Tag Isaiah

God is Awake!

Todd R Leave a comment

Sometimes even Christians with strong faith may look at the evil and problems of the world and wonder where God is.  Does He care?  And if He does care, why isn’t He doing something about the state of our world?  If God is a God of love, why doesn’t He protect His people, and if God is a God of justice, why doesn’t He punish evil?  God may seem so distant and unconcerned with our problems that He might as well be sleeping.  We may feel like calling out in these words from Isaiah 51:9 and 10 –

“Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD;
awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago.
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
who pierced the dragon?
Was it not you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the depths of the sea a way
for the redeemed to pass over?”

We know the stories of God’s power and strength from our knowledge of the Bible.  We know how He acted in “days of old.”  We know how He humiliated the gods of Egypt during the exodus, represented here by “Rahab.”  But where is He now?  When we are discouraged, we may think He is asleep.  However, He is not asleep, so what’s going on?

When Isaiah says, “awake, awake,” it is because his awareness of God has grown dim, not because God actually sleeps.  Like Isaiah we can be more or less aware of God at different times.  We also may be more or less aware of particular attributes of God.  At times, we may “feel” God’s love, or mercy, or power, but not all of these at once.  Often, when good things happen, we are aware of His love, and when bad things happen, we are aware of His justice.  When times are uneventful, we may forget He is involved at all.  He doesn’t seem to us like the God we read about in the Bible.  Our knowledge of Him is incomplete and inconsistent.

When Isaiah said to God “awake, awake” he was prophesying to Israelites facing exile.  Israelites who might forget the power of the Lord.  But Isaiah told them that they must know that all of God is always with them.  God is able to fulfill His purposes.  God is awake and cares about them, but in their present circumstances this would be hard to believe.  Likewise, our circumstances often make us see an incomplete picture of God.  We are all in exile in this world, and there is much to question.  Injustice and violence.  Calamity and disaster.  Blasphemy and apostacy.  Sin and hypocrisy.  Where is God?

At these times, it is essential to remember the times God acted on behalf of His people, and on behalf of us!  It is essential to remind ourselves of God’s character.  Our God declared Himself to Moses as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”[1] When will He show Himself as such?  As God said to Habakkuk: “the righteous shall live by his faith”[2] Faith that the full impact of God’s love and justice may be delayed, but it will not be delayed forever.  Even when God seems to be asleep, He is not.  God is awake!

When we feel the need to cry “awake, awake” note what Isaiah said next in Isaiah 51:11, which says:

“And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

God will save His people because He tells us He will.  It might not look like it on some (or many) days, but “the righteous shall live by his faith.”  Pray for God to teach us that His promises are enough, even when things don’t make sense. He is awake!

Amen.

[1] Exodus 34:6
[2] Habakkuk 2:4b

Jesus Even Makes the Deaf Hear

Todd R Leave a comment
Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

As a child of deaf parents, some details of stories from the life of Jesus especially catch my attention.  This miracle recorded in Mark 7:32-37 is one example:

“And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.  And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.  And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.  And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’”

In the second sentence, we see Jesus’ “bedside manner.”  His compassion for this individual led to specific actions, as noted by Warren Wiersbe: “Since the man was deaf, he could not hear our Lord’s words, but he could feel Jesus’ fingers in his ear and the touch on his tongue, and this would encourage the man’s faith.”[1]  Not only did Jesus heal Him, but He did it in a way that would be meaningful to this one man.

Another detail Mark records is that Jesus spoke, but why, if this man couldn’t hear him?  Jesus touched the man as a testimony to him, but these words were a testimony to anyone nearby that the power of Jesus healed this man, not the man’s response to the words, since he couldn’t hear them.  There was to be no question as to the source of the healing.

Third, the word “immediately” appears many times in Mark’s gospel, including at least 5 references to healing miracles (1:42, 2:12, 5:29, 5:42, and 10:52).  A big part of this miracle is that deaf people do not immediately “speak plainly” if they recover their hearing or begin using hearing aids.  It can take years of training.  By saying “he spoke plainly,” Mark makes clear that Jesus did not just put this man on the path to recovery; He gave Him a full recovery “immediately”!

