Monday, October 6, 2014

THEY JUST DON'T GET IT



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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The Lord has sent a message against Jacob; it will fall on Israel. All the people will know it—Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria—who say with pride and arrogance of heart,

“The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.”

But the Lord has strengthened Rezin’s foes against them and has spurred their enemies on. Arameans from the east and Philistines from the west have devoured Israel with open mouth.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

But the people have not returned to Him who struck them, nor have they sought the Lord Almighty. So the Lord will cut off from Israel both head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day; the elders and dignitaries are the head, the prophets who teach lies are the tail. Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray. Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will He pity the fatherless and widows, for everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks folly.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

Surely wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns, it sets the forest thickets ablaze, so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke. By the wrath of the Lord Almighty the land will be scorched
and the people will be fuel for the fire; they will not spare one another. On the right they will devour, but still be hungry; on the left they will eat, but not be satisfied. Each will feed on the flesh of their own offspring: Manasseh will feed on Ephraim, and Ephraim on Manasseh; together they will turn against Judah.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar?

To whom will you run for help?

Where will you leave your riches?

Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

Isaiah 9:8-21, 10:1-4

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The people of Israel just didn’t get it.

They didn’t get that God would not tolerate their disrespect and disregard. They didn’t it when God commanded that they weren’t to worship any other gods. They didn’t get that God would not stand for their lack of gratitude for all He had done for them. They didn’t get that at the heart of repentance is a turning from sin toward righteousness. And they totally didn’t get how powerful and utterly terrifying it is be in the crosshairs of God’s judgment.

But it wouldn’t be long before they would be forced to get it as they experienced the fullest measures of God’s consequences upon them, consequences detailed in today’s scripture passage which encompasses the final verses of Isaiah, Chapter 9, and the opening verses of Chapter 10. Look again at these verses now:

The Lord has sent a message against Jacob; it will fall on Israel. All the people will know it—Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria—who say with pride and arrogance of heart,

“The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.”

But the Lord has strengthened Rezin’s foes against them and has spurred their enemies on. Arameans from the east and Philistines from the west have devoured Israel with open mouth.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

But the people have not returned to Him who struck them, nor have they sought the Lord Almighty. So the Lord will cut off from Israel both head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day; the elders and dignitaries are the head, the prophets who teach lies are the tail. Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray. Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will He pity the fatherless and widows, for everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks folly.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

Surely wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns, it sets the forest thickets ablaze, so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke. By the wrath of the Lord Almighty the land will be scorched
and the people will be fuel for the fire; they will not spare one another. On the right they will devour, but still be hungry; on the left they will eat, but not be satisfied. Each will feed on the flesh of their own offspring: Manasseh will feed on Ephraim, and Ephraim on Manasseh; together they will turn against Judah.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar?

To whom will you run for help?

Where will you leave your riches?

Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain.

Yet for all this, His anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised.

Isaiah 9:8-21, 10:1-4

The Lord sent judgment on His people and instead of them seeing the destruction as coming from Him and repenting of their wrongs, instead the people adopted an attitude of self reliance which is what got them in trouble in the first place. They were not a people who had placed their trust in God and they still were that way despite His punishment. They weren’t turning toward God’s will in the aftermath of the devastation they went through. No, they proclaimed how they would simply rebuild things like that was what was needed to get things back in order.

They just didn’t get it.

And so the Lord chose to send more penalties for their arrogance and pride of heart. For He strengthened Rezin’s foes against the Israelites and spurred their enemies on. The Arameans were sent from the east and Philistines from the west to devour Israel.

But the Lord wasn’t willing to allow His discipline to stop there. He did not turn His anger away and kept His hand upraised against His people.

For the Israelites were stiff-necked and chose to not return to the Lord who was striking them with His judgment. They decided to not seek the Lord God Almighty, turning from Him and so He continued to up the ante to get their attention. Scripture tells us He cut off from Israel both head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day with the elders and dignitaries being the head and the prophets who taught lies the tail. All those who had misled the people as well as the people who allowed themselves to be led astray suffered the consequences for doing so as the Lord took no pleasure in young men or pitied the fatherless and widows. Everyone was ungodly and wicked and every mouth spoke folly.

Did I mention that the people of Israel didn’t get it?

But the Lord was not yet done for the wickedness of His people was burning hot as evidenced by their apostasy and utter contempt for Him. And so the Lord in His wrath sent some fire of His own, fire that scorched the land with the people fuel for the divine flames of the Father. The circumstances would be so severe that one Israelite would turn on another, not sparing them. There would be infighting as everyone looked out for their own welfare with rival tribes combining to turn against Judah. Unity would give way to discord and chaos.

But the Lord still wasn’t yet finished with His people who failed to get it.

For He specifically targeted the unjust, especially the policy makers of the day, those who issued oppressive decrees, deprived the poor of their rights, and withheld justice from the oppressed, preying on widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

Those people would experience the woe of the Lord and that’s just a place no one should ever want to be.

That woe would be experienced from all of Israel who were simply asked a series of questions for things were about to change in a big way and life as they knew it was going to be no more.

For what would Israel do on the day of reckoning as God brought judgment and disaster upon them?

Who would Israel be able to turn to for help? Who could possibly save them from the wrath of God?

Where would the Israelites leave their riches, especially since they were going to be hauled away into exile in a foreign land for seventy years?

The truth of the matter was that nothing the Israelites possessed would be left after the wrath of God came upon them. They were going to lose their land. They were going to lose their riches. They were going to lose their freedom. All of it was going to be gone.

It would have been so much easier if the people of Israel would have just gotten it.

And this leads me to the question I believe this word of God is asking all of us today:

Do we get it?

Do we understand that Lord demands our complete obedience to His word and will and way? Do we fully understand that the Lord doesn’t just want a part of who we are but all of who we are? Do we understand that He hates sin and wickedness and will judge and discipline anyone who chooses it over the righteousness He offers?

We should read the history of the Israelites with an eye to where we stand today. Don’t think for a moment that the Lord won’t rain down His consequences on any nation of the world, no matter how powerful and secure they might seem. He surely has taken down every great empire that has ever risen up and will continue to do so if they turn away from Him and His purposes.

My prayer (and I pray yours too) is for every person of every nation to fully place their hope and trust in the Lord God Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Master and Ruler over all of mankind.

For it’s then, and only then, when we will show the Lord that we get it.

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

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