You Will Hear the Word - Isaiah 29-33

Isaiah 30:19-21 (ESV Strong's)
For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

You Will Hear the Word

In this section of his prophecy, Isaiah is speaking about Jerusalem.  They have, for quite some time, rejected God’s word.   They have walked in the way they wanted to walk and not even consulted with God.  In fact, in this section, God warns them to NOT go down to Egypt to find support and strength ... especially since they didn’t even consult with God about it:

Isaiah 31:1 (ESV Strong's)
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help
and rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
or consult the Lord!

But, in the verses above, we see that God IS going to bring them to a place where they will hear His voice.  In fact, God tells them that they will “hear the word behind you.”    Is that not a great picture of God speaking to us as we travel this world.    Imagine a father helping a child as they learn how to ride a bike.  The chid thinks they are peddling, but it is really God pushing, holding, guiding, supporting and balancing.   That is the Christian walk.  Even the peddling we do is done through the power of God.   We can rejoice that God is behind us, telling us when to turn right and left and when to go straight or stop.   That is our walk with God when we allow the Spirit of God to control us and to work in us for God’s glory.

LIfe In HIs Hands - Job 12-13

Job 12:10-12 (ESV Strong's)
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.
Does not the ear test words
as the palate tastes food?
Wisdom is with the aged,
and understanding in length of days.

Life In His Hands

Job is defending himself to his “friends.”  In his pain, his friends have attacked him by telling him that his pain and suffering are a result of his sin.   Job is about to go on the attack and complain before them and to God that he is NOT suffering because of his sin.  He believes he is a righteous man.  Indeed, the first chapters of the book tell us that was exactly God’s assessment of Job.   Yet, in the above passage, Job first declares a truth we all should acknowledge.   In God’s hands is everyone’s life.  God is the one who gives us breath.  

Job goes on to tell his friends that just like the ear tests the words it hears and the tongue tastes the food that enters the mouth, he will test the counsel of his friends and see it it satisfies.   According to Job, it does not.    He is letting them know that the “aged” those who have “length of days” will test their words (counsel to him) and they, too, will reject them.  

Job is making the point that he believes their counsel is off base and misrepresents what God is doing ini his life.  He is right, of course, but it will take more arguments and more chapters to reveal God’s plan to both them and Job.   The point we might take from this passage is that it is God who gives life and it is God who gives truth.   We ought not try to put ourselves as judge and jury as to what is happening in the lives of others.  We ought to just be ready to share with them the truth of God’s word and let God be the judge and jury.    God gives life and truth ... not us.  

God IS Our Refuge (Psalms 15-17)

Psalms 16:1-2 (ESV Strong's)
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”

God IS Our Refuge

Anyone ever caught in a storm knows the the value of a “refuge.”  When the storm is battering down on you, it is reassuring to know you are not in the storm but protected from it.   This is the truth of the above line of David’s “miktam.”   A Hebrew “miktam” is a poem, probably set to music.   David is composing for us his truths about having God as a “refuge.”  David does not just have “a” refuge.  David has the “Lord” as his refuge.   That is the difference between the believer and the world around us.  The world around us has wealth as a shelter.  The world has family as a shelter.  The world has religion as a shelter.   Believers have a Person (the Person of Christ) as a shelter.    That is the peace we see expressed in David’s poem.    David knows that all other shelters are temporary.   He says of God, his shelter, “I have no good apart from you.”   That is refreshing and that is something that can cause us to be at ease in the midst of the storm.  That is something we ONLY attain to through the eyes of faith.   Money you can count ... but it can vanish in a heart beat.  Family you can see ... but they can desert you in a heart beat.   Religion can sooth, but it has not long lasting impacts spiritually.   Only the Person of Christ can be the answer to, “I have no good apart from you.”    We lean into that truth in faith.  

Disobedience to God Invites Unwanted Conflict - Judges 1-5

Judges 2:11-15 (ESV Strong's)
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.

Disobedience to God Invites Unwanted Conflict

Since most have a view of God that He is full of love and kindness, the above passage might come to them like edges of a sword.   But, God’s Word can do that sometimes to us:

