Oct. 22 – Thoughts on Isa. 65-66 & 1 Tim. 2

A few years ago we studied the book of Revelation in our adult bible study class.  And as we read through and studied that book chapter by chapter, verse by verse, one of the recurring themes that we kept noticing was just how little in that book was original to John.  Much if not most of the book was taken directly or indirectly from previous writings, and a lot of it from the book of Isaiah.  Today we find just such a passage; one that was taken by John and incorporated in his Revelation.

Here we find the first promise of a New Heaven and a New Earth.  It’s been hard for many to reconcile their views of the afterlife with the scriptures.  Their idea was that there would  be a rapture and we would all be taken to heaven to live forever with Jesus in the sky.  This Escapist view of the afterlife leads to some pretty terrifying beliefs and behaviors by its proponents.  Among them is the belief that if the world is going to be destroyed anyway, why conserve it, care for it, or protect it?  Another is the idea that the things of this world are temporary and therefore meaningless in the long run so we should devote 100% of our time to spiritual things instead of tangible ones.  And the list goes on and on.

Scripture again and again tells us that this earth is not going to be recycled but reconciled.  This very world on which we live is to be redeemed, restored as a New Heaven and a New Earth.  Jesus will return, meaning come back to this earth, and reign as king forever.  And this New, redeemed earth will never see war, or pain, or tears, or sorrow, or injustice, or sin again.  This is the promise of scripture and so must dictate our behavior in the here and now.

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Oct. 21 – Thoughts on Isa. 62-64 & 1 Tim. 1

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.”

I know me better than anyone short of God Himself, so I know better than anyone else the sins that try me.  I know my temptations, my weaknesses, and more to the point, I know when I give in to them.  I don’t know your sins, temptations, weaknesses, or fallings.  I just know me and mine.  I believe this goes for every person on earth.

This being the case, I also know better than anyone else just how much grace has been given to me.  I know how God has not punished me for the sins I have committed, and I know how He has helped me grow through and out of some of the sins I’ve faced.  Nobody can know the amount of grace God has given to me except me.  And I cannot know the level of grace offered to you as well as you can.

If we could recognize the truth of this, I think we could change the world.  First, if we could recognize that we do not know the sins of others, we would be significantly more effective at sharing the good news with others.   As it stands, we are so busy dissecting and gossiping about the sins of others that we have no time, nor any voice in their lives, to share the gospel with them.   Second, if we could remember the grace we ourselves have received, we would be so much more able to offer that grace to others.

Jesus didn’t come to scrutinize our sin, or to condemn us for it, or to remind us of just how awful we are.  He came to save us, we sinners, and to offer more grace than we know what to do with.  Paul got this, and was the most effective evangelist ever.  Let’s remember this ourselves and join Paul as he joined Christ in his mission to save sinners.

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Oct. 20 – Thoughts on Isa. 59-61 & 2 Thess. 3

In his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Johnathan Edwards preached of hell’s reality, of God’s grace, and of our deep indebtedness to God for our salvation.  It was typical preaching from the Great Awakening and used the now-famous image of God holding humankind over the fires of hell as a man might hold a spider by its web dangling over a candle flame.  This is not the feel-good, kindly old God we are used to hearing about these days.

Isaiah seems to have a different view of God and his relation to our sin.  Rather than ominously dangling us over a flame, it seems that God’s punishment for our sin is to let it have its way with us.  God’s greatest gift, our free will to do whatever we please, becomes our greatest curse when sin is involved.

Our sinfulness separates us from God, Isaiah says in 59:2.  It is not God who ruins the relationship with His holiness but we with our sinfulness walk away, or build the wall of separation, or become enemies of God.  Paul picks up this idea throughout his writings but especially in Romans 2, where the punishment for our sin is to let it run its course.

