Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus)

How are you in meetings?  I have attended a lot of meetings of humans in my career as a teacher and in ministry as a leader.  As I sat there listening, I tried to stay focused on what was being said, but sometimes my mind would wander to what I should be accomplishing in my classroom or in ministry, what calls I needed to make or on what project I needed to complete.  I felt robbed of the time I sat there.  In this day and time, we ask, “Couldn’t this have been written in an email for me to read later?”

Have you ever been in this situation?  Did you keep checking the time?  Did you stop your unfocused thoughts for that moment with ears pricked when the speaker says, “And now in closing…” so the real reason of the meeting is expressed and you can leave?  We ask ourselves, “What are they trying to tell me that will benefit what I have been given to do?”  “What is the real message they are trying to convey?”  Are all these words being said the truth or summations and opinions of past experiences.  What is the bottom line?  What is the last word?

In a world of busy activities that need to be done at a certain time in a specific way, we sometimes miss the last word from the One who loved us first, loves us most and loves us forever.  It was no different in the time of Isaiah.  We might be impressed with who God is and even throw up a few prayers when we are in trouble; but are we hearing, believing, and following His “Last Word”—Jesus, Immanuel, “God with us”? 

Isaiah 8, The Message

Then God told me, “Get a big sheet of paper and write in indelible ink, ‘This belongs to Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Spoil-Speeds-Plunder-Hurries).’”

^2-3 I got two honest men, Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah, to witness the document. Then I went home to my wife, the prophetess. She conceived and gave birth to a son.

^3-4 God told me, “Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Before that baby says ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mamma’ the king of Assyria will have plundered the wealth of Damascus and the riches of Samaria.”

* * *

^5-8 God spoke to me again, saying:

“Because this people has turned its back
    on the gently flowing stream of Shiloah
And gotten all excited over Rezin
    and the son of Remaliah,
I’m stepping in and facing them with
    the wild floodwaters of the Euphrates,
The king of Assyria and all his fanfare,
    a river in flood, bursting its banks,
Pouring into Judah, sweeping everything before it,
    water up to your necks,
A huge wingspan of a raging river,
    O Immanuel, spreading across your land.”

* * *

^9-10 But face the facts, all you oppressors, and then wring your hands.
    Listen, all of you, far and near.
Prepare for the worst and wring your hands.
    Yes, prepare for the worst and wring your hands!
Plan and plot all you want—nothing will come of it.
    All your talk is mere talk, empty words,
Because when all is said and done,
    the last word is Immanuel—God-With-Us.

A Boulder Blocking Your Way

^11-15 God spoke strongly to me, grabbed me with both hands and warned me not to go along with this people. He said:

“Don’t be like this people,
    always afraid somebody is plotting against them.
Don’t fear what they fear.
    Don’t take on their worries.
If you’re going to worry,
    worry about The Holy. Fear God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
The Holy can be either a Hiding Place
    or a Boulder blocking your way,
The Rock standing in the willful way
    of both houses of Israel,
A barbed-wire Fence preventing trespass
    to the citizens of Jerusalem.
Many of them are going to run into that Rock
    and get their bones broken,
Get tangled up in that barbed wire
    and not get free of it.”

* * *

^16-18 Gather up the testimony,
    preserve the teaching for my followers,
While I wait for God as long as he remains in hiding,
    while I wait and hope for him.
I stand my ground and hope,
    I and the children God gave me as signs to Israel,
Warning signs and hope signs from God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
    who makes his home in Mount Zion.

^19-22 When people tell you, “Try out the fortunetellers.
    Consult the spiritualists.
Why not tap into the spirit-world,
    get in touch with the dead?”
Tell them, “No, we’re going to study the Scriptures.”
    People who try the other ways get nowhere—a dead end!
Frustrated and famished,
    they try one thing after another.
When nothing works out they get angry,
    cursing first this god and then that one,
Looking this way and that,
    up, down, and sideways—and seeing nothing,
A blank wall, an empty hole.
    They end up in the dark with nothing.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Admit it.  We all want peace but we worry about everything.  We look for love and advice in all the wrong places trying to validate our own selfish thoughts.  This sometimes, debilitating activity, comes from unfocused, wandering minds that think mostly about what has to be done with who to impress instead of developing who we need to be.  Jesus, the Last Word, had something to say about worry, centuries after Isaiah’s proclamation from God;

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  Matthew 6:25-34,

I have learned that what is repeated in the Bible is very important to God.

In worry, we become pagans (unbelievers).

To worry takes our minds off Jesus and what He taught.  To worry sends our thoughts to darker places, ravenously consuming worldview thinking—what others think, what to do so others will notice us, what we think we need to control, with how much we need to grab for ourselves.

True believers Seek God first, seek His will, hear his voice, obey His Plan, accept His provisions and protection while in worship of Him with all our hearts, minds and souls.  And the world worry?  It dissipates as we turn back to God!  The worry we had about the things around us become a foolish, useless, time-consuming effort.

God spoke strongly to Isaiah—

“Don’t be like this people,
    always afraid somebody is plotting against them.
Don’t fear what they fear.
    Don’t take on their worries.
If you’re going to worry,
    worry about The Holy. Fear God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

Jesus, our Last Word, speak strongly to us today—Do not worry, Seek Me before doing anything else and above all else! 

To not worry is a process.  The Psalmist explains how to move from world-worry of doing more and more to impress others to a place of thinking more about who God is so that we can BE more like He created us to be “in His image.” 

“He (God) says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Ps 46:10 It is God that we should be worried about pleasing with concern about becoming more like Him.  Seek Him first, last, and all day long.

Be still and know that He is God

Be still and know God

Be still and know

Be still.

Be.

Jesus is the Last Word.    

Lord,

I confess that I am easily distracted as a busy person.  My thoughts go to unholy places that are self-serving and are useless to my becoming more like you, developing your character in my being.  Help me to refocus, renew my mind, refresh my spirit with your Holy Spirit by cleansing all that is unpleasing and dark to you within me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation flowing through me. You are the Last Word to me.  You are my everything.  I love it when we are together.  I love being with you.

In Jesus Name, Amen

–And by the way, Jesus is coming…

Has someone ever come to you with lots of words about your impending challenging situation along with a way out?  This someone examined the problem and now councils you with a strategy to fix it.  How do you respond?  “No problem, I’ve got this.” Or “Tell me more.”  I don’t know about you, but I’ve said and done both with good and bad results.

God has told Isaiah to tell the King of Judah how to avoid war between the surrounding kingdoms of Israel.  But Ahaz isn’t listening. But wait, there’s more Ahaz!  Isaiah is also given words by God to give to the King of Judah about the coming Messiah, the Promise of a Savior; but “buries the lead” within the guidance and direction from God.  As we read these words written centuries before Jesus came, we think wait a minute, he’s talking about our Savior, Jesus Christ!  Why, yes he is.

Ahaz’s pious faith is no faith at all.  Ahaz’s faith doesn’t have “a leg to stand on”.  He goes his own way, doing his own thing, because the word tells us he already made an alliance with the enemy and feels he cannot back out.  “God spoke again to Ahaz. This time he said, ‘Ask for a sign from your God. Ask anything. Be extravagant. Ask for the moon!’  But Ahaz said, “I’d never do that. I’d never make demands like that on God!”  Why?  Because Ahaz’s mind is made up and he won’t budge.  Sigh.

Think about it, friends!  How many times do we do that in our prideful walk down the wrong path in life.  We think and say, “Well, that’s that, I’ll just keep going down this road that I built, come what may.  There’s no turning back now.”  But wait! THERE IS a Way to turn back and allow God to lead us out of our own self-made messes! 

Real faith seeks real answers to all our problems.  Real faith goes to God with everything, “asking for the moon”!  Real faith trusts in God who so loved us He sent His Son to save us! 

