Isaiah 9:8-12 ESV
“The Lord has sent a word against Jacob,
and it will fall on Israel;
and all the people will know,
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,
who say in pride and in arrogance of heart:
‘The bricks have fallen,
but we will build with dressed stones;
the sycamores have been cut down,
but we will put cedars in their place.’
But the Lord raises the adversaries of Rezin against him,
and stirs up his enemies.
The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west
devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.”
The people of God were under the judgments of God, but
instead of calling on the Lord during this time of disaster, they were
arrogantly declaring how they were going to rebuild what the enemy had
destroyed, not on a spiritual level, but on a physical level. Only they were
going to make things better than they were before, therefore despising the very
reason for the judgments in the first place.
So, the Lord put them in their place. He let them know that
he was still God and that he could and would bring even greater disaster upon
them, and that his anger against them had not turned away, but that he would
continue to bring judgments against them.
In the New Testament we read that those whom God loves he
disciplines (reproves, chastises). He said that if we are left without
discipline then we are illegitimate children and not sons (and daughters). For,
God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. Although the
discipline is painful, later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to
those who have been trained by it (Heb 12:1-11; cf. John 15:2).
But not everyone responds well to discipline and to
correction. Especially if they are living in spiritual adultery against the
Lord they may balk at any form of divine discipline and correction and continue
on as though it did not phase them one bit. Or they may not even realize that
what is happening to them is God’s way of trying to get their attention and so
they may just go on with their lives, business as usual, rebuilding what was
torn down.
Isaiah 9:13-17 ESV
“The people did not turn to him who struck them,
nor inquire of the Lord of hosts.
So the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail,
palm branch and reed in one day—
the elder and honored man is the head,
and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail;
for those who guide this people have been leading them astray,
and those who are guided by them are swallowed up.
Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men,
and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows;
for everyone is godless and an evildoer,
and every mouth speaks folly.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.”
When the Lord disciplines us we need to immediately call out
to him in prayer, seek his face, and inquire of him as to what he wants us to
learn and to do and to hear from him. We should ask him if there is a lesson to
be learned or if we need some correction in any particular area because we are not
living to please him or if we are displeasing him in one specific area.
One thing that comes to my mind is when Covid hit us all in March
of 2020 and we were placed under lockdown and church gatherings were closed
down for a period of time. Not too many people I heard from at that time were
thinking that God caused or allowed this to happen for a purpose and that he
had a lesson for his church to learn.
Backing up here a little: March 3, 2020, a tornado ripped
through Nashville, TN, and it caused an enormous amount of damage to houses and
buildings, including to some buildings where Christians met together for worship,
which are called “churches.” And since we had friends and family who live there
I wanted to know what was going on so I checked it out in the news.
A building where a gathering of Christians met was damaged and
their steeple which had a cross on top of it was now lying on the ground
pointing to a handicap parking space (1). The video I watched and recorded for
myself had the camera panning down the steeple away from the building to the
cross while my husband was playing “All the Way My Savior Leads Me” in the
background (unknowingly of what I was recording).
I felt strongly that the Lord was giving a message here that
he is leading away from these buildings called “church.” Most of these “church”
gatherings have become secularized, worldly, partnered with the world, with the
government, and with big business, and they have altered the gatherings of the
church and the gospel of Christ to make them both more acceptable and palatable
to the world and to human flesh. He is leading us away from these.
Where was he leading to? To the cross of Christ which is
presently on the ground in a handicapped (a circumstance that makes progress or
success difficult) parking (motionless, not moving) space (place, condition). The
message to me could not be more clear.
I believe God used this tornado to get the attention of his
people to show them that through this he was leading them away from institutional
religion back to the cross of Christ and to the true gospel which is suffering
right now at the hands of those who are diluting it to make it more acceptable
to the world. He wants his people to come to him to find their only hope and
not to these institutions of men who are leading them away from the cross.
Now this was March 3, 2020 that this happened and that same
month a pandemic was declared globally and we were put under house arrest and
ordered to wear masks and to social distance from people and the doors were
closed to these institutional churches and people could no longer go to them.
Coincidental? I don’t believe so. I believe God orchestrated it all to let his
people know that he wanted them to come out of Babylon and to be separate and
to lead them back to the cross of Christ as their only hope.
But did a great revival break out when all of this happened?
No! At least not that I am aware of, and I certainly don’t know everything.
From where I sit and observe they did not miss a beat and as soon as they could
they reopened the doors to these institutional churches and the people returned
to them, but not all of these congregations survived. They were thinking about
how they were going to rebuild or get back together and most, as far as I can
tell, were not thinking that God may have a message for them.
And now look at where we are today. It has continued to
spiral downward and Christians are mainly still going on with business as usual
talking about what is going on in their lives and in their communities but not
many who are really seeing the hand of God in what we are going through. They
are not seeing that God is doing all this because his people are living in
spiritual adultery against him, and they aren’t getting it that he doesn’t want
them in these institutional market-driven gatherings called “churches.”
The Lord Jesus is calling all of his children back to the
cross of Christ, back to purity of devotion to him, back to repentance, back to
renewed faith and commitment, back to walks of obedience to him, and back to
making Jesus our only Lord and Master and to living our lives to please him in
all ways.
Oh,
to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer
Lyrics
by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music
by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897
Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s
treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
Oh, to be like Thee! full of
compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the
fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.
O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.
O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy
love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.
Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy
fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg
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