Can I pray for you in any
way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian
Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend
requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of
The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
All day long I have held out My
hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own
imaginations—a people who continually provoke Me to My very face, offering
sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick.
Isaiah 65:2-3
This ends today’s reading from God's holy
word. Thanks be to God.
How does the Lord view the people of the world when He
evaluates them today? What would He say about the way we’re living?
This question is at the heart of the second devotion in
this seventeen part series, The Lord Speaks, as The Christian Walk Ministry
finishes the study of the Book of Isaiah.
So what view did the Lord have of the Israelites in the
time of Isaiah?
He tells us as He speaks in verses 2 and 3 of Isaiah 65.
Look again at His words here:
All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people, who walk
in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—a people who continually
provoke Me to My very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense
on altars of brick. Isaiah 65:2-3
It isn’t exactly a glowing assessment, is it?
Frankly, it’s a failing grade on the marking scale of
obedience to the Lord that they are to serve willingly and willfully. They have
flunked the test administered by their Maker and Master.
Where were they going wrong? The Lord details the errors of
their ways as follows:
1. They were an
obstinate people.
Obstinate is just a fancy word for being stubborn. In other
places in the scriptures, you will find the Lord using the word “stiff-necked”
to describe His people and it was true. For over and over again in the Old Testament,
we find the Israelites choosing to violate God’s commandments, particularly
when it came to their worship practices. They lived among pagan communities
that worshiped many different gods and idols, and the people of God found
themselves tempted into adopting those practices themselves. God sent
consequences onto His people on more than one occasion and, after they had repented
and changed their ways, He restored them to His favor. But then, they would backslide right back
into the old habits that got them in trouble in the first place. Indeed, they
were an obstinate people.
2. They worshiped
in ways that angered the Lord.
False worship is really no worship at all.
That’s the way the Lord sees it and we need to see it the
same way.
All the Israelites accomplished through offering sacrifices
in gardens and burning incense on brick altars, both pagan rituals, was
provoking the Lord they should have been fearfully obeying.
Only a fool would intentionally do something that they knew
would incite the Lord’s wrath and we can definitely say that the people of
Israel were fools. They knew they weren’t supposed to do the things they did
but they did them anyways.
Did I mention they were stubborn?
3. They walked in
ways that weren’t good.
This is biblical code for simply saying they walked the
path of sinfulness. For there are only two paths we can travel in life. One is
the narrow path of righteousness that leads to life today and for all eternity,
the path that Jesus told us to travel, the path that we enter through Him and a
life modeled after Him. The other path is the wide path to death and
annihilation and the scriptures tell us that many will travel it (Matthew
7:13-14).
It’s this wide path to destruction that the Israelites were
walking on. We know it because the Lord tells us that they were walking in ways
that weren’t good.
4. They pursued
their own imaginations.
We have no idea what was in the imaginations of the people
of God but we know that the Lord wasn’t present there. Had they had Him in
mind, they would not have exercised lifestyles marked by wickedness and actions
that made them His enemies.
If only the Israelites had made the Lord their number one
priority, their sole treasure and object of focus. Their story would have been
so much different.
Friends, let’s go back to the opening questions for the
world in the here and now.
How does the Lord view the people of the world when He
evaluates them today? What would He say about the way we’re living?
I hate to say it but I believe He might see a people much
like the Old Testament Israelites of more than 2,000 years ago, a people who
are obstinate, worshiping things that anger Him, walking in ways that aren’t
good and pleasing in His sight, and pursuing their own imaginations.
We had better wake up. For the Lord has spoken and here’s
what He had to say to the Israelites of old and to us today:
“I despise obstinate people who choose to walk in sin and
chase after their will and desires, those who have no problem with provoking Me
with their disrespect and disregard.”
Are we listening?
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
No comments:
Post a Comment