Isaiah 7, The Message

A Virgin Will Bear a Son

^1-2 During the time that Ahaz son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel attacked Jerusalem, but the attack sputtered out. When the Davidic government learned that Aram had joined forces with Ephraim (that is, Israel), Ahaz and his people were badly shaken. They shook like trees in the wind.

^3-6 Then God told Isaiah, “Go and meet Ahaz. Take your son Shear-jashub (A-Remnant-Will-Return) with you. Meet him south of the city at the end of the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry. Tell him, Listen, calm down. Don’t be afraid. And don’t panic over these two burnt-out cases, Rezin of Aram and the son of Remaliah. They talk big but there’s nothing to them. Aram, along with Ephraim’s son of Remaliah, have plotted to do you harm. They’ve conspired against you, saying, ‘Let’s go to war against Judah, dismember it, take it for ourselves, and set the son of Tabeel up as a puppet king over it.’

^7-9 But God, the Master, says,

“It won’t happen.
    Nothing will come of it
Because the capital of Aram is Damascus
    and the king of Damascus is a mere man, Rezin.
As for Ephraim, in sixty-five years
    it will be rubble, nothing left of it.
The capital of Ephraim is Samaria,
    and the king of Samaria is the mere son of Remaliah.
If you don’t take your stand in faith,
    you won’t have a leg to stand on.”

* * *

^10-11 God spoke again to Ahaz. This time he said, “Ask for a sign from your God. Ask anything. Be extravagant. Ask for the moon!”

¹² But Ahaz said, “I’d never do that. I’d never make demands like that on God!”

^13-17 So Isaiah told him, “Then listen to this, government of David! It’s bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you’re making God tired. So the Master is going to give you a sign anyway. Watch for this: A girl who is presently a virgin will get pregnant. She’ll bear a son and name him Immanuel (God-With-Us). By the time the child is twelve years old, able to make moral decisions, the threat of war will be over. Relax, those two kings that have you so worried will be out of the picture. But also be warned: God will bring on you and your people and your government a judgment worse than anything since the time the kingdom split, when Ephraim left Judah. The king of Assyria is coming!”

^18-19 That’s when God will whistle for the flies at the headwaters of Egypt’s Nile, and whistle for the bees in the land of Assyria. They’ll come and infest every nook and cranny of this country. There’ll be no getting away from them.

²⁰ And that’s when the Master will take the razor rented from across the Euphrates—the king of Assyria no less!—and shave the hair off your heads and genitals, leaving you shamed, exposed, and denuded. He’ll shave off your beards while he’s at it.

^21-22 It will be a time when survivors will count themselves lucky to have a cow and a couple of sheep. At least they’ll have plenty of milk! Whoever’s left in the land will learn to make do with the simplest foods—curds, whey, and honey.

^23-25 But that’s not the end of it. This country that used to be covered with fine vineyards—thousands of them, worth millions!—will revert to a weed patch. Weeds and thornbushes everywhere! Good for nothing except, perhaps, hunting rabbits. Cattle and sheep will forage as best they can in the fields of weeds—but there won’t be a trace of all those fertile and well-tended gardens and fields.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Great is God’s faithfulness to us—even when we make Him tired with our thoughts and actions.  “It’s bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you’re making God tired,” says Isaiah.   We can almost hear the sigh of God when we go our own way and don’t listen with faith in going His best way for us.  Ahaz already had his own plan in place without consulting God.  His faith was in himself alone.  That is a dangerous place to be for all of us.

How can we avoid making God “tired” with our pious, weak faith?  But wholeheartedly trusting in what He says and living it out loud!  We can ask God anything and everything about life here so why don’t we?  He knows everything!  He knows us.  He knows the future with the best path to take.  He cares about us and wants us to live with Him for eternity.  Why trust ourselves or anyone else on earth?  I don’t know why. Jesus reminds believing followers to ask God for anything in His Name and God will respond to us with His best for us.  (See Matthew 7)

It’s not too late to respond!  Turn back to what God wants, even if we have to make adjustments and changes in our lives, humbling ourselves before Jesus in true repentance.  And here’s the best news at all—Jesus did exactly that for us!  (See Philippians 2) He humbled Himself, leaving the throne of heaven, coming to earth to seek and to save the lost—you and me.

Isaiah pulls out the “lead message”, the Promised Messiah who will save Ahaz and the world, but still Ahaz goes his own way.  Sigh.

Lord,

You are everything I want. You are all I need.  You are Savior, Lord and King forever.  I love you with all my heart, mind, and soul.  I don’t want to be like Ahaz.  I accept the changes I must make so I can hear your voice above all other voices in this world with a mind to follow you given this love in my heart placed there by you.  Thank for building your faith of You in me that I can stand on forever!

In Jesus Name, Amen

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand…

When God called Randy to leave the calling to teach in public schools for full time ministry to his church, each of us were completely humbled by the idea.  We were content, had learned the ropes of teaching and comfortable in our lives.  Our first response was weak stomachs with thoughts of all our inadequacies.  But it seems, that is exactly where God wants us to be before He begins a new work within us that produces His work of love, mercy, and grace through us. 

We learned that others cannot see God in us until God does His work in us.  Assurance of His call comes in a wave of the holiness that can only come from God which causes us to confidently say “YES! Do what you want in me and through me because I’m Yours.”   This confidence comes from Christ, not from us!  We know our limitations; God knows our potential when coupled with His power!

EQUIPPED

Before we can minister to others, we must permit God to minister to us. Before we pronounce bad news and God’s judgment upon others, we must sincerely admit our own sin and inadequacies. Isaiah’s conviction led to confession, and confession led to cleansing (see 1 John 1:9). Like Isaiah, many of the other great heroes of faith saw themselves as sinners and humbled themselves before God: Abraham (Gen. 18:27), Jacob (Gen. 32:10), Job (Job 40:1–5), David (2 Sam. 7:18), Paul (1 Tim. 1:15), and Peter (Luke 5:8–11). 

God provides this ministry to Isaiah as He calls him to “go and tell”.

Isaiah 6, The Message

Holy, Holy, Holy!

^1-8 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne—high, exalted!—and the train of his robes filled the Temple. Angel-seraphs hovered above him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew. And they called back and forth one to the other,

    Holy, Holy, Holy is God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
    His bright glory fills the whole earth.

The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke. I said,

“Doom! It’s Doomsday!
    I’m as good as dead!
Every word I’ve ever spoken is tainted—
    blasphemous even!
And the people I live with talk the same way,
    using words that corrupt and desecrate.
And here I’ve looked God in the face!
    The King! God-of-the-Angel-Armies!”

Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with the coal and said,

“Look. This coal has touched your lips.
    Gone your guilt,
    your sins wiped out.”
And then I heard the voice of the Master:
    “Whom shall I send?
    Who will go for us?”
I spoke up,
    “I’ll go.
    Send me!”

* * *

^9-10 He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Listen hard, but you aren’t going to get it;
    look hard, but you won’t catch on.’
Make these people blockheads,
    with fingers in their ears and blindfolds on their eyes,
So they won’t see a thing,
    won’t hear a word,
So they won’t have a clue about what’s going on
    and, yes, so they won’t turn around and be made whole.”

