SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/15/2013
8:33 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Lord
Rebukes Jerusalem PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Isaiah 30:1-17
Message of the
verses: We have been looking at the
different times Isaiah used the word “woe” in this section of Isaiah, chapters
28-31, and in today’s SD we will look at the fourth woe. By the way I think it is fair to say that “woe”
means judgment.
The Lord Rebukes Jerusalem (Isaiah 30:1-33): (For the purposes of this SD we will look at
just the first seventeen verses.) “1 "Woe to the rebellious
children," declares the LORD, "Who execute a plan, but not Mine, And make
an alliance, but not of My
Spirit, In order to
add sin to sin; 2 Who proceed down to Egypt Without consulting Me, To
take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh And to seek shelter in the shadow of
Egypt! 3 “Therefore
the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation. 4 “For
their princes are at Zoan And their ambassadors arrive at Hanes. 5 “Everyone
will be ashamed because of a people who cannot profit them, Who are not for
help or profit, but for shame and also for reproach." 6 The oracle concerning the beasts of the
Negev. Through a land of distress and anguish, From where come lioness
and lion, viper and flying serpent, They carry their riches on the backs of
young donkeys And their treasures on camels’ humps, To a people who cannot profit them; 7 Even
Egypt, whose help is vain and empty. Therefore, I have called her "Rahab who has been
exterminated."
“8 Now go, write it on a tablet before them
And inscribe it on a scroll, That it may serve in the time to come As a witness
forever. 9 For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons
who refuse to listen To the instruction of the LORD; 10 Who say to the seers, "You must not see visions";
And to the prophets, "You
must not prophesy to us what is right, Speak to us pleasant words,(2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but
wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves
teachers in accordance to their own desires,), Prophesy illusions. 11 “Get
out of the way, turn aside from the path, Let us hear no more about the Holy
One of Israel." 12 Therefore thus says the
Holy One of Israel, "Since you have rejected this word And have put your
trust in oppression and guile, and have relied on them, 13 Therefore this iniquity will be to you Like a breach about to
fall, A bulge in a high wall, Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant,
14 Whose collapse is like the smashing
of a potter’s jar, So ruthlessly shattered That a sherd will not be found among
its pieces To take fire from a hearth Or to scoop water from a cistern." 15
For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, "In repentance
and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength." But you were not willing,
16 And you said, "No, for we will flee on horses," Therefore you
shall flee! "And we will ride on swift horses," Therefore those who
pursue you shall be swift. 17 One thousand will flee at the threat of one man;
You will flee at the threat of five, Until you are left as a flag on a mountain
top And as a signal on a hill. ("How could one chase a thousand, And two
put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them, And the LORD had
given them up? Deut. 32:30).”
We are looking at from these first seventeen verses at
God’s rebuke of the nations rebellion, and it would be good for us to remember
what Isaiah first said back in chapter one and verse two, “Listen, O heavens,
and hear, O earth; For the LORD speaks, "Sons I have reared and brought
up, But they have revolted
against Me.” We also see
something familiar in verses 20 and 23 of chapter one, and now let us look at a
couple verses near the end of Isaiah.
Isaiah 63:10, “But they rebelled And grieved His Holy Spirit; Therefore
He turned Himself to become their enemy, He fought against them.” Isaiah 65:2 “"I have spread out My hands
all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in the way which is not good,
following their own thoughts.”
The Lord had done many good things for Israel, but they
still rebelled against Him, and for the most part are continuing to rebel
against Him even to this day even though it was a fulfillment of prophecy that
they saw when God brought them back into their land in May of 1948, which
fulfilled the prophecies given by Ezekiel 36-37. I also fulfilled a prophecy found in Isaiah
66:8 “"Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be
born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion
travailed, she also brought forth her sons.”
That is exactly what happened to Israel in May of 1948 when it was made
a nation in one day. So God has done
many things for His people Israel throughout the history of this people, from
the beginning of this people by a miracle that brought a son to Abraham and
Sara, as Abraham was 100 years old and Sara was 90 when Isaac was born. Isaac had twins and God had chosen Jacob whom
He later renamed Israel, and Jacob had twelve sons who made up the twelve
tribes of Israel. They then went down to
Egypt where they stayed for four hundred years just as God had told Abraham
they would, and then God did ten miracles to bring them out with much spoils,
and then gave them the promised land as an inheritance after defeating the
people who lived in that land. These are
some of the wonderful things that God did for Israel, and now the people of
Judah were rebelling against the Lord by going down to Egypt and paying them to
do battle against the Assyrians for them.
This was not money well spent as God speaks of in this section (verses
6-7). In verse seven we see the word “Rahab”
and Dr. Wiersbe writes that “Rahab the do nothing” is what he is calling Egypt,
and that is exactly what they did for Judah after taking the money from
them.
In verses 8-11 we see that not only did the trust Egypt
by paying her money, but they were rejecting the very Word of God. Dr. Wiersbe reports that verse nine was
actually turned into a sign that Isaiah would carry around, and probably the
people just laughed at him.
We have talked before that God would rescue Judah just in
the nick of time, and the reason he does this is because of His covenant with
David that He made with him.
I put a couple of extra verse in the verses from Isaiah
that are above that will help us better to understand the text better. One from the NT and one from the OT.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I cannot be too
hard on the people of Judah, for there are times when I sin which is actually
rebelling against the Lord, and I know more about the Word of God than they did
because God has not only completed the Bible, but He has given me His Holy
Spirit to live within me. I desire to
trust the Holy Spirit to led me to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to guide my steps in a very
important event that God has worked out for me.
Memory verses for the
week: Review of 2 Peter 1:1-4
1Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the
righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3 Seeing that His divine power has
granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true
knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He granted to us His precious
and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Yes” (1 Kings 10:6).
Today’s Bible
Question: “What is the temple of God?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
9/15/2013 9:28 PM
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