Hebrews 4:12-13 (ESV Strong's)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Sometimes we need to be cut by God’s Word to remove the fat of our lives.   In the above passage we read that the nation of Israel, despite all of God’s blessing in their lives, disobeyed God.  That disobedience brought in God’s anger and discipline.  That discipline was manifested by God allowing unwanted wars and conflicts in their lives.   God can not sin and God can not make sin happen.  But, God CAN and often DOES pull back a measure of His grace, which allows sin to run rampant.   This is what happen in Job’s case.  God told Satan he could touch Job’s family, income, resources and, eventually, his body, but not his life.  God’s grace pulled back to allow Satan to do what he wanted.  When we walk in disobedience, God can pull back His divine favor toward us and allow conflict to come into our lives.  That does not mea all conflict is from our disobedience (Paul was very obedient and had much conflict in his life).   But, it does mean this a tool God uses to correct our walk with Him.   In the book of Judges, God would allow these wars to come upon Israel.  The wars would force Israel to their knees.  That would touch God’s grace and He would send them a “judge” to deliver them.   That is the story of the book of Judges.   God allowed the wars and conflict to correct them and to drive them to repentance.  That is the story of Judges.  When we fall away from God (and we will) we can experiment the conflict that comes from that disobedience.  That is real.  But, we can also repent and return to God and God will send deliverance.  That is also real.  

God Open Our Eyes - Genesis 20-23

Genesis 21:17-19 (ESV Strong's)
And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

God Opens Our Eyes

In the above passage we have a portion of the story about Sarah’s handmade, Hagar, and her son (fathered by Abraham), Ishmael.   Once Sarah had her own son, Issac (the promised son for Abraham, from God), Sarah wanted Hagar and Ishmael gone.   Reluctantly, but by God’s command, Abraham sends Hager out with some water, which eventually runs out.   The above passage is what happens next.  

Hagar put Ismael under a tree to die and was preparing herself for that event.   This is where God intervenes.   God sees her and steps into history to change her focus.  We are not sure, from this point, exactly what happened.   Did God actually create a place that had water?  Or, was Hagar so distraught and in pain she simply did not see the water God points her to?   We do not know the answer, but we do know it took God intervening in her life for her to see the need she had was provided to her.   We can, in life, become so distraught with our pain and the pain of our children and loved ones that we don’t see the solution right in front of us.  It is hard to read this passage and not think about Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well in John 4.  She cam to get water at the well, but Jesus tells her His is the “water of life” and if she drinks of Him she will “never thirst.”  Jesus, of course, was talking spiritually.   But the woman was so distracted by her thirst and the labor of drawing water from a well everyday, she missed the point entirely.   We have so much struggle in this life and Jesus says, “I am right here.”   But we miss it because we are focused on the temporary and temporal and not the eternal.   God wants to open our eyes to His provision in the mist of our struggle.  Look!! There is water right there!!!   His name is Jesus!!  

God Has Many - Romans 9-11

Romans 11:2-4 (ESV Strong's)
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God's reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”

God Has Many

In Matthew 7:13-14 we read the following:

Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV Strong's)
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

In that passage, Jesus is coming to an end of the Sermon on the Mount.  He tells the listeners that there is a broad way that many travel that will, in the end, end in destruction.  In Romans, Paul tells the church at Rome that not all of those who claim to be from the nation of Israel are actually God’s chosen people.   He is making a point that God knows those who are His.  Elijah thought it was alone, but there were many others Elijah did not know.   We should not get hung up and the “how” many, but on that God “knows” those who are His.  He has chosen those He wants for Himself.   We can rejoice that God has many, albeit many more will reject Him.   Too many want to follow their own systems and their own ways of doing things.  

Many Reject Christ - Matthews 11-13

Matthew 11:20-24 (ESV Strong's)

Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

Many Reject Christ

We live in a performance based society. If you perform you make more money.  That is just a simple observation.   People who don’t perform are marginalized and are often seen lacking leadership, skill, or motivation.  Imagine a preacher who went to into a city to start a church and no one listened.  Supposed the preacher left that city and went to another city and the same thing happened.    Most would say he must not be a good preacher.  They might think his doctrine was askew.   They might even think the man was in the wrong line of work.   Yet, in the above passage we have the words of Jesus in regard to city after city He went to that did not repent and turn to their Messiah.   In today’s economy and philosophy, Jesus would have probably looked like a failed prophet or preacher.   These cities rejected His message.  Even with perfect doctrine, spoken by the Son of God, men rejected truth.    Jesus had twelve disciples.  Not only did one of them actual betray Him, the others ran away from Him at His crucifixion.   Jesus was rejected.  Not because He failed to speak truth;  Not because He neglected to preach truth.  Not because He failed to live the truth out as an example.  Jesus was rejected because the truth presented in a perfect manner with exemplary actions failed to mix with faith.   The prayer we have to have as we present truth is that those who hear it will mix it with faith and believe the truth we present.  As flawed “ministers” for Christ we will have those around us reject the truth.    But, our role is to present it in a way that they understand.  It is God’s role to provide the faith.   Present the truth.   Then pray they have faith.