^11-13 Astonished, I said,
    “And Master, how long is this to go on?”
He said, “Until the cities are emptied out,
    not a soul left in the cities—
Houses empty of people,
    countryside empty of people.
Until I, God, get rid of everyone, sending them off,
    the land totally empty.
And even if some should survive, say a tenth,
    the devastation will start up again.
The country will look like pine and oak forest
    with every tree cut down—
Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps.
    But there’s a holy seed in those stumps.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

So many times, called people of God wonder if they heard God correctly when the people they are “going and telling” are not listening or behaving with God’s message and direction for their lives.  We are human so it is easy to fall into that thinking.  But we must remember ministry is given by God, directed by God and fulfilled by the Holy Spirit of God through us.  “Obedience is far better than sacrifice” says the Lord God. (1 Samuel 15:22)  It’s not always about working harder, but smarter by letting go and letting God do His part.  If we remember that our obedience is what God requires and we leave the rest to Him, then God’s work is less heavy to bear.  When we judge “success” by world standards, then the burden becomes heavy as we place all the results upon our shoulders.  We pray; God works by doing all the heavy lifting.  We obey; God builds our hope and faith in Him—a win-win!

What if God told you, right up front, “Say what I want you to say but people are not going to listen to you, so there’s that…”  God told Isaiah that his ministry would end in seeming failure, with the land ruined and the people taken off to exile. But a remnant would survive! It would be like the stump of a fallen tree from which the shoots (“the holy seed”) would come, and they would continue the true faith in the land. Isaiah needed a long-range perspective on his ministry or else he would feel like he was accomplishing nothing.

Jesus said the same to his disciples as he sent them out with what to do when people refused to listen to The Message.  “Dust your feet and move on to the next village.” (Matthew 10:14).  Our work then, stated specifically by our Master Jesus Christ is, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:18-20 NLT

All who believe and follow Jesus are all called to “go and make disciples” who will also believe and follow Jesus, multiplying God’s work to reconcile His People to Him in holy relationship forever!  “And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.”  2 Corinthians 5:18 NLT

Lord,

What a powerful message this is to each one of us today—especially to me.  Our work is to obey your call to go where you want and say what you give us to say.  We realize we are all called to point the way to You, helping others find, believe, and follow in your ways.  “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey”; the hymn of my youth proclaims! Thank you for your assurance today that who we are and what we do is directed by you for your glory and for the work of bring others to you—even if only a few listen and obey with us.  The results are up to you. AND you are with us always!  It’s doesn’t get any better than that!

In Jesus Name, Amen

“The God of Angel Armies is always by my side”–This is the ballad song of worship I am singing in the background as I read our next installment of Isaiah’s word from God to those who have left everything that God had taught them and provided for them.  Justice will come to unbelievers, the malcontents, the users and abusers among a people who used to be God’s Chosen.  The fruit in his Vineyard has become bitter and tasteless.

What does God see inside the hearts of his vineyard called church today?  I am pondering that thought as I read.  We might sing “let there be peace on earth” without realizing that real peace is “not as the world gives”, says Jesus, but as He gives it—as a gift.  (John 14:27) This gift begins with our humbled repentance to the God of Angel Armies who knows all, is in all and loves everyone He has created. 

Don’t mess with God, thinking we know what is best for us by moving ahead of God or falling behind, stay attached the Vine (Jesus) in His Vineyard and the fruit we bear will not be bitter. 

Isaiah 5, The Message

Looking for a Crop of Justice

^1-2 I’ll sing a ballad to the one I love,
    a love ballad about his vineyard:
The one I love had a vineyard,
    a fine, well-placed vineyard.
He hoed the soil and pulled the weeds,
    and planted the very best vines.
He built a lookout, built a winepress,
    a vineyard to be proud of.
He looked for a vintage yield of grapes,
    but for all his pains he got garbage grapes.

^3-4 “Now listen to what I’m telling you,
    you who live in Jerusalem and Judah.
What do you think is going on
    between me and my vineyard?
Can you think of anything I could have done
    to my vineyard that I didn’t do?
When I expected good grapes,
    why did I get bitter grapes?

^5-6 “Well now, let me tell you
    what I’ll do to my vineyard:
I’ll tear down its fence
    and let it go to ruin.
I’ll knock down the gate
    and let it be trampled.
I’ll turn it into a patch of weeds, untended, uncared for—
    thistles and thorns will take over.
I’ll give orders to the clouds:
    ‘Don’t rain on that vineyard, ever!’”

⁷ Do you get it? The vineyard of God-of-the-Angel-Armies
    is the country of Israel.
All the men and women of Judah
    are the garden he was so proud of.
He looked for a crop of justice
    and saw them murdering each other.
He looked for a harvest of righteousness
    and heard only the moans of victims.

You Who Call Evil Good and Good Evil

^8-10 Doom to you who buy up all the houses
    and grab all the land for yourselves—
Evicting the old owners,
    posting no trespassing signs,
Taking over the country,
    leaving everyone homeless and landless.
I overheard God-of-the-Angel-Armies say:
“Those mighty houses will end up empty.
    Those extravagant estates will be deserted.
A ten-acre vineyard will produce a pint of wine,
    a fifty-pound sack of seed, a quart of grain.”

^11-17 Doom to those who get up early
    and start drinking booze before breakfast,
Who stay up all hours of the night
    drinking themselves into a stupor.
They make sure their banquets are well-furnished
    with harps and flutes and plenty of wine,
But they’ll have nothing to do with the work of God,
    pay no mind to what he is doing.
Therefore my people will end up in exile
    because they don’t know the score.
Their “honored men” will starve to death
    and the common people die of thirst.
Sheol developed a huge appetite,
    swallowing people nonstop!
Big people and little people alike
    down that gullet, to say nothing of all the drunks.
The down-and-out on a par
    with the high-and-mighty,
Windbag boasters crumpled,
    flaccid as a punctured bladder.
But by working justice,
    God-of-the-Angel-Armies will be a mountain.
By working righteousness,
    Holy God will show what “holy” is.
And lambs will graze
    as if they owned the place,
Kids and calves
    right at home in the ruins.

^18-19 Doom to you who use lies to sell evil,
    who haul sin to market by the truckload,
Who say, “What’s God waiting for?
    Let him get a move on so we can see it.
Whatever The Holy of Israel has cooked up,
    we’d like to check it out.”

²⁰ Doom to you who call evil good
    and good evil,
Who put darkness in place of light
    and light in place of darkness,
Who substitute bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter!

^21-23 Doom to you who think you’re so smart,
    who hold such a high opinion of yourselves!
All you’re good at is drinking—champion boozers
    who collect trophies from drinking bouts
And then line your pockets with bribes from the guilty
    while you violate the rights of the innocent.

²⁴ But they won’t get by with it. As fire eats stubble
    and dry grass goes up in smoke,
Their souls will atrophy,
    their achievements crumble into dust,
Because they said no to the revelation
    of God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
Would have nothing to do
    with The Holy of Israel.

^25-30 That’s why God flamed out in anger against his people,
    reached out and knocked them down.
The mountains trembled
    as their dead bodies piled up in the streets.
But even after that, he was still angry,
    his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.
He raises a flag, signaling a distant nation,
    whistles for people at the ends of the earth.
And here they come—
    on the run!
None drag their feet, no one stumbles,
    no one sleeps or dawdles.
Shirts are on and pants buckled,
    every boot is spit-polished and tied.
Their arrows are sharp,
    bows strung,
The hooves of their horses shod,
    chariot wheels greased.
Roaring like a pride of lions,
    the full-throated roars of young lions,
They growl and seize their prey,
    dragging it off—no rescue for that one!
They’ll roar and roar and roar on that Day,
    like the roar of ocean billows.
Look as long and hard as you like at that land,
    you’ll see nothing but darkness and trouble.
Every light in the sky
    will be blacked out by the clouds.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Isaiah became a troubadour and sang a folk song to the Lord (“to the One I love”). Perhaps the people who had ignored his sermons would listen to his song. He sang about his own people, God’s Chosen, and pointed out how good God had been to them. God gave them a holy law and a wonderful land, but they had broken the law and had defiled the land with their sins and had failed to produce fruit for God’s glory.

