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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
See how Jerusalem, once so faithful, has become a prostitute. Once the home of justice and righteousness, she is now filled with murderers. Once like pure silver, you have become like worthless slag. Once so pure, you are now like watered-down wine.
Your leaders are rebels, the companions of thieves. All of them love bribes and demand payoffs,
but they refuse to defend the cause of orphans or fight for the rights of widows.
Isaiah 1:21-23
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
One thing that’s sure about life is that change happens. Anyone who lives it can attest to that.
Sometimes that change can be very personal, impacting just one person. Other times, change can be broader, spreading from one person to another and leading to a shared change experience. Still at other times, change can be very widespread like a building wave, drawing up countless numbers of people in its wake. At its crest in these instances, change can impact entire nations. Just think about the Ebola virus outbreak right now to see how that can be true.
Well, sin can be compared to a virus of sort as it infects and can spread from person to person. When it gets out of hand, it infiltrates and taints entire cultures of people. If you don’t believe that, then you haven’t been paying attention to the first chapter of Isaiah and the Lord details the fall of His great nation spurred on by the people’s willing choice to adopt wickedness over righteousness.
Look at our verses today as the words of the Lord detail how Israel had changed for the bad:
See how Jerusalem, once so faithful, has become a prostitute. Once the home of justice and righteousness, she is now filled with murderers. Once like pure silver, you have become like worthless slag. Once so pure, you are now like watered-down wine.
Your leaders are rebels, the companions of thieves. All of them love bribes and demand payoffs,
but they refuse to defend the cause of orphans or fight for the rights of widows.
Jerusalem was once the cherished city of God, blessed and favored for its holiness and faithfulness unto Him. But times had changed. The once faithful Jerusalem had sold their souls into sin, just a prostitute allows her body to become an instrument for wicked, sexual immorality. The Israelites sold out God for idols, devoting their worship to false gods, violating God’s most primary commandment to have no other god before Him and inciting His anger and judgment.
We see where sin didn’t stop at idolatry. It rarely does. For one sinful behavior, once adopted, will beget another and then another and then another until everything a person does will be predicated by transgressive behavior. The people God used to call His chosen ones were now being referenced by Him as murderers, rebels, and companions of thieves. Becoming more self-serving than the self sacrificial servants God called them to be, the people had become more in love with money than people, particularly the ones who were in need such as the orphans and widows.
Yes, Israel had fallen hard. Once as valuable and priceless as pure silver, they now were as worthless as slag, which is nothing more than stony waste matter and as undesirable and impotent as watered-down wine.
Maybe we have seen this happen before once or twice, entire communities or cities or nations, embracing sinfulness over righteousness, trading in God and His offer of righteousness for wickedness. This is change in its worse sense, change in the wrong direction, change that is going to result in nothing less than God’s wrath and consequence.
If you live in a community, a city, or a nation like this, it’s time to speak out for God, to offer yourself as a spokesperson and voice to bring attention to the sinfulness around you and pronounce God’s call for people to repent and turn from their sinful ways toward righteousness and back toward Jesus who is the true key here for us living in the present days.
For if we live like Jesus, we need not even have this discussion about entire cities and nations turning to sin. This is because Jesus lived in perfect righteousness, showing us the right life, the right way, and the right truth (John 14:6) to apply to our own lives. As we walk through every day that God grants us, let us remember that Jesus is the only One who can lead us to God. We would be well served to take His hand and walk with Him to that end and avoid any chance that we may ever change for the bad and allow sin to have a foothold in our lives. .
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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