

17 You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance-- the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established.  Ex 15:17

 

9 He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever-- holy and awesome is his name.  Ps 111:9

 

22 'Do you not fear Me?' declares the LORD. 'Do you not tremble in My presence? For I have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, an eternal decree, so it cannot cross over it. Though the waves toss, yet they cannot prevail; though they roar, yet they cannot cross over it.  Jer 5:22 (NAS)

 

6 God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.  Ps 68:6

 

12 The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction."

Ex 24:12

 

Did you catch Ps 119?  It says (prior to Christ's birth) that God HAS "provided redemption for his people" past tense.  All these verses show that God has already done a good work for us.  The way has been paved in the OT.  But how?  Through the law?  Through sacrifice?  I still think that even in the OT it was all about heart.  It was all about relationship, a relationship with our creator.  God gave the law (which needed to be fulfilled and Christ fulfilled it for us) but he gave it as a way to help us draw near to him with our hearts not just with our minds.  But why send Jesus if redemption "WAS" provided already (besides just fulfilling the law on our behalf)?

 

13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.  Is 29:13

 

Throughout biblical history and even true today we focus more on the written law that was given, on the "works", the spiritual to do lists of our lives.  In NT times they were, and today we are, blinded by pride and self-pity and can't see the hand of God that has already done all that is needed. 

 

Like the Pharisee's of long ago, we still try to earn – to work for – our place in God's heart.  What we fail, I fail to see and remember is I have always had a place in his heart.  Before I drew a breath I was engraved on the palms of his hands.  What we needed to see is that the work was already done, it is already done, his love was already established (Ex 15:17) it is already established.  It is there to bask in, to enjoy, to soak up and live our lives in with fullness and joy.

 

So, like the prisoners in Ps 68, God leads me (through Christ) out of the darkness of sin that blinded me from the truth and he sets me – places me – into a family, The family of God.  I am his child.

 

Then like sands that hold back the tossing waves (Jer 5:22), God has placed a wall around me to protect me and to guide me.  A wall of beauty and grace that he watches over and maintains and protects.  A wall that is always in his sights.  A safe haven, a wall of salvation. Not a wall to stifle me but a wall to prevent my destruction and to promote my safety. A wall that will not allow sin to prevail over me.  How blessed I am!!!

 

No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise.  Is 60:18

 

God's love for me did not begin on the cross.  It has always been there for me since the beginning of creation. 

 

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  Jn 1:1-5

 

It is time to stop living in the darkness of my pride and self-pity.  It is time to stop living in the regret of the past and the fear of the future.  It is time to start living in the present or rather to start living in the presences of the one who loves me so much that he has permanently made me a part of him.  I am a beautiful etching that lives in the safety and comfort of my father's hands.

Sundays reading

Observations: 46:1,8 Bel and Nebo are the Babylonian gods without power who couldn't prevent the delivery of "their" people to Cyrus, God's servant. Unlike God who still carries His people, Israel.

46:9,12 Over and over again in this section of Isaiah, God says

that He knows what will happen in the future, "declaring the end from the beginning of time". God is far outside of time, and knows everything that happens at once. He reveals it to His prophets and people. The prophets can see some things from God's perspective, as they will happen in the future. God also has purposed certain things to occur, and brings them to fruition. In His sovereignty, He has set the rules in and of His universe (including giving man and woman a free will), and has determined that particular events will occur according to His timetable (such as the interval from the decree of Cyrus to the entrance of the Messiah to Jerusalem Daniel 9:25). Other times, God waits to be gracious based upon His people turning back to Him, or patiently hold off judgment based upon our repentance or exercises it determined upon our unwillingness to obey Him. To miss the distinction between God's determined and permissive will or desire, is to misinterpret Scripture.

Reflection: Since God does all things according to and for His pleasure, we should too.

 

Observations: 47:1-6 God will humble the Babylonians, into their hands He delivered disobedient Israel/Judah, because of their poor treatment of them. Since they showed Israel no mercy at all, the God of Israel will not show them any either.

47:7-15 Since Babylon showed "god-like" self-sufficiency and pride, God will bring them to their knees in desolation and destruction. All that they trusted in, their wisdom and wickedness, and wizards, and sorcery will be unable to save them.

Reflection: Those who trust in themselves will be put to shame.

 

Observations: 48:1-2 God calls Israel to account for calling themselves His people but not in truth nor righteousness (Ex 20:7 Taking the name of the Lord in vain). Being His people and swearing by His name should have resulted in them obeying Him and showing His righteousness.

48:3-6 God again shows that He's telling them that He is the one who will rescue them (and restore them to a rightful position), so that when it happens, they can't say it was due to their dumb idols.

Reflection: If you call yourself by God's name, or call upon His name, make sure your life reflects His will.

God reveals Himself as the Creator of everything. God has a plan for His people. He is incomparable to all, knowing and directing the future, raising up and putting down kings and many nations. He redeems and restores His people with an amazing salvation, calling Himself not only the God of Israel, but their Savior.