Today, we sing, “How Great Is Our God,” but do our lives show His greatness and power working in and through us in our daily living?  Are we growing bitter in the fruits we are bearing?  The fruit we’re talking about are found in Galatians 5. 

Isaiah named the sins that brought judgment on the land. These woes parallel the intensity of Jesus’ words to those who should have known better in his own day (see Matthew). Sin sometimes succeeds for a season, but sorrow is the inevitable long-term result.  Justice will prevail for those who follow Jesus relentlessly.

Warren Wiersbe helps us understand and writes about the moral decay of a people bent on selfishness and trickery to gain popularity among the masses:

“Moral standards were destroyed by new definitions of sin (see Amos 5:7), people using God’s vocabulary but not His dictionary. Like today’s doublespeak, this kind of language made it easy to deceive people and avoid a guilty conscience. In today’s world, increased taxes are “revenue enhancements,” and poor people are “fiscal underachievers.” Medical malpractice is not the cause of a patient’s death; it’s a “diagnostic misadventure of high magnitude.”

You get the picture.

Does God anger trouble us?  Let’s ponder this, friends. God’s anger is about us!  This anger stems from His love for us!  God does not want anyone to be without Him and all He has to provide.  His “anger” is not like our anger.  We get angry when we don’t get our own way. God’s anger comes from watching us go our own way and not His perfect way for us. He knows what is best and wants to give us more than we can imagine or dream.

Consider now, what God did for us through Jesus His Son. God cannot be where sin is because sin is the opposite of all God is.  So, when we sin, God turns away.  That’s why when Jesus took all our sin on His shoulders to the cross to take our place of punishment, God had to turn away from His Son until the work of the punishment that should have been ours was finished.

God was serious about the nation’s sins. If they would not repent and accept His offer of pardon, then all He could do was send judgment.

Peter reveals the heart of God—”The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9 NIV

Lord,

I repent of my own selfishness desires, going my own way, thinking small thoughts about this world in which we live.  I turn my thought-life and desires over to you.  Make your desires by my desires for living.  May the fruits of your Holy Spirit grow abundantly in my life.  May others see YOU in me.  I count on you to guide me every hour of every day.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen

After working in the yard all day long in the hot sun, there is nothing more refreshing than a hot shower to ease the aches and pains while cleansing our sweaty bodies with sweet smells of fragrant soaps and shampoos.  Randy and I enjoy creating new forms of landscape in our yard.  We are always rearranging, planting something new, as we build a place we can enjoy in peace and gratitude for God’s creation.  It takes a lot of work, but the work is rewarded by flowers and trees with a few veggies produced at harvest. 

There is one bush that simply amazes me.  As it goes to rest for winter, all the leaves are gone and the plant looks like dead, brittle twigs at the beginning of the next season.  We almost pulled it out of the ground until we noticed—one small remnant of what was left behind!  It had life after all!  It was still growing!  A small sprout of green trying to make it’s way through the dead twigs of winter.  So, we waited.  After a couple of months of watching and watering, it slowly became a large thriving bush once more that bloomed and flourished by the end of summer—its own, specific growing season.

We are challenged in our lives with times of growth through times of stagnation.  It is in the waiting, that seems to be a stuck period in our lives that we realize that God is doing His greatest work in what remains deep inside us—God Himself!  God is preparing us for the next season, the next work with remnants of what is still in us after troubles, challenges, setbacks, and brokenness.  God is amazing like that!

In our passage today, remember God’s People have been taken captive by the Babylonians.  Isaiah speaks for God and tells them how precious the “remnant” left behind really is and what He will do in and through them. There will be a cleansing and purging of evil that brought them down and dirty to this time in their lives.  God will take the remnant and provide a Messiah through the line of what is left behind, once called “rejects and discards”.  Wow!   

Oh, dear friends, do you relate?  Have you ever been bruised and broken followed by a stagnant, stuck period in your lives?  Did it seem like you were walking through months of muddy thoughts that clouded your thinking and made you feel less than, unimportant, insignificant, and rejected?  Well, guess what, God is not finished, He is doing His best work in us in those specific times when we think we are but brittle sticks without the energy to bloom. 

Yes, God does it again and again in and through his people today!  The Promised Messiah, Jesus came to earth to save us and to teach us who God really is.  And friends, who did He call upon, share a meal or talk to in the marketplace? Who did He heal, help, and use in His Kingdom work?  It was the remnant–the despised, rejected, abused, broken, and oppressed, that’s who! 

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.  He came so that we might have life, but not just any life, but a life filled with His peace no matter what is happening around us—“the abundant life” here and later with Him in paradise where He is now preparing a room for each one of us who believe!   Let me let Jesus explain…

“Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about. So he tried again. “I’ll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep rustlers, every one of them. But the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”  John 10:10, MSG

Isaiah 4, The Message

That will be the day when seven women
    will gang up on one man, saying,
“We’ll take care of ourselves,
    get our own food and clothes.
Just give us a child. Make us pregnant
    so we’ll have something to live for!”

God’s Branch

^2-4 And that’s when God’s Branch will sprout green and lush. The produce of the country will give Israel’s survivors something to be proud of again. Oh, they’ll hold their heads high! Everyone left behind in Zion, all the discards and rejects in Jerusalem, will be reclassified as “holy”—alive and therefore precious. God will give Zion’s women a good bath. He’ll scrub the bloodstained city of its violence and brutality, purge the place with a firestorm of judgment.

^5-6 Then God will bring back the ancient pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and mark Mount Zion and everyone in it with his glorious presence, his immense, protective presence, shade from the burning sun and shelter from the driving rain.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Warren Wiersbe comments on the state of the nation of Israel at this time…(and in our time).

“So many men would be killed there wouldn’t be enough husbands to go around. One of the “unintended consequences” of godless living is societal chaos. Disastrous wars can remove a healthy balance of males from society. We also have contemporary examples of nations seeking to control population growth through selective childbirth and abortion only to discover that the majority of rejected (killed) pregnancies are little girls, eventually causing the same kind of societal imbalances. Sin destroys lives, but it also destroys nations.”

The prophet looked beyond the day of the Lord to that time when the kingdom would be established on earth. “Branch of the LORD” is a messianic title for Jesus Christ, who would come as a “shoot” from the seeming dead stump of David’s dynasty. (See also Jer. 23:5; 33:15; Zech. 3:8; 6:12).

God will indeed cleanse His people, restore the fruitfulness of the land, and dwell with them as He did when He led them through the wilderness. Not just the temple, but every dwelling will be blessed by the presence of the Lord! Unlike in Isaiah’s day, “in that day” (Is. 4:1) the people will be holy (set apart), and the land will be beautiful and glorious once more.

What a day that will be…I’m reminded of an old hymn whose composer is thinking about when Jesus comes back to claim his own who truly believe and follow Him.  The Lord still “looks over the earth and seeks hearts who are completely committed to Him”.  (2 Chronicles 1 6:9)

What a day that will be
When my Jesus I shall see
And I look upon his face
The one who saved me by his grace
When he takes me by the hand
And leads me through the Promised Land
What a day, glorious day that will be

So, our response?  Say yes to Jesus!  Even if we think we are the only ones left in the world; know that He sees, hears and is with us who call out to Him with a committed, no turning back, YES!  May the glory of the Lord be with us!

Lord,

I believe in who you are and what you say.  I believe there are more like me than the enemy would have us think.  So, may this encourage all of us who believe to encourage each other in your work, to build each other up with your love working in and through us—even when we feel rejected and bruised.  Remnants are precious in your thinking.  What a blessed thought!  Help us to continue on, moving forward in your love, mercy and grace.