Lastly, when the people said, “He has done all things well,” they were testifying that Jesus was fulfilling a Messianic expectation from Isaiah 35:5-6, which says:

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
            and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
            and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
            and streams in the desert”

In this miracle and others, Jesus showed that He was the fulfillment of all the hopes of the Old Testament, and of all mankind.  His kingdom could overcome any problem, and His kingdom is superior to any other kingdom.  No problem He encountered was beyond His power and He offers a way to a world where all problems are solved for those who believe in Him.

Praise Him!

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Diligent (Mark) (1987).  P. 95.

Precept Upon Precept

Todd R Leave a comment

Dear fellow travelers,

Many parts of the Bible can seem repetitive and hard to read for that reason.  Did the Bible really need to be written this way?  Couldn’t we have been given a shorter version, covering everything we need, but only once?  A shorter Bible would be easier to read, right?

It turns out that Isaiah the prophet’s audience had similar complaints.  In Isaiah 28:9-10, they complain about Isaiah’s messages from God:

“To whom will he [Isaiah] teach knowledge,
            and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from the milk,
            those taken from the breast?
For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
            line upon line, line upon line,
            here a little, there a little.”

The people mock Isaiah, saying he is repetitive, and is treating them as children.  Can’t Isaiah get to the point and then move on?  Why repeat the same lines and precepts?  The context of the quote above is that Isaiah was telling the people that they were about to be conquered and sent into exile because they wouldn’t listen to God.  The message was repetitive because their obstinacy required it, and therefore their discipline will also be repetitive.  They were acting like disobedient children, so maybe they needed to be treated as children.[1]  Isaiah next writes that God’s people will learn from a people “with a foreign tongue” (their conquerors):

“And the word of the LORD will be to them
precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
            line upon line, line upon line,
            here a little, there a little,
that they may go, and fall backward,
            and be broken, and snared, and taken.” – Isaiah 28:13

Photo by Aurora K on Unsplash

They wouldn’t listen and follow or obey God, and their discipline would be as repetitive as the message they failed to receive.  As is often true, God’s punishment fits the crime as shown by the parallels in the two quotes above.

To an unbeliever God’s words will always seem like nonsense, as we see from 1 Corinthians 2:14,

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”  However, believers can also get annoyed at the repetition of God’s word.  We may ignore it, as if it was nonsense to us.  But like the people of Isaiah’s time, maybe God is being repetitive because that’s what we need.  Often, it’s hard for us to listen otherwise.

In his letters, the apostle Peter recognized the need for this.  He knew that his readers needed to be reminded of things they should already know:

“I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder” – 2 Peter 1:13
“This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder” – 2 Peter 3:1

Peter knew from experience that Jesus had to repeat many things to him before he understood (for example, John 21:15-17) and therefore knew the importance of reminders.  The phrase “stirring up” means “to wake fully.”  In a sense, encouraging reminders are like spiritual caffeine, awakening us to basic truths we may drift away from.  Like caffeine wears off over time, unfortunately so can the effect of God’s word in our lives.  So, we need to be “stirred up” again and again.

Sometimes we let Christ sink below our other thoughts and feelings instead of keeping him at the forefront, directing them.  When this happens, we need a reminder.  Sometimes we read the Bible and think “I already know that” but fail to see that we aren’t changed by the truths we read, nor are we acting upon them.  When this happens, we need a reminder.  We need God to nudge us “here a little, there a little,” as Isaiah said.

Until we have achieved complete obedience to God in thought and deed, until we have achieved holiness, God will continue to repeat His messages to us.  Even Christians can find it hard to listen.

If we find that God’s message is seeming very repetitive, we should ask ourselves why and pray that we can be better listeners.

[1] See also 1 Corinthians 3:2 and Hebrews 5:12-14

A Reminder of His Love

Todd R Leave a comment

Dear fellow travelers,

How do we measure how much Jesus loves us?  We may say that His love is endless or infinite.  We may say that He loved us enough to take on human flesh and become a servant.  We may say that He loved us enough to suffer and die for us.  These are all true and there are good verses to tell us all of them, but I think His suffering communicates His love in a way nothing else can.  We get an example at the end of Isaiah 49:13-16, which says:

“Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
            break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people
            and will have compassion on his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
            my Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
            that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
            yet I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
            your walls are continually before me.”

Verse 13 tells God’s people to rejoice, but in verse 14, they say they have been forsaken by God.  During the exile in Babylon, we can’t blame the people of Judah for thinking this way.  The symbols and institutions of their religion had been destroyed, and they had been forcefully removed from the land God had promised to them.  What can God say to reassure these people?  What can God say to the exiles of Isaiah’s time that could comfort the spiritual exiles of our time?