Our suborn self-sufficiency makes us miss out on God's provisions of us, and marks us out for discipline when needed. We tend to lose sight of the fact that God blesses us for His glory's, not our self-indulgence. We also forget that God knows, and has revealed the future, and that pleasing Him is the best way to enjoy it.

 

 

--
Chuck Goulart
President
Anytime Appliance
203-943-0961

"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes."

July 14

 

July 14, 2012

 

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace              John Lennon 1971

 

In his song "Imagine," John Lennon was saying that to believe in absolutes, truth and religion is not just narrow – it's dangerous. Religion has led to untold strife, division, and conflict worldwide. It may be the greatest enemy of peace in the world. It is ironic that no one taught David Chapman, the murderer of Lennon, that God says, "You shall not murder."

 

Isaiah 43:10-11  Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.

                             I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.

 

These verses completely unhinge a majority of Americans today. There is nothing more arrogant, intolerant, narrow-minded and bigoted as saying there is only one God and apart from him there is no salvation. Over the decades, liberalism has very successfully discipled us into believing that the absolute truth is dangerous.

 

According to the research of George Barna, two-thirds of American adults don't believe in absolute truth anymore. In fact, half of the people attending church don't believe Isaiah 43:10-11. We are truly seeing the twilight of Biblical thinking today in the west.

 

Here are three other statistics from Barna:

25% of born-again Christians said all people are eventually saved or accepted by God.

26% said a person's religion doesn't matter because all faiths teach the same lessons.

40% of born-again Christians said they believe Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

 

A Christ follower has the "world view" that believes in absolute truth and one God, who is all knowing, all powerful, creator of heaven and earth and he still rules the universe today. To top it off, we believe that we will all be accountable to him and he alone will determine the eternal destiny of all people based on their relationship with him. 

 

So why does it matter if there is one God or all gods are the same? Our worldview impacts every action of life. The logical outworking of believing there are many gods or we all worship the same god is postmodernism. It says there are no absolutes and every individual must be allowed to construct his own truth, to make up his own rules. Hence, as the Beatles put it, there is "nothing to get hung-up on." Everything goes.

 

If we don't believe that Jesus alone paid the price for the sins of the world and we neglect his sacrifice, that choice will have eternal consequences. Make no mistake about it; the issue of the exclusivity of God is a big deal. The hearts and souls of our loved ones hang in the balance.

 

So how do we hold onto absolute truth in a winsome way? This was the purpose of the book written by Art Lindsley of the C.S. Lewis Institute, True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic World.

Lindsley argues that we need to hold to the "absolutes without absolutism." He defines "absolutism" with negative characteristics such as arrogance, close-mindedness, intolerance, self-righteousness, bigotry, and the like.  The secret is to hold onto the truth while at the same time being humble, broken, and loving. In other words, we must believe absolute truth without acting like we are the absolute truth.  Remember this absolute truth, "we have all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." This tells us the truth about ourselves. We are all mess-ups and in desperate need of God's grace. There is no room for pride and bragging here. We are beggars who have found the bread of life and we are simply showing other beggars where to go.

 

Jesus said in John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." This statement is either true or false. Notice Jesus didn't say, "I am "a" way, he said "THE" way. There are many gods saying "I am a way." There are many voices clamoring for our attention and allegiance. But only Jesus claims to be THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE. There is no god apart from Him.

What a privilege we have to be in relationship with the true God.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Friday, July 13, 2012

Through Isaiah, God demolishes any perceived deity about the idols of
the time. He calls them to speak about things that should come to
pass, declare the future, and/or perform a miraculous sign to amaze
the people and prove their divinity. None if this, the idols can do;
for they are merely images made by man. They "are less than nothing
and….[their] works are utterly worthless" (Isaiah 41:24). Only God is
God. Only God has the power to perform a miraculous sign. Only God has
certain knowledge of the future and He exercises this authority when
He speaks about His Son who is to come. At least 700 years before
Christ walked among men, Isaiah spoke about Him, yet again:

Isaiah 42:1-4
1 "Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
4 he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his teaching the islands will put their hope."

Wow! Let's imitate the ultimate "servant," the "chosen one," today;
for the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead also dwells within
us that believe. Let's pass along His "justice to the nations," that
is, His perfect law, immeasurable mercy, and eternal salvation. Let's
be messengers of His grace and approach "bruised reed[s]," or those
that are wounded, with gentleness. Let's be faithful to loving one
another. Let's "not falter or be discouraged," for God has already
overcome the world. Let's impart this knowledge that will bring hope
to all the continents of the Earth.

Heavenly Father, we bless your name. We pray that your Spirit lead us
tonight and this weekend. Fill us with your love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, gentleness, and mercy to overflowing so that we
may overflow onto others. May everyone we come into contact with be
blessed by the fruit that you have freely given us. Father God, let
yourself be glorified in everything that we say and do. We pray that
our lives may be the proof of your unfailing love. In Jesus' Holy
Precious Name we pray. Amen.

God Bless,
Anthony