In Jesus Name, Amen

It was a great day to come together with all the grandkids to decorate cookies for their families for Christmas.  This was a favor of Randy and I to our grown children to have some time off for Christmas shopping without their kids hovering around.  As the years, went by, the kids got older, rowdier and more competitive.  They all wanted to be in charge.  After the cookies were decorated with lively fun and laughter, things took a turn.  While I went to take a quick shower, I trusted them to help cleanup.  Bored with the activity and the cleanup, however, they decided to pick on each other while I was out of the room.  The chaos evolved into a pillow fight.  The escalated pillow fight resulted in the decorated and neatly packaged cookies flying off the counter.  They no longer cared about the prize of the cookies, only in winning the fight among their cousins!

When I stepped back into the scene we worked together to calm down, clean up the mess and get back to being with other in ways that didn’t hurt each other. 

What does God think when His people resort to competition to see who can be the most selfish, participate in gossip that hurts and kills, grabbing all they can for themselves, with prideful in-charge behaviors that break His heart? Isaiah portrays a picture of God with God speaking through him with exactly what He will do.  People will be judged for their sins.  God is the judge, not people.

God is longsuffering as He watches people viciously exploit one another and selfishly ravage His creation. But a day is coming when unbelieving sinners will be punished and God’s people will share in the glories of His kingdom.  Believers, saved by grace, “in the know” of God and know what He wants can no longer sit by idly saying “Me? Not me! I don’t have a clue. Don’t put me in charge of anything” just to escape from the situation.  If God tells us what to do and say, we must step up, not to judge, but to point others to God by living for God ourselves.  Stay focused on what God wants and live it.  We will be different from the world in doing this.  We will also get backlash from the world, but is the world who we should be following?  Will the world protect us, love us forever, and provide for us?  Hardly.  Only God does all that and more.

Sooner or later, the justice of God will catch up with every person.  What we have done to others will be done to us.  Some people call this karma—God calls it justice.

Isaiah 3, The Message

Jerusalem on Its Last Legs

^1-7 The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
    is emptying Jerusalem and Judah
Of all the basic necessities,
    plain bread and water to begin with.
He’s withdrawing police and protection,
    judges and courts,
    pastors and teachers,
    captains and generals,
    doctors and nurses,
    and, yes, even the repairmen and jacks-of-all-trades.
He says, “I’ll put little kids in charge of the city.
    Schoolboys and schoolgirls will order everyone around.
People will be at each other’s throats,
    stabbing one another in the back:
Neighbor against neighbor, young against old,
    the no-account against the well-respected.
One brother will grab another and say,
    ‘You look like you’ve got a head on your shoulders.
Do something!
    Get us out of this mess.’
And he’ll say, ‘Me? Not me! I don’t have a clue.
    Don’t put me in charge of anything.’

^8-9 “Jerusalem’s on its last legs.
    Judah is soon down for the count.
Everything people say and do
    is at cross-purposes with God,
    a slap in my face.
Brazen in their depravity,
    they flaunt their sins like degenerate Sodom.
Doom to their eternal souls! They’ve made their bed;
    now they’ll sleep in it.

^10-11 “Reassure the righteous
    that their good living will pay off.
But doom to the wicked! Disaster!
    Everything they did will be done to them.

¹² “Skinny kids terrorize my people.
    Silly girls bully them around.
My dear people! Your leaders are taking you down a blind alley.
    They’re sending you off on a wild-goose chase.”

A City Brought to Her Knees by Her Sorrows

^13-15 God enters the courtroom.
    He takes his place at the bench to judge his people.
God calls for order in the court,
    hauls the leaders of his people into the dock:
“You’ve played havoc with this country.
    Your houses are stuffed with what you’ve stolen from the poor.
What is this anyway? Stomping on my people,
    grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt?”
That’s what the Master,
    God-of-the-Angel-Armies, says.

^16-17 God says, “Zion women are stuck-up,
    prancing around in their high heels,
Making eyes at all the men in the street,
    swinging their hips,
Tossing their hair,
    gaudy and garish in cheap jewelry.”
The Master will fix it so those Zion women
    will all turn bald—
Scabby, bald-headed women.
    The Master will do it.

^18-23 The time is coming when the Master will strip them of their fancy baubles—the dangling earrings, anklets and bracelets, combs and mirrors and silk scarves, diamond brooches and pearl necklaces, the rings on their fingers and the rings on their toes, the latest fashions in hats, exotic perfumes and aphrodisiacs, gowns and capes, all the world’s finest in fabrics and design.

²⁴ Instead of wearing seductive scents,
    these women are going to smell like rotting cabbages;
Instead of modeling flowing gowns,
    they’ll be sporting rags;
Instead of their stylish hairdos,
    scruffy heads;
Instead of beauty marks,
    scabs and scars.

^25-26 Your finest fighting men will be killed,
    your soldiers left dead on the battlefield.
The entrance gate to Zion will be clotted
    with people mourning their dead—
A city stooped under the weight of her loss,
    brought to her knees by her sorrows.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Jesus, prophesied by Isaiah, will come to earth as Son of Man and Son of God to show the world all that God intended when He commanded, “Love God with all your heart, mind and soul.  And love others like I have loved you.”  Jesus will expand on these two “greatest commandments” as He described them to be in word and actions while on earth.  Jesus teaches us to not only love but to go the extra mile, give generously, go beyond what is required by the world. And He does this by example, being the supreme sacrifice, who certainly went over and beyond for us in His love, mercy and grace.  (See Matthew 5-7).

Jesus is coming back.  Jesus has been appointed by God to be the final judge.  Are we ready?

Lord,

We make a mess of the world when we think we are in charge by ourselves of all that is around us.  Forgive us of the mess we have made.  Granted, You lead us to be leaders of others, but in ways that lead others to You!  Your work in us is to bring YOU glory as we point seekers to you.  Your work in us is to develop your character in us in ways that reflect who you are.  We are made in your image; in the image of God we are made.  Help us to stay focused on this truth and always ask what you want before doing anything of significance for you and your people.  Teach me, for I am your servant.

In Jesus Name, Amen

It is of great importance to look forward when driving a vehicle of any kind, right?  We can see what is around us as our eyes are designed to do that.  We can look briefly behind us to see what obstacles to avoid, but to get to our destination we must look ahead to move forward.  This is how God’s prophets operate as they see what lies ahead by looking and seeing what God sees as obstacles that can get in our way of His will.  God’s Words, spoken out loud to God’s People, motivate, warn, comfort, engage and encourage God’s People to look forward to the “day of the Lord.”  

God spoke to me through Isaiah’s message today, as well!  What leaps off the page for me are these words, “He’ll show us the way he works so we can live the way we’re made.”  But first we must “climb the mountain” as Moses did when he met with God to get directions in moving forward with God’s People back in the days of the exodus to a wilderness journey to the Promised Land!  We must rise above worldview, (whiny wilderness), thinking and get a better view of how God thinks.  When we do we “see” how He works and can be “imitators of God”, learning to love like He loves us, while continually developing His character as we get to know Him more and more.

Climb God’s Mountain.  See Him for who God really is.  Listen and learn from Him who saves us and set us free by His Son.  Then move forward with confidence and faith in the One who loved us first and loves us most.  God will indeed show us how he works so we can live the way He made us!

Isaiah—The Poetic Prophet with Purpose

Isaiah 2, The Message

Climb God’s Mountain

^1-5 The Message Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem:

There’s a day coming
    when the mountain of God’s House
Will be The Mountain—
    solid, towering over all mountains.
All nations will river toward it,
    people from all over set out for it.
They’ll say, “Come,
    let’s climb God’s Mountain,
    go to the House of the God of Jacob.
He’ll show us the way he works
    so we can live the way we’re made.”
Zion’s the source of the revelation.
    God’s Message comes from Jerusalem.
He’ll settle things fairly between nations.
    He’ll make things right between many peoples.
They’ll turn their swords into shovels,
    their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation;
    they won’t play war anymore.
Come, family of Jacob,
    let’s live in the light of God.

