Following this image of an inchworm headed in my direction, but then turning west, was an image of a man facing me (south) and a child facing him (north), with the child’s back to me. The child stood slightly southeast of the man. Both the man and the child were wearing hooded sweatshirts with the hoods over their heads. I could see no bodies or faces, but I knew it was a man and a child. END
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Isaiah 29 (NIV 1984):
Woe to David’s City
1 Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,
the city where David settled!
Add year to year
and let your cycle of festivals go on.
2 Yet I will besiege Ariel;
she will mourn and lament,
she will be to me like an altar hearth.
3 I will encamp against you all around;
I will encircle you with towers
and set up my siege works against you.
4 Brought low, you will speak from the ground;
your speech will mumble out of the dust.
Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth;
out of the dust your speech will whisper.
5 But your many enemies will become like fine dust,
the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant,
6 the LORD Almighty will come
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
7 Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
that attack her and her fortress and besiege her,
will be as it is with a dream,
with a vision in the night—
8 as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating,
but he awakens, and his hunger remains;
as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking,
but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched.
So will it be with the hordes of all the nations
that fight against Mount Zion.
9 Be stunned and amazed,
blind yourselves and be sightless;
be drunk, but not from wine,
stagger, but not from beer.
10 The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep:
He has sealed your eyes (the prophets);
he has covered your heads (the seers).
11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” 12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”
13 The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
14 Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
15 Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
“Who sees us? Who will know?”
16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
“He did not make me”?
Can the pot say of the potter,
“He knows nothing”?
17 In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field
and the fertile field seem like a forest?
18 In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,
and out of gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind will see.
19 Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD;
the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 The ruthless will vanish,
the mockers will disappear,
and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down—
21 those who with a word make a man out to be guilty,
who ensnare the defender in court
and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.
22 Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob:
“No longer will Jacob be ashamed;
no longer will their faces grow pale.
23 When they see among them their children,
the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy;
they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding;
those who complain will accept instruction.”
My Understanding: I looked up “inchworm” and learned that it is indigenous to N. America. They are also called “measuring worms,” or “earth-measurers.” In the middle part of their bodies, they lack appendages, so they have a characteristic looping. Inchworms move by first pulling their hind ends in a forward motion. They hold themselves in place with their front legs. Then they expand the front part of their bodies, holding their back part in place with their back legs. “Inchworms hide from predators by fading into the background or resembling twigs.” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometridae; http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/inchworm.aspx
Once again I believe the Lord is applying this passage of scripture today to the institutional church and/or to the people of the church in the USA who are following after men and their own flesh rather than following after God. This is also speaking of a judgment on their capital city, so again I sense strongly that the Lord is speaking of judgment against Washington, D.C., too, our nation’s capital city. Yet, I see an application in here, as well, a little closer to home, since the inchworm was coming in my direction. Yet, as the inchworm slowly moved my direction, he was moving with a looping gait, i.e. he was meandering, lying, distorting, manipulating and perverting the truth. His hind end was leading the way in all this, too, and then he finally just turned away from me entirely and headed west.
God is declaring a judgment here against his people. He spoke of them adding year to year and yet their cycle of festivals goes on. I believe the Lord is showing me this “cycle” of “festivals” as this continuance of sexual perversion, lying, distorting and manipulating the truth that has gone on year after year after year, and still continues in unrepentant rebellion against Almighty God, while the people still think they are worshiping God. God’s people, the church (though not all believers), through this cycle of perversion, lies and cover-ups, have become convinced of their false belief that everything is ok between them and God. But, God has a surprise for them. It ain’t so! God will judge them for their sin. Their pride and arrogance will be brought low. God will bring their enemies against them. God will bring judgment because he cares deeply about righteousness and he takes sin very seriously.
The Lord is giving a picture here again (as in chp 28) of spiritually blind and drunken religious leaders, who, although witnessing the truth of God’s word with their own eyes, and even having studied and heard it and read the word of God over and over again, still are blinded to its truths because they choose to shut their eyes to the truth. The Lord has me sharing his truths from his word nearly every day, and many of those messages confront the reader with the reality of how God views sin, of their need to repent and to turn back to God or face God’s strong divine correction and discipline, and yet there are many who will read these words, even though the book of Revelation, the gospels, the words of Jesus Christ, and the epistles in the New Testament all give the same messages, and they will turn away like that inchworm finally just turned away and is now headed another direction. It is not my words that are being rejected. It is God’s words, found in the Bible for all to read, to hear and to obey. These spiritual leaders have thus demonstrated their total inability to be the spiritual leaders they should be. They have abandoned the sheep over which they were to serve as protectors like that inchworm abandoned me.