Isaiah begins with the image of a woman and her young child: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?”  God had bound Himself to His people as their Father, through His covenant which was based on His character of steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6).  Unless God stops being loving (which He won’t) He won’t abandon His people.

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

But the more powerful image for us today might be verse 16: “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”  While this might have been enigmatic to Isaiah’s contemporary audience, who had no point of reference for anything “engraved” on God’s hands, today we know what marks God has on His hands: the scars of His crucifixion in the body of Jesus Christ.  The scars that He willingly received on our behalf.  Isaiah 49:16 suggests that these scars are a permanent reminder of God’s steadfast love that He has for His people.  “Your walls” would be the walls of Zion, the eternal city of God, and since God says these are “continually before me,” like the scars they are also a permanent reminder.

The Bible tells us Jesus kept the scars in His resurrected body before returning to heaven (Luke 24:39-40, John 20:27), as evidence to His followers that He really was the resurrected Messiah, but also as a reminder of His love for His people.  While it is debated whether Jesus will still have scars on His hands and feet in heaven, many believe He will, but even if He doesn’t, He will remember them.

So, if at times you feel like the people of Zion in verse 14: ““The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me,” then remember “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”  He hasn’t and won’t forget you.

Do We Have It Upside Down?

Todd R 1 Comment

Fellow travelers,

With other people, we can often decide what they know and don’t know about us.  We can guard our reputation by doing things out of the view of others or behind their backs.  We believe we can avoid any negative consequences of our actions and choices if others don’t know about them, especially people in authority.  Sometimes we may even think this applies to God.  Isaiah recognized this when he said the words of Isaiah 29:15 –

“Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel,
            whose deeds are in the dark,
            and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?””

The verse is directed at people who assume God has limited knowledge of us.  People who think they can avoid being seen and avoid consequences.  But things that apply to other people do not apply to God.  He knows all of our “counsel” – our thoughts – and all of our “deeds” – our actions – even if we think we’re doing them in secret.  He, as our maker, knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows all, and Isaiah points out the foolishness of thinking He doesn’t in the next verse:

Photo by David Tomaseti on Unsplash

“You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
            “He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
            “He has no understanding”?”

It’s upside down and backwards to apply what we know about people (“the clay”) to our “maker” and “him who formed it.”  He sees and understands things we don’t see or understand, not the other way around.  Pretending we can keep secrets from Him only deepens our sense of separation.  It darkens our “counsel” and ultimately our “deeds” as well.  God can’t get us back on the right path if we build up walls against Him.  In the case of Isaiah’s audience, since they were not willing to trust God, they end up allying with Egypt[1], something God had told them never to do.  In the spiritual metaphor, Egypt represents our slavery to sin, since Israel were once the slaves of Egypt, and they/we should never want to go back.  But we so often do, and often because we think He doesn’t know about it or care.

Like Paul in Romans 7:15 (“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”), we are people who don’t even understand ourselves.  But God knows how we’re broken, why we’re broken, and what can be done to fix us, because He is our “maker.”  So, what should we do?

First, we need to recognize that God does see and He does care.  Every thought we have and every deed we do matters to Him, because He wants us to be holy, for His glory and for our good.  He knows better than us and He expects us to act like we believe that.

Second, regular prayer of confession for purpose of self-examination and re-alignment with God is necessary, otherwise we will continue down the wrong path.  I find many of the Psalms to useful guides when it comes to these prayers, but the prayers can come from anywhere as long as they’re sincere.

Third, we must constantly seek to know Him and what He wants, and doing so means spending time with Him in His Word, the Bible.  Hebrews 4:12-13 says:

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

His word can reach all of our “thoughts and intentions.”  It can remind us that nothing is hidden from Him, but it can also teach us what “thoughts and intentions” we ought to have.

Lastly, we must walk according to the Spirit, acting on the right “thoughts and intentions” and live with a clear conscience before God and man.  However, if we keep Him out because we are ashamed of our inner desires and rebelliousness, or because we think we can hide it, we are refusing the only solution He has provided for our deepest problems.

Can we do any of these things perfectly?  No, but we can and must try.  Pretending God is like other people who don’t know or care isn’t an option.  He died so we might know Him, and to know Him is to become like Him.

Amen.

[1] Isaiah 30:1-2