^6-9 God, you’ve walked out on your family Jacob
    because their world is full of hokey religion,
Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus,
    a world rolling in wealth,
Stuffed with things,
    no end to its machines and gadgets,
And gods—gods of all sorts and sizes.
    These people make their own gods and worship what they make.
A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter.
    Don’t bother with them! They’re not worth forgiving!

Pretentious Egos Brought Down to Earth

¹⁰ Head for the hills,
    hide in the caves
From the terror of God,
    from his dazzling presence.

^11-17 People with a big head are headed for a fall,
    pretentious egos brought down a peg.
It’s God alone at front-and-center
    on the Day we’re talking about,
The Day that God-of-the-Angel-Armies
    is matched against all big-talking rivals,
    against all swaggering big names;
Against all giant sequoias
    hugely towering,
    and against the expansive chestnut;
Against Kilimanjaro and Annapurna,
    against the ranges of Alps and Andes;
Against every soaring skyscraper,
    against all proud obelisks and statues;
Against ocean-going luxury liners,
    against elegant three-masted schooners.
The swelled big heads will be punctured bladders,
    the pretentious egos brought down to earth,
Leaving God alone at front-and-center
    on the Day we’re talking about.

¹⁸ And all those sticks and stones
    dressed up to look like gods
    will be gone for good.

¹⁹ Clamber into caves in the cliffs,
    duck into any hole you can find.
Hide from the terror of God,
    from his dazzling presence,
When he assumes his full stature on earth,
    towering and terrifying.

^20-21 On that Day men and women will take
    the sticks and stones
They’ve decked out in gold and silver
    to look like gods and then worshiped,
And they will dump them
    in any ditch or gully,
Then run for rock caves
    and cliff hideouts
To hide from the terror of God,
    from his dazzling presence,
When he assumes his full stature on earth,
    towering and terrifying.

²² Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans,
    so full of themselves, so full of hot air!
    Can’t you see there’s nothing to them?

Lord,

Thank you for your warning signs through Isaiah.  We, too, have our gadgets that take over our lives.  We also get caught up in doing church instead of being the church.  We get too involved in imitating the lives of humans we admire, who turn our heads in the wrong direction.  Help us to avoid humans with ego full of hot air.  Help us to avoid being those with egos larger than you.  Teach us your ways so we can be who you created us to be and do what you designed us to accomplish for your purposes.

In Jesus Name, Amen

“For Isaiah, words are watercolors and melodies and chisels to make truth and beauty and goodness.  Or, as the case may be, hammers and swords and scalpels to unmake sin and guilt and rebellion.  Isaiah does not merely convey information.  He creates visions, delivers revelation, arouses belief.  He is a poet in the most fundamental sense—a maker, making God present and that presence urgent.  Isaiah is the supreme poet-prophet to come out of the Hebrew people.” –Eugene Peterson, Introduction to Isaiah—The Message

Isaiah is a large presence in the lives of people who live by faith in God, who submit themselves to being shaped by the Word of God and are on the lookout for the holy.  THE HOLY.  The Chosen, the children of God, are lost without Him.  We are lost without God.  Do we seek who is holy?

“The more hours we spend pondering the words of Isaiah, the more the word “holy” changes in our understanding.  If “holy” was ever a pious, pastel-tinted word in our vocabularies, the Isaiah-preaching quickly turns it into something blazing.  Holiness is the most attractive quality, the most intense experience we ever get of sheer life—authentic, firsthand living, not life looked at and enjoyed from a distance.”  (Peterson)

“We find ourselves in on the operations of God himself, not talking about them or reading about them.  Holiness is a furnace that transforms the men and women who enter it.  “Holy, Holy, Holy” is not needlepoint.  It is the banner of a revolution, THE revolution.”  (Peterson)

“The book of Isaiah is expansive, dealing with virtually everything that is involved in being a people of God on this planet Earth. The impressive art of Isaiah involves taking the stuff of our ordinary and often disappointing human experience and showing us how tit is the very stuff that God uses to create and save and give hope.  As this vast panorama opens up before us, it turns out that nothing is unusable by God.  He uses everything and everybody as material for his work, which is the remaking of the mess we have made of our lives.”  (Peterson)

The major theme of Isaiah is clearly God’s work of salvation.  (The name Isaiah means “God Saves”!)  The prominent themes repeated and developed though out this vast symphonic work of God’s truth are judgement, comfort, and hope.  All three elements are present on nearly every page, but each also gives distinction to the three “movements “of the book that so powerfully enact salvation.

Outline:

Chapters 1-39:  Message of Judgement

Chapters 40-55:  Message of Comfort

Chapters 56-66:  Message of Hope

This chapter describes a courtroom scene. God convenes the court and states the charges. He presents His case and pronounces the nation guilty, but He gives the accused opportunity to repent and be forgiven (vv. 16–31). Be sure to notice His strong and negative description of His sinful people.

Isaiah 1, The Message

Messages of Judgment

Quit Your Worship Charades

1 The vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw regarding Judah and Jerusalem during the times of the kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

^2-4 Heaven and earth, you’re the jury.
    Listen to God’s case:
“I had children and raised them well,
    and they turned on me.
The ox knows who’s boss,
    the mule knows the hand that feeds him,
But not Israel.
    My people don’t know up from down.
Shame! Misguided God-dropouts,
    staggering under their guilt-baggage,
Villainous gang,
    band of vandals—
My people have walked out on me, their God,
    turned their backs on The Holy of Israel,
    walked off and never looked back.

^5-9 “Why bother even trying to do anything with you
    when you just keep to your bullheaded ways?
You keep beating your heads against brick walls.
    Everything within you protests against you.
From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head,
    nothing’s working right.
Wounds and bruises and running sores—
    untended, unwashed, unbandaged.
Your country is laid waste,
    your cities burned down.
Your land is destroyed by outsiders while you watch,
    reduced to rubble by barbarians.
Daughter Zion is deserted—
    like a tumbledown shack on a dead-end street,
Like a tarpaper shanty on the wrong side of the tracks,
    like a sinking ship abandoned by the rats.
If God-of-the-Angel-Armies hadn’t left us a few survivors,
    we’d be as desolate as Sodom, doomed just like Gomorrah.

¹⁰ “Listen to my Message,
    you Sodom-schooled leaders.
Receive God’s revelation,
    you Gomorrah-schooled people.

^11-12 “Why this frenzy of sacrifices?”
    God’s asking.
“Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices,
    rams and plump grain-fed calves?
Don’t you think I’ve had my fill
    of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?
When you come before me,
    whoever gave you the idea of acting like this,
Running here and there, doing this and that—
    all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship?

^13-17 “Quit your worship charades.
    I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
    meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
    You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion,
    while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
    I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
    I’ll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing
    people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
Go home and wash up.
    Clean up your act.
Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
    so I don’t have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.
    Learn to do good.
Work for justice.
    Help the down-and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
    Go to bat for the defenseless.

Let’s Argue This Out

^18-20 “Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.”
    This is God’s Message:
“If your sins are blood-red,
    they’ll be snow-white.
If they’re red like crimson,
    they’ll be like wool.
If you’ll willingly obey,
    you’ll feast like kings.
But if you’re willful and stubborn,
    you’ll die like dogs.”
That’s right. God says so.

Those Who Walk Out on God

^21-23 Oh! Can you believe it? The chaste city
    has become a whore!
She was once all justice,
    everyone living as good neighbors,
And now they’re all
    at one another’s throats.
Your coins are all counterfeits.
    Your wine is watered down.
Your leaders are turncoats
    who keep company with crooks.
They sell themselves to the highest bidder
    and grab anything not nailed down.
They never stand up for the homeless,
    never stick up for the defenseless.

