SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/12/2013
8:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Lord Warns Jerusalem PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Isaiah
28:12-29
Message of the
verses: In yesterday’s SD we looked
at the first of four announcements that the Prophet Isaiah gave to the people
of Judah, and today we want to finish looking at the last two announcements he
gave.
God Offers His People Rest (Isaiah 28:12-20): “12 He who said to them, "Here is rest,
give rest to the weary," And, "Here is repose," but they would not listen.
13 So the word of the LORD to them will
be, "Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little
here, a little there," That they may go and stumble backward, be broken,
snared and taken captive.
“14 Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, O
scoffers, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, 15 Because you have said, "We have made a
covenant with death, And with Sheol we have made a pact. The overwhelming scourge
will not reach us when it passes by, For we have made falsehood our refuge and
we have concealed ourselves with deception." 16 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD,
"Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone
for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.
17 “I will make justice the measuring line And righteousness the level; Then
hail will sweep away the refuge of lies And the waters will overflow the secret
place. 18 “Your covenant with death will be canceled, And your pact with Sheol
will not stand; When the overwhelming scourge passes through, Then you become
its trampling place. 19 “As often as it passes through, it will seize you; For
morning after morning it will pass through, anytime during the day or night,
And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means." 20 The bed is
too short on which to stretch out, And the blanket is too small to wrap oneself
in.”
In Isaiah 7:4; 8:6-8 God offered peace to His people, but
they trusted in the political alliances that they had made instead of in God
(See verses 15 & 18). Israel,
through King Ahaz had made a secret alliance with Assyria, and King Hezekiah
made an alliance with the nation of Egypt, and this got Hezekiah in a lot of
hot water with the Lord who would send Isaiah to speak to him about this. The Lord calls these covenants “covenants
with death and the grave” in this section of Isaiah. The Assyrians would come like a flood; a
storm; and a whip and Ephraim would not escape, but Judah would escape by the
skin of her teeth. We see in this
section a reference to Messiah that He quoted to the Pharisees and that comes
from verse sixteen, and what it means in the context of Isaiah’s writings is
that Judah’s only hope was in “The Rock of Ages.” We see this verse quoted in the NT books of 1
Peter 2:4-7; Romans 9:33; Mark 12:10; and look at Psalm 118:22 also.
We saw in yesterday’s SD what John MacArthur said about
verse ten and he writes the following on verse twelve where we see God
repeating what the people had said to Isaiah in verse ten: “In light of their rejection, the Lord
imitated the mockery of the drunkards in jabber they could not understand.” Let us look also at what he says about verse seventeen: “When the messiah rules His kingdom, the
system of justice will contrast strongly with the refuge of lies in which
Jerusalem’s leaders engaged (see verse 15).”
One more comment of his from verse twenty: “A proverbial expression about sort beds and
narrow sheets, telling Jerusalem that foreign alliances are inadequate
preparations for the defense of the city.”
We see from this section that the Assyrians would repeatedly attack
Jerusalem, but God would have the last word on that as He shows the people of
Jerusalem who was really in charge.
Their Confidence that God would not Judge them was a
Delusion (Isaiah 28:21-29): “21 For the
LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim, He will be stirred up as in the valley
of Gibeon, To do His task, His unusual task, And to work His work, His
extraordinary work. 22 And now do not carry on as scoffers, Or your fetters
will be made stronger; For I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts Of decisive
destruction on all the earth.
“23 Give ear and hear my voice, Listen and
hear my words. 24 Does the farmer plow continually to plant seed? Does he
continually turn and harrow the ground? 25 Does he not level its surface And
sow dill and scatter cummin And plant wheat in rows, Barley in its place and
rye within its area? 26 For his God instructs and teaches him properly. 27 For
dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, Nor is the cartwheel driven over
cummin; But dill is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a club. 28 Grain for
bread is crushed, Indeed, he does not continue to thresh it forever. Because
the wheel of his cart and his horses eventually damage it, He does not thresh
it longer. 29 This also comes from the LORD of hosts, Who has made His counsel
wonderful and His wisdom great.”
Judah did not truly know the God they worshiped, for they
thought that because of the past that God would not judge them, things like the
victory of David over the Philistines at Mount Perazim or Joshua’s victory over
the Amorites at Gibeon, but the difference with this was that Joshua and David were
godly leaders, something they did not have at this time. We see from the time of the end of King
Solomon’s rule that the nation split and the Northern Kingdom did not have one
godly leader, while the Southern kingdom had few godly leaders and now it was
time for God to use the Assyrians to defeat the Northern Kingdom and come close
to doing the same to the Southern Kingdom.
Dr. Wiersbe writes the following:
“What Isaiah’s scoffing opponents did not realize was that God would do
a ‘strange work’: He would use the enemy to fight against His own people! Just as a farmer has different tasks to
perform and must adapt himself to each task, whether plowing or threshing, so
God must do the work that is necessary to bring about His eternal
purposes. He knows just what tool to use
and when to use it.” The shame in all of
this is that the Southern Kingdom watched how God used the Assyrians to destroy
the Northern Kingdom and yet they still did not think He would do anything to
them.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Our Pastor has
been going through the life of David for the last ten or so months and we are
now in the part about David’s life where he has committed a great sin with
Bathsheba by sleeping with her and then killing her husband to cover up the
first sin. The bottom line is that the
Lord did forgive Him of these sins, but did not allow David to miss the
consequences of his sin. David’s life
was never the same after these sins. We
see this same thing in the lives of the people of Jerusalem as they too would
suffer the consequences of their sin and this is one thing that I and all of us
need to learn that there are consequences to sin even though God will forgive
those who are His own and come to Him asking for forgiveness. We seen in the twelfth chapter of the book of
Hebrews that the Lord disciplines those who are his because He loves us so much
that He does not want to see us stay the same, but grow in our relationship
with the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Remember that sin has its consequences.
Memory verses for the
week: Review of 2 Peter 1:1-3.
1 Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus
Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, but 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.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Corinth” (Acts 18:1).
Today’s Bible
Question: “When the people returned to
Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon, who oversaw the rebuilding of the temple?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
9/12/2013 9:41 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment