Isaiah 30:8-11 ESV
“And now, go, write it before them on a tablet
and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come
as a witness forever.
For they are a rebellious people,
lying children,
children unwilling to hear
the instruction of the Lord;
who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’
and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
prophesy illusions,
leave the way, turn aside from the path,
let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.’”
In America, this appears to be the spiritual condition of
the majority of those people professing faith in Jesus Christ. For, they have
bought into a diluted half-truth (false) gospel message which tells them that
they can “believe” (not defined) in Jesus Christ, be forgiven of their sins,
and now be guaranteed heaven when they die regardless of how they live their
lives from this moment forward.
And so many of them have this mistaken notion that their
sins no longer matter to God and that they will not be punished for them. And
so they think they can keep on sinning, only now without guilt and without the
fear of punishment, but with the hope of heaven when they die. So, there is no
fear of God in their lives. There is no honoring of God as holy. There is no
respect for God and for what he requires and for what he desires of us, his
people.
Therefore, many are saying to those who are still preaching
the gospel taught in the Scriptures, “Do not preach to us what is right; speak
to us feel-good messages which do not confront us in our sins, and which do not
call for us to repent of (to forsake) our sins, and which do not call us to
walk in obedience to our Lord. Tell us God makes no such requirements of us and
that we can live however we want now that we are saved by his grace.”
They are saying, “Leave the way of righteousness. Leave this
teaching about submission to Christ as Lord and obedience to his commands and
us having to forsake our sinful practices. Come to our way of thinking and
believing. Teach what we teach that you can make a profession of faith in Jesus
Christ, be forgiven your sins, and be on your way to heaven, and you don’t have
to do anything. Stop talking to us about repentance and obedience to God.”
Isaiah 30:15,18 ESV
“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
‘In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.’”
“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.”
But the gospel that these people are following is not the
gospel of Jesus Christ but it is an altered and an adulterated gospel created in
the minds of men in their deceitful scheming whose goal it is to lead us away
from pure devotion to Jesus Christ, and to lead us away from forsaking our sins
and from following Jesus in obedience, because they know that if we continue in
sin that hell is our destiny, although they will lie and tell you it is not.
But the gospel of the Scriptures teaches us that by faith in
Jesus Christ we are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we are raised
with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, created to be like God in true
righteousness and holiness. We are delivered from our slavery to sin so that,
by God’s grace, and in his strength and power, we will now be slaves of God and
of his righteousness, walking in holiness and in obedience to our Lord.
So, the Lord is calling all his adulterous and wayward
children and all those who have made false confessions of faith in him to come
to him in truth or to return to him in truth and in righteousness, in
submission to him as Lord, in the forsaking of their sins and their idols, and
to now walk in obedience to him in accord with the Spirit of God, and to live no
longer according to the flesh, no longer to obey sin and its wicked desires.
For, God is not willing that any should perish but that all
should come to REPENTANCE. And repentance is what keeps us from perishing. And
repentance is us making a spiritual U-turn away from living to sin and to self
to now following Jesus Christ where he leads us in submission to him and in
obedience to his commands. But if we do not repent (turn), and we continue in
our own stubborn way in living for sin and for self, we need to know that
heaven is not what awaits us when we die. Hell is our destiny, instead.
[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn
15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1
Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:21-25; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; Php 2:12-13; Col 1:21-23; Gal
5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal
6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Heb
10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Matt 7:21-23; Rev. 2-3; Rev
18:1-6; Rev 21:8, 27; Rev 22:14-15]
Isaiah 30:20-22 ESV
“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. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, ‘Be gone!’”
The Scriptures teach that God disciplines (corrects,
rebukes, chastises, and reproves) the ones he loves, i.e. those who are his
children, by faith in him. So, if you have believed in Jesus Christ to be your
Lord and Savior, you should expect to endure such divine discipline, which is
for our good, that we may share God’s holiness. And for those of us who have
been trained by it, later the discipline will yield the peaceful fruit of
righteousness.
And if we have wandered away from our pure devotion to the
Lord, and we have been caught up in the ways of the world again, the purpose of
the discipline will be to bring us back into a right relationship with the Lord
Jesus and back into obedient walks of faith in him. And it is so we will hear
the word of the Lord showing us the way in which we are to walk, and we will
respond to his voice in obedience, and so we will forsake all our idols to walk
in the ways of the Lord once again in faithful obedience to him, for his glory.
For
Our Nation
An
Original Work / September 11, 2012
Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.
Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Men deceiving: we’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.
No comments:
Post a Comment