And sin on the loose is a harsh punishment, for sin always seeks to increase itself.  Lies always lead to more lies and ultimately to broken relationships.  I have given up on political dialogue in this season because anyone who is paying attention in the least knows that our government does not speak truth but convenience.  Whatever helps their cause is what they say, even when facts or experience or common sense or their own previous statements contradict it.  And when the truth dies, so does trust, relationship, and hope.  Similarly, violence always leads to more violence, hence the Old Testament rule “an eye for an eye”, which really meant “no more than an eye for an eye”.  Name the sin and follow it to its logical conclusion and you will find death and broken relationship.

But thanks be to God that He breaks the cycle of sin.  God teaches us another way, a way that regards truth as a required good unto itself, that repays peace for violence, and that brings life, eternal life, back to our sinful souls.

So we have a choice to make.  We can either follow God’s ways and find life and eternal friendship with God, or we can follow our own way and find death and separation from Him.  But the choice is ours, and to “not choose” is to choose the later.

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Oct. 19 – Thoughts on Isa. 56-58 & 2 Thess. 2

Jesus was deeply inclusive, and it drove the Pharisees nuts.  At his first adult synagogue service, He quoted Isaiah as His personal mission statement.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the  Lord’s favor…” – Isa. 61

They loved it and praised Him thoroughly.  Until, that is, his next statement…

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

Jesus’ suggestion that God might love and care for people other than Jews flips their opinion 180 degrees.  From their amazement and praise, they move to wanting to kill Him for blasphemy.  The Jews of Jesus’ day simply would not tolerate Jesus’ inclusiveness.

In today’s reading, we have another phrase Jesus famously quoted in His own ministry.  “for my house will be called a house of prayer.”  He says it as He attacks the temple money changers in a fit of rage.  And we usually take it to be a statement about the disruptive noise of the animals, the cheating scales of the money changers, and the misuse of the Temple.  But if you read this in context, you find that it is once again a statement of inclusiveness.

Every Jew upon hearing a short quote from the Old Testament would know the entire passage and context immediately.  So they would have known that Jesus was speaking about people who were declared by the Law to be unacceptable to God yet by God through Isaiah to be even more acceptable than the Jews themselves.  Eunuchs, foreigners, Gentiles who the Pharisees feel should have no place in the Temple, are proclaimed to be closer to God than the Jews themselves.  And it was in the Court of the Gentiles, the only place where Gentiles were allowed to worship God, that the money changers were disrupting worship with their animal sales.  After all, they were only Gentiles.

If Jesus can again and again proclaim a gospel that includes, shouldn’t we too?  Or will we, like the Pharisees, interpret the Law as exclusionary and risk finding ourselves opposing Jesus Himself?

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Oct. 18 – Thoughts on Isa. 53-55 & 2 Thess. 1

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you, “how are you suffering right now?”  None of us likes to suffer, yet everyone will at one point or another.  It is one of the most avoided parts of life, yet it is inevitable.  It tests our faith like nothing else, yet every person faces it.  I have, you have, Jesus did, and the scriptures promise that we will.

In fact, the scriptures also promised that Jesus would.  Isa. 53 is known as the chapter of the Suffering Servant and is a direct description of Jesus’ suffering.  I used to ask how the Jews missed this obvious prophecy of suffering, until I began to ask which prophecies of Jesus’ second return I am missing.

God does not cause our suffering.  Rather, when we sin and walk away from God He allows it.  And as we walk away from Him, consciously or not, it leads to our own suffering.  When we ask, as most do at one point or another, why God allows suffering (when what we really mean is, “why does God cause my suffering?”), we don’t have to look any further than our own choices.  God doesn’t allow our suffering – He allows us to sin and reap the consequences of of that sin, which are suffering.

And as we age, we begin to realize that it is in suffering, and maybe ONLY in suffering, that we truly grow as people.  We never grow in the midst of comfort, and seldom in the midst of blessing.  But when we suffer, the real self is revealed, and we cry out to God, either in fear, pain, or anger.

Does God cause our suffering?  No.  But He can use it to grow us into the people He has created us to be.

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