One thing about the Word of God, it pulls no punches.  And to be quite honest, we would not want it to.  Isaiah 56:9-12 is an indictment against the leaders of His people.  The indictment states that the leaders of His people were blind, lazy, greedy, ignorant and self centered.  They also had no moral compass and their goal was to fulfill the sensual pleasures of life.  

One of the things that we need to keep in mind here is that Isaiah is describing the leadership of His people.  All of these descriptors should not be found within His people at any level of society, especially the leadership.  Their actions showed that they had forgotten their God and they had forgotten who they were.  They believed that they were the center of the universe and in doing so, they denied the God Who created them.    

So what is the message for us today?  Would the description of our lives be the same as the indictment of His people some 2700 years ago?  If we are honest, we would all have to say that there are sometimes when those descriptors could be applied to us.  But, the difference should be in where the goal of our heart is.  Are we growing more and more in seeking His kingdom over our own?  Praise God we have a Savior in Christ Whose work on the cross covers all of the times when we seek our kingdom over His.  Praise God we have His Spirit Who is working in growing us to be less self-centered and more God centered.  Praise God we have a Heavenly Father Who loves us and is calling us back to Himself.  May those words used in the indictment found in Isaiah 56:9-12 not be descriptors of our lives, all by His grace. 

God Bless,

Pastor Steve 

From a spiritual perspective, there are basically two different types of people in the world.  There are those who embrace the Biblical Christ and there are those who reject Him.  Those who do, according to John 1:12, are considered part of God's family.  As part of God's family, there are family rules.  Rules are not bad things.  Whether they are internal or external, the rules or values we live by expose who we are and what is important to us.

In Isaiah 56:1-2 we find two of God's "rules" for His people.  They are to keep justice and perform righteousness.  But what is justice and righteousness?  Justice deals with God centered governance.  What is interesting is that the recognition of God in the governance of society is to preserved.  Righteousness deals with aligning ourselves with what God loves and hating the things that God hates.  

Verses 3 to 8 deal with the foreigner and eunuch.  The over arching message is that being included into the "family" of God is not tied to one's position in society, but it is tied to the position of one's heart towards God.  In summary, to the one who desires to please, honor and love God, God will embrace and bless them.  This states the obvious in that it matters to God who and what we are and do.

What does this mean for us today.  There are several implications.  The first is that we are to honor God in our society.  To honor Him means to preserve justice with Him deciding what is just.  This is done in a number of ways.  First we need to be aware of the legislation that is being passed and we need to ask ourselves if it is honoring to our Lord or not.  We need to apply the same question to our leaders as well.  Then we need to get involved in those legally available processes to support those laws or leaders who honor the Lord.  Secondly,  we need to be growing in our love and devotion to our Lord.  Thirdly, praise God that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.  The two New Testament equivalent passages are John 3:16 and Hebrews 11:6.

God Bless,

Pastor Steve

At this point, we need to remind ourselves of the context of Isaiah 55.  God has just let His people know that discipline was coming and God is in the process of affirming His people that His discipline is only for a moment but His loving kindness is forever.  It is within this backdrop that we find Isaiah 55.  In Isaiah 55 we see the love and compassion of God for His people.

In verses 1 to 5 we see the call to come to the Lord.  In verse 1 the word come is an imperative.  It is a command.  Here God is commanding that His people come.  We see that His call to come is based on His grace for the instruction is to come even if you have no money.  The metaphor of buying wine and milk with no money and at no cost is used to convey God's grace and mercy.  Verse 2 deals with a rhetorical question which points out to the reader that much of what they spend their money on does not satisfy.  We find in the last half of verse 2 an imperative to listen to the Lord.  In verse 3 is another imperative to incline one's ear and come to the Lord.  The purpose is that they might live.  In the last half of verse 3 through verse 5 we find that God will make an everlasting covenant with His people according to the mercy shown David.

In verses 6 to 13 the imperatives are given to seek and call upon the Lord while there is opportunity to find Him.  Verse 7 tells His people that they must forsake their wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts and return to the Lord.  His compassion and forgiveness is assured.  Verses 8 to 11 declare that God's ways are not man's ways and that His purposes will be accomplished. Verses 12-13 confirms that there will be joy, peace and prosperity for those who return to the Lord.  

The meaning for us in the 21st century is to seek the Lord.  The New Testament equivalent is found in Matthew 11:23-30 and 1 Corinthians 2:9.  The question is, am I or are we seeking the Lord throughout our day?  There is a sense of urgency that we need to understand in regard to our relationship with the Lord.  We don't have an infinite amount of time here on this Earth.  So how do we seek?  Psalm 119 is particularly helpful here.  In verses 1-8 we see the need to not walk in sin.  In verses 9-16 we see the importance of knowing His Word.  In verses 18 and following we find the need to ask God for help.  

God Bless,

Pastor Steve

2012 is upon us and we started looking at Isaiah 54 to discover the truths that will help us look forward to this year.  We saw earlier in the chapter that God can redeem our past and His great compassion and lovingkindness.  

in verses 11-17 God reaffirms His love and commitment to His people.  Within the context of what is has been foretold of God's coming disicpline, it would have been very easy for His people to quesiton if God was going to be angry with them forever. God answers them through the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah affirms throughout this chapter God's everlasting lovingkindness and commitment to them.  In this last section, we see God's plans to transform and protect His people.  In verses 11-13 all describe figuratively how  God is going to transform His people into something beautiful.  In verses 14 to 17 Isaiah goes on to state that God will protect them and ultimately vindicate them.  

So what does this mean for us about 2700 years in the future?  There are several things.  First is that we can see that our God is a loving and compassionate God.  His love and compassion for His people is demonstrated in two ways.  First is that of transformation.  God is able to make our life a thing of beauty. But we need to be careful here. It would be so easy to interject our definition of beauty here. We need to use God's definition of beauty.  There are two places that we can look to see what God sees as beautiful.  The first is  Matthew 5: 3-11.  This passage is termed as the Beattitudes.  The second passage is found in Galations 5: 22-23.  This passage defines for us the fruit of the Spirit. The second place we can look is that God is our Defender.  This does not mean that we will not suffer any physical harm.  What it does mean is that God will carry us through the trials of this world and His Son will vindicate us from the accusations from the evil one.  The New Testament passages that parallel this section of Isaiah are Romans 8:31-39.

Seeing God's loveingkindness and commitment to His people give us hope for this coming year.  He will grow us beyond where we are and make our lives into something that is truly beautiful.  No matter what happens this year we know that God is with us and for us. May these truths be the reasons to look forward to 2012.

God Bless,

Pastor Steve