^24-31 This Decree, therefore, of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
    the Strong One of Israel:
“This is it! I’ll get my oppressors off my back.
    I’ll get back at my enemies.
I’ll give you the back of my hand,
    purge the junk from your life, clean you up.
I’ll set honest judges and wise counselors among you
    just like it was back in the beginning.
Then you’ll be renamed
    City-That-Treats-People-Right, the True-Blue City.”
God’s right ways will put Zion right again.
    God’s right actions will restore her prodigals.
But it’s curtains for rebels and God-traitors,
    a dead end for those who walk out on God.
“Your dalliances in those oak grove shrines
    will leave you looking mighty foolish,
All that fooling around in god and goddess gardens
    that you thought was the latest thing.
You’ll end up like an oak tree
    with all its leaves falling off,
Like an unwatered garden,
    withered and brown.
‘The Strong Man’ will turn out to be dead bark and twigs,
    and his ‘work,’ the spark that starts the fire
That exposes man and work both
    as nothing but cinders and smoke.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Repent of self.  Allow God to remove from our lives what does not belong.

Tragically, Isaiah has witnessed many of the worshipers in the temple participating in evil practices, therefore encouraging the decay of the nation. The rulers maintained a religious façade to cover up their crimes, and the people let them do it. 

Do we do this when we hold up worship leaders as rock stars of our day?  Worship God in Spirit and in Truth—not for show, Isaiah proclaims.  I am reminded of a song that touched my heart as one who helped lead others in worship.  This was written a couple of decades ago by Matt Redman.  Redman expresses what Isaiah is talking about as he explains what God wants in our worship to Him…

The Heart of Worship

When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come

Longin’ just to bring
Something that’s of worth
That will bless Your heart

I’ll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required

You search much deeper within
Through the ways things appear
You’re looking into my heart

I’m comin’ back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about You
It’s all about You, Jesus

I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about You
It’s all about You, Jesus

King of endless worth
No one could express
How much You deserve?

Though I’m weak and poor
All I have is Yours
Every single breath

I’ll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required

You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart, yeah

I’m comin’ back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about You
It’s all about You, Jesus

I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about You
It’s all about You, Jesus

I’m comin’ back to the heart of worship
‘Cause it’s all about You
It’s all about You, Jesus

I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
‘Cause it’s all about You
It’s all about You, Jesus, yeah
All about You

I’ll bring You more than a song

Lord,

It is truly all about you when we worship you.  The main thing you want from us is to repent to you as we worship.  Mere performance is worse than not worshiping at all.  I pray to never make a mockery of You by my half-hearted worship of you.  I’m yours.  All of me seeking all of you in my life. Thank you for prophet Isaiah who still touches hearts of your people today.

And Lord, you are teaching that love is worship 24/7 and is all about you working in us, loving others beyond human forms of love.  Help me today to love mercy, seek justice and walk humbly with you as another prophet, Micah wrote, telling us that is what you really require of us.  Help me to love like you love me.  Without conditions.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Before introducing us to the prophets, we must realize their purpose, the times in which they lived and the condition of their hearts, along with the condition of the hearts to whom they spoke.  Prophets lived in a time when people had learned to separate the secular and the sacred.  People had assumed that the secular is what they were, more or less, in charge of:  their jobs, time, entertainment, government and social relations. The sacred is what God has charge of: worship, Torah/Bible/Word of God, heaven and hell, church and prayers.  The people had created ways to set aside a sacred place for God, designed, we say, to honor God but really it was intended to keep God in his place, leaving them free to have the final say about everything else that goes on. 

This is the culture.  These are the people.  As we read the prophets message which is in direct conflict with living culturally in the world; it is no wonder that the prophets are not popular.  The prophets do not explain God.  They shake the people out of old conventional habits of small-mindedness, of trivializing god-gossip (what others say about God), and set us on our feet in wonder and obedience and worship.  The people did not understand what the prophets were saying at the time they were saying it.  Mm, is that normal?  Why, yes, it is.

Eugene Peterson writes,

“Over a period of several hundred years, the Hebrew people gave birth to an extraordinary number of prophets—men and women distinguished by the power and skill with which they presented the reality of God.  They delivered God’s commands and promises and living presence to communities and nations who had been living on god-fantasies and god-lies.”

“Everyone more or less believes in God.  But most of us do our best to keep God on the margins of our lives or, failing that, refashion God to suit our convenience.  Prophets insist that God is the sovereign center, not off in the wings awaiting our beck and call.  And prophets insist that we deal with God as God reveals himself, not as we imagine him to be.”

“These men and women woke people up to the sovereign presence of God in their lives.  They yelled, they wept, they rebuked, they soothed, the challenged, they comforted.  They used words with power and imagination, whether blunt or subtle.”

Prophets purge imaginations of what we now call “worldview thinking” in the current culture in which they lived with what really counts in life.  Over and over, God the Holy Spirit uses these prophets to separate his people from the cultures in which they live, putting them back on the path of simple faith and obedience and worship in defiance of all that the world admires and rewards.  Prophets train us in discerning the difference between the ways of the world and the way of the gospel, keeping us present to the Presence of God.

Peterson writes,

“Prophets are not particularly sensitive to our feelings.  They have very modest, as we would say, “relationship skills.”  We like leaders, especially religious leaders, who understand our problems (“come alongside us” is our idiom for it), leaders with a touch of glamour, leaders who look good on posters and on television.”

Yikes!  Do we see and hear a similarity from then to now?  The shocking, hard-rock reality is that prophets do not fit into our way of life.  Today we use words such as “make room for God” as we attempt “fit God into our lives.  The even harder reality is that God, whom the prophets speak is far too large to fit into our lives!  He is God, we are not.

Could this mean we could learn from the prophets still today?  It’s worth reading and exploring, right?!  Know this about the prophets then and God’s prophets today (yes, they’re called pastors and teachers, mentors and youth workers) who love God with all their hearts, minds and souls and look to God for wisdom in every day living:

Prophets are convinced that everything, absolutely everything, takes place on sacred ground.  God has something to say about every aspect of our lives.  God has something to say about the way we feel and behave in the so-called privacy of our hearts and homes, the way we make our money and the way we spend it, the politics we embrace, the wars we fight, the catastrophes we endure, the people we hurt and the people we help.  God is in it all.  Nothing is hidden from the scrutiny of God, nothing is exempt from the rule of God, nothing escapes the purposes of God.  God is Holy.  Holy is Our God.

Prophets make it impossible to evade God or make detours around God.  Prophets insist on receiving God in every nook and cranny of life.  For a prophet, God is more real than the next-door neighbor.

The question we must ask ourselves—and answer—is this: 

Do we really believe that what God says is really real?

Eternal life will depend on how we will answer.  Our real-life living will reflect our thinking.  Are we accustomed to the culture, fitting in nicely, not causing disruptions?  Mm.

Tomorrow we will begin with Isaiah, the Prophet called of God, who brings readers into the holiness of God’s Presence.  The word “holy” is used often and explained in God-terms, not as the world defines it.  Join me as we both learn and grow from God’s words to his prophet Isaiah who will announce the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Savior of the world in which God created and loves.

