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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 idols among the smooth stones
of the ravines are your portion; indeed, they are your lot. Yes, to them you
have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings.”
“In view of all this, should I relent?”
“You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices. Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols. Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened it wide; you made a pact with those whose beds you love, and you looked with lust on their naked bodies.”
“You went to Molek with olive oil and increased your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away; you descended to the very realm of the dead! You wearied yourself by such going about, but you would not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.”
“Whom have you so dreaded and
feared that you have not been true to me, and have neither remembered me nor
taken this to heart? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not
fear me?”
“I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you. When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away.”
“But whoever takes refuge in me will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain.”
Isaiah 57:6-13
This ends this
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Today is the final devotion in this
twelve part series on the indicators of wicked living and, appropriately for a
Sunday, the central focal point is on false and inappropriate worship.
Unless you have never spent much
time in the Old Testament, you know that this matter of improperly worship was
at the heart of what got the Israelites in trouble with God over and over
again. Going back to when they took control of the Promised Land, you may
recall how the people of Israel disobeyed God by not ridding the land of people
who were already abiding in it. That mistake would be a critical one as the pagan
religious practices of the existing peoples within Canaan infiltrated the
Israelite culture before long and persisted all the way through until God had
finally had enough and sent His people into a seventy year exile to Babylon. It’s
on the brink of that judgment that we find God speaking in our scripture
passage for today from the 57th chapter of Isaiah:
“The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion; indeed,
they are your lot. Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings and offered
grain offerings.”
“In view of all this, should I relent?”
“You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices. Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols. Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened it wide; you made a pact with those whose beds you love, and you looked with lust on their naked bodies.”
“You went to Molek with olive oil and increased your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away; you descended to the very realm of the dead! You wearied yourself by such going about, but you would not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.”
“Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have not been true to me,
and have neither remembered me nor taken this to heart? Is it not because I
have long been silent that you do not fear me?”
“I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you. When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away.”
“But whoever takes refuge in me will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain.” Isaiah 57:6-13
Note here that the people of Israel
had adopted idol worshipping in their religious practices, a direct and blatant
violation of one of God’s main commandments:
“You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for
yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”
Exodus 20:3-4a
God expected His people to be
faithful to Him just as He was faithful to them but instead of offering their
best to God, the One who had given them everything, they instead poured out
their offerings to idols. They crawled into bed with false gods and gave them
all the desires that were to be reserved for God and God alone. And although
they had descended to the realm of the dead through their sinfulness, they
thought everything was fine.
Sadly, we have not learned much
from mistakes of those Israelites from more than 2,000 years ago. Instead of
devotion ourselves in worship to God, we choose to worship the things of this
world more. We chase after the things we want to chase after and anything goes,
when it comes to fulfilling our deepest wants, whether it’s right in God’s
sight or not.
So what will come of this? What
fate awaits those who choose spiritual infidelity and sinfully reject and
disrespect the very God who made them and reigns supreme over them and all
creation?
God gives us a clue because the
fate of the disloyal and spiritually adulterous is the same as it was in the
times of Isaiah. For God will not reward people who willingly choose to live
wickedly. He will expose their sinfulness and nothing they do will benefit
them. They will find themselves unfulfilled and when they turn back to God for
help, He will show them what life is like separate from Him for idol worshippers
will be left to call on the idols they worship, idols that will never answer or
respond in any way because they are just as dead in spirit as the people
showing devotion to them.
It’s not a pretty picture but note
where God opens up a window of hope at the very end of this passage. For those
who have gone astray and were disloyal to God have a chance for redemption. All
they need to do is repent and turn back to the one true God, the Lord God
Almighty, Maker and Master of heaven and earth. All they need to do is put all
idols and false gods aside and devote themselves fully to God and God alone,
allowing Him to abide in them as they abide in Him.
When that happens, when those who
have turned from God turn back to Him and make Him their refuge, then and only
then will they find themselves delivered from the cusp of hell to an
inheritance that will never perish, an inheritance that can never be taken from
them as they one day are able to reside with God and His Son Jesus forever.
Question: What are you worshipping
in your life?
If it’s anything except the Lord,
it’s an indicator of wicked living.
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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