Then comes the Lord’s indictment against his people, represented by this inchworm. They honor God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him. Their worship of God is man-made. They are described here as those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD. They do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” They turn things upside down as though they are the potter and God is the clay. I believe this is this image of the inchworm inching its way toward the truth or perhaps toward true repentance yet it is wandering, lying, manipulating, perverting, and is plotting evil against those who speak the truth which he does not want to hear. And, they think God does not see, but he does. He knows what they are doing in secret and in the dark and he will not forget. He will destroy the intelligence of the intelligent. God will judge the disobedient.
Yet, out of this judgment, eyes will be opened to the truth. The people of God will repent of their sins and come to Jesus Christ in humility and the fear of the Lord. The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down – those who with a word make a man out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice. I believe this is the picture of the inchworm who does his work in secret and thinks that God does not see. But, God does see! This inchworm represents the mockers, those with an eye for evil, and those who make the innocent out to be guilty in court by the use of false testimony in order to deprive the innocent of justice. God will judge this evil deed.
In this last section of this passage of scripture we have a picture of Jacob and his descendants. Jacob was later named Israel. True Israel today, i.e. God’s chosen people, is the church, i.e. the body of believers in Jesus Christ. When judgment comes and their sins are exposed and some of them survive the judgment and they repent of their sins, their shame will be gone. Their faces will no longer grow pale. This section of this passage immediately brought to mind the second half of this vision and that was of the man and the child. The man was in the north and the child lived in the south, just slightly to the southeast of the man, who I believe represents the child’s father.
The child has turned his back on God and is following the ways of his earthly father instead. Both the man and the child were wearing hooded sweatshirts. Hooded has to do with partial concealment, which goes back to the inchworm with its many sections (generations) of lying, perversion, cover-ups, manipulations, etc. They were wearing sweatshirts, i.e. their character is of their own flesh nature. In one sense I see the child as the institutional church and the man as the US government and that the child is following the ways of the government instead of the ways of God. Yet, I see more application relevant to this “closer to home” scenario. I see a man in the north whose children and perhaps grandchildren are following in his footsteps and that the son is about to make the same mistake as his father did, and worse, and it will cost him his life. He has turned away from the one who loves him and has gone off after another path for his life. But, it will come back to bite him.
The stress on holiness and how seriously God takes unrepentant sin is very strong in this passage of scripture. When God visits in judgment, many will repent of their sins and will return to their first love. They will stand in awe of God. Those who were wayward will gain understanding. There are evil days ahead of us. If we are to survive, we have to resist Satan, we have to daily put on the armor of God, and we have to stand strong for what is right, for holiness and godliness, or we won’t make it. The Lord gave me this song a couple of weeks ago based off scripture which is his letter to his church in these last days before his return. Take sin as seriously as God does. Take holiness as seriously as God does, too. Be strong in the Lord and resist the devil. Ask the Lord to give you discernment concerning who the inchworms are so that you are not led astray and fall into their trap.
To My Beloved / An Original Work / November 14, 2011
Based off I Pet. 5:6-9; Eph. 6:10-20; Jms. 4:4-10
Be strong in the grace of Christ, and
Put on His full armor in your fight
Against the enemy of your souls,
And resist him with all your might.
Take up the shield of your faith within you.
Salvation’s helmet – you put it on.
Put on the belt of truth,
And walk in the Spirit,
And you’ll not be ashamed.
Love your Lord Jesus; call His Name.
Call on your Lord and Savior, Jesus, and
Make Him Lord and King of your hearts.
Obey all of His teachings He has given
To you to follow in all His ways.
Repent of your sins. Return to your God.
Follow Him where’er He leads you now.
Humble yourselves in full
Surrender to His will
For your lives today.
Bow before Him, and humbly pray.
Be strong in the grace of Christ, and
Obey your Lord in ev’rything, always
Keeping His teachings in your hearts near you.
Walk with Christ in ev’ry way.
Resist the devil. He will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and He’ll be near you.
Wash your hands you sinners
And double minded.
Weep and wail o’er sin.
With Christ, your new lives begin.
Song lyrics @ Public Domain
Audio, Song Lyrics and Sheet Music (free) at:
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs2/home/songs/to-my-beloved
Song on video:
http://youtu.be/PLMZdBxhE3I
No comments:
Post a Comment