Lord,

You are leading us to a new study of people who walked away from cultural living to living in Your Holy Presence with “ears to hear, eyes to see” with tongues to proclaim your message!  This is new for me to study more in depth.  Teach me, for I am your servant.  Show me the way I should think and the way I should walk and I will follow.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Part of my work in my past was to plan large events of worship and learning for a denomination of representatives who would come from all parts of the world.  It took months of planning, building, arranging, meetings, and negotiating with gifted people who would help make it happen.  In the days just before all the people arrived, we would rearrange furniture, map out where people would stay, make sure the food service was on board with scheduling, and check in once more with speakers and musicians who were to come and teach, lead worship, and provide a service.  And then I would walk the campus with a friend or by myself and pray, asking God to anoint this place for his purposes, to lead people to really hear Him, for the lost to find Him with hearts ready to follow Him.

When the day of arrival finally came and all people were checked in and settled, the work God gave me to do was almost complete.  When the first song was sung to begin worship, it was at that moment that I could finally relax and enjoy what I knew God was going to do in and through all of us at the event.  I remember thanking God for bringing us to this point, being in all the details, and completing the work through all of us as I sang that first song of worship with others each year. 

It was God who worked to provide all we needed in resources and people, God who gave us wisdom, God who told us the best way to accommodate large numbers of people and it was God who prepared that place for us to worship Him and be taught by His Holy Spirit speaking through men and women yielded to God.  I prayed that participants would then carry home God’s teaching and pass it on to others in their parts of the world at the close of each event.

Our work is only finished, done and complete when God says it is.  “…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 1:6

The work of building, constructing, weaving, sewing, molding and shaping has been accomplished by God’s Chosen for His Tent of Meeting, the place where God will meet with His representatives, Aaron and his sons, to hear the prayers of His people, redeem them of their sins through the sacrifice of animals who will take on their sin and then lead God’s Chosen in worship to God for all He has done.   

Yes, the work assigned to gifted people is complete, what is next is the anointing and waiting on God…

Exodus 40, The Message

“Moses Finished the Work”

^1-3 God spoke to Moses: “On the first day of the first month, set up The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting. Place the Chest of The Testimony in it and screen the Chest with the curtain.

⁴ “Bring in the Table and set it, arranging its Lampstand and lamps.

⁵ “Place the Gold Altar of Incense before the Chest of The Testimony and hang the curtain at the door of The Dwelling.

⁶ “Place the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering at the door of The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting.

⁷ “Place the Washbasin between the Tent of Meeting and the Altar and fill it with water.

⁸ “Set up the Courtyard on all sides and hang the curtain at the entrance to the Courtyard.

^9-11 “Then take the anointing oil and anoint The Dwelling and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings so that it becomes holy. Anoint the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering and all its utensils, consecrating the Altar so that it is completely holy. Anoint the Washbasin and its base: consecrate it.

^12-15 “Finally, bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water. Dress Aaron in the sacred vestments. Anoint him. Set him apart to serve me as priest. Bring his sons and put tunics on them. Anoint them, just as you anointed their father, to serve me as priests. Their anointing will bring them into a perpetual priesthood, down through the generations.”

¹⁶ Moses did everything God commanded. He did it all.

^17-19 On the first day of the first month of the second year, The Dwelling was set up. Moses set it up: He laid its bases, erected the frames, placed the crossbars, set the posts, spread the tent over The Dwelling, and put the covering over the tent, just as God had commanded Moses.

^20-21 He placed The Testimony in the Chest, inserted the poles for carrying the Chest, and placed the lid, the Atonement-Cover, on it. He brought the Chest into The Dwelling and set up the curtain, screening off the Chest of The Testimony, just as God had commanded Moses.

^22-23 He placed the Table in the Tent of Meeting on the north side of The Dwelling, outside the curtain, and arranged the Bread there before God, just as God had commanded him.

^24-25 He placed the Lampstand in the Tent of Meeting opposite the Table on the south side of The Dwelling and set up the lamps before God, just as God had commanded him.

^26-27 Moses placed the Gold Altar in the Tent of Meeting in front of the curtain and burned fragrant incense on it, just as God had commanded him.

²⁸ He placed the screen at the entrance to The Dwelling.

²⁹ He set the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering at the door of The Dwelling, the Tent of Meeting, and offered up the Whole-Burnt-Offerings and the Grain-Offerings, just as God had commanded Moses.

^30-32 He placed the Washbasin between the Tent of Meeting and the Altar, and filled it with water for washing. Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and feet there. When they entered the Tent of Meeting and when they served at the Altar, they washed, just as God had commanded Moses.

³³ Finally, he erected the Courtyard all around The Dwelling and the Altar, and put up the screen for the Courtyard entrance.

Moses finished the work.

^34-35 The Cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Glory of God filled The Dwelling. Moses couldn’t enter the Tent of Meeting because the Cloud was upon it, and the Glory of God filled The Dwelling.

^36-38 Whenever the Cloud lifted from The Dwelling, the People of Israel set out on their travels, but if the Cloud did not lift, they wouldn’t set out until it did lift. The Cloud of God was over The Dwelling during the day and the fire was in it at night, visible to all the Israelites in all their travels.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

KNOW GOD—KNOW TO WHOM YOU BELONG

The tabernacle identified Israel as the people of God and set them apart from the other nations, for the tabernacle was consecrated by the glory of God. Other nations had sacred buildings, but they were empty. The tabernacle of Israel was blessed with the presence of the glory of God.

LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO LISTEN AND OBEY GOD

The people of Israel had no idea what Moses had experienced on the mountain and how close they had come to being rejected by God and destroyed. Never underestimate the spiritual power of a dedicated man or woman who knows how to intercede with God. One of our greatest needs today is for intercessors who can lay hold of God’s promises and trust God to work in mighty power (Is. 59:16; 62:1; 64:1–7).

EMBRACE GOD’S GLORY!

The glory of God filled the tabernacle and abided there. The Hebrew word translated “filled” in v. 35 is sometimes transliterated shekinah in English, “the abiding presence of God.” So powerful was the presence of God’s glory that Moses wasn’t able to enter the tabernacle!

JESUS, GOD’S GLORY ON EARTH! 

Bible Scholar, Warren Wiersbe writes, “The next time the glory of God came to earth was in the person of Jesus Christ (John 1:14). In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), the word for “rested” in Exodus 40:35 is the Greek word used in Luke 1:35 and translated “overshadowed.” Mary’s virgin womb was a Most Holy Place, where the glory of God dwelt in the person of God’s Son. What did the world do with this glory? Nailed it to a cross!”

“God today doesn’t live in buildings. Buildings are dedicated to God to be used as tools for His work and His worship. But God does dwell in His people, and it’s our responsibility to glorify God individually (1 Cor. 6:20) and collectively (1 Cor. 14:23–25). What a tragedy it would be if the glory departed and we had to write “Ichabod” (“Where is the glory?”) on our buildings (1 Sam. 4:21). How much better it would be if, like Moses, we did everything according to the heavenly pattern, so that God’s glory would feel at home in our midst.”

Jesus was our supreme example of serving, loving, and obeying God.  He is the One and Only who redeemed us once and for all when he said, “It is finished.” What we learn from Jesus is that our “work”, assigned to us by God, is for His glory and for helping others see Him through us.  His glory shines in those who really believe that what God says is really real.  Look for those people.  Be one of those people whom God has called to join Him in his work to save the world.  We pray, listen and obey.  Jesus saves.

Yes, indeed, “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Jesus IS coming back, you know…

Lord,

Your Word, coupled with your Holy Spirit, teaches us who you are again today! You also teach us what you expect from us.  If we love, we know you.  To know you is to love like you love us.  Forgive us our sins as we forgive others.  Lead us not into temptations to think like the world that leads to behaving like the world.  Deliver us from this evil and other selfish desires.  I give you my life again today.  Use me for your purpose in ways that give you glory, no matter the task. 

And Lord, I praise you for your servants who work all week long to set up and anoint places of worship so others will know you, learn from you and leave with minds set to follow you.  Truly bless them, Lord.

In Jesus Name, Amen