The Book of Isaiah: Day 1

 Today I begin my first ever study of the Book of Isaiah.  To be sure, this is going to be an adventure.  I've tried to read it before, and have read snippets here and there, but to be honest, it is so dark in places it has scared me.  These words have me intrigued, and have led to the study:

"The theme of  this book is expressed in the meaning of the name Isaiah, "the LORD saves" or "the LORD is Savior".  The book of Isaiah contains more prophecies about the Messiah than any other book in the Old Testament.  In fact, the plan of salvation is so comprehensively revealed in Isaiah's work that Augustine called it the fifth gospel, and others have referred to it as "the Bible in miniature."  Some have attempted to discredit the authenticity of the prophecies of Isaiah by suggesting that Isaiah is not the author of them all.  The historical view as to the authorship of this book, however, has consistently held that Isaiah composed the entire book.

Traditionally, Isaiah is thought to have been  the son of a prince of Judah.  He certainly did not feel uncomfortable in the presence of kings, and the richness of his vocabulary suggests that he was a man of culture and education."

Are you intrigued, too?  I've never heard these things about the book or its writer.  I want to study the "richness of his vocabulary" and read "the Bible in miniature".  

Will you join me?

Chapter 1: "The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Kings Uzzian, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah.

vision:  a revelation by means of a vision; divine communication, not so much the dream or vision itself, but the message it conveys.

son:      builder of family name.  It can express an adopted child, children in general, descendants

saw:     to gaze at; to perceive, have visions, look, observe, prophesy

reigns:  day, time, year, a generic span of time, a given point in time

Kings:  an individual with power and authority

Judah on Trial

Listen heavens, and pay attention earth for the LORD has spoken:

I have raised children and brought them up, but they rebelled against me.  The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's feeding trough, but Israel does not know; my people do not understand.

                                                                                                        Isaiah 1:1-3

Can you hear His pain?  Maybe it is just the pain I am feeling that brings His pain out so clearly to me, but how sad He must've been when He said these words to Isaiah.  Even an ox gives more respect to its owner than Israel had given to Him.  All that He'd done so far for them and yet they always rebel.  They always ended up going to some other idol instead of GOD.  

WOW!  How sad I must make Him sometimes.  

I know that God takes that sadness for a long, long time before He acts on anything.  He is an indulgent, loving Father, but when things have gone far enough and there is no repentance on our part, he finally says enough.

In Search of Christ,

Terrie

To Those Who are Guarded By Keeping the Eye Upon

 I started out today on a whole different path...looking into something I'd spied in Psalm 8, but then a scripture Troy Brewer quoted caught my attention...and then there I was falling down that rabbit hole.  

My fall took me through Second and Third John and then I ended up in Jude.  Jude names himself as the brother of James.  The only James worth mentioning at that time was James, the brother of Jesus.  (Who wrote the Book of James.). I read somewhere that scholars find it interesting that James would call himself the brother of Jesus, but Jude...in the same position...never did.  That's a thinking point in and of itself.  Did he not think himself worthy of calling himself the half brother of Jesus?  I think that's what I'm gonna think of him...a humble man walking in the footsteps of his brother...who none of us are worthy of even touching the hems of his garment.

Anyway...on to what I discovered.  In his greeting, Jude says the following:

        "To those who are the called,

          loved by GOD the Father and

          kept for Jesus Christ."

In the Greek:

called:  invited as a guest to a banquet; invited to the kingdom of heaven and its privileges

loved:  to make holy, purify or consecrate, be holy, sanctified, set apart

Father:  ancestor, patriarch, mentor, model, founder of a tribe or people

kept:  to guard from loss or injury, properly by keeping the eye upon. (This really got me...you know how you keep your eyes on your babies when you take them to the playground or an open area so they can be kept safe?  That is EXACTLY how God watches US.  Day and night...24/7...because we are all in an open, unsafe place.   

So LOOK!

"To those who are invited to the kingdom of heaven and its privileges, 

made holy, sanctified, and set apart by GOD the founder of our tribe, model

and guarded from loss or injury by keeping the eye upon (you) for Jesus Christ."

Jude was writing to ME and he was writing to YOU.   WE are invited to the kingdom of heaven and all it holds.  WE are made holy, sanctified, and set apart by the founder of our tribe, the model WE should all strive to be like!  And WE are guarded from loss or injury by GOD who keeps HIS eye upon US for Jesus Christ!  

I think I'm going to write this down and put it EVERYWHERE I can see so I never ever forget.  I am SOMEBODY to God and His Son...and so are YOU!  

In Search of Christ,

Terrie

Did You Know??? David was a Prophet!

 I heard one of the teachers I listen to say about a month ago, "David was a Prophet."  This made me pause.  WAIT!  What???   David a PROPHET?  No...he was a KING.  Now, I know what I know!  He was anointed to be THE KING OF ISRAEL.  He played music and wrote Psalms.  He wasn't a PROPHET!  😳 

Last night, Jim Stockstill referenced Psalm 2.  He said, "Go back and read it.  You'll see."  So I did...this is what I found:

The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord ridicules them.

Then he speaks to them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath:  "I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain."

I will declare the LORD's decree.

He said to me, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father.  Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession.  You will break them with an iron scepter; you will shatter them like pottery."

So now, kings, be wise; receive instruction, you judges of the earth.  Serve the LORD with reverential awe and rejoice with trembling.  Pay homage to the Son or he will be angry and you will perish in your rebellion, for his anger may ignite at any moment.  All who take refuge in him are happy.

Did you see it?  God has installed His king on Zion...God later tells David that that king is His Son.  Remember what God said to Jesus as He was lifted from the water by John the Baptist?  The dove came down from the heavens and God said, "You are my Son in whom I am well pleased."  That was foretold by David!  Then David goes on to tell us to serve the LORD with reverence and awe and rejoice in trembling.  Pay homage or He is gonna get mad, we will perish, and His anger will "ignite at any moment".  

When God has finally had enough, He will give Jesus The Warrior His marching orders and ALL of His enemies will perish.  But wait...David ends the prophecy by saying, "All who take refuge in Him are happy."  We are happy now because we have hope in Jesus...we know that no matter what, we are loved and cared for and no matter how hard it gets here on Earth, we win in the end.  

NOW...let me share something else!  One of the notes on Psalm 2 said to see note on Psalm 22.  So I did.  It says that 22 is one of the so-called Messianic Psalms.  There are three methods that are used to determine which psalms are "messianic".  

1. By the testimony of the writers of the Old Testament.  There are a few books that attribute some psalms to the Messiah.

2.  References in the New Testament to these psalms, either by Christ Himself or by writers who made note as pertaining to Christ.

3.  There is testimony by the Jews and the church itself denoting that these psalms refer tot he Messiah.

Some say that they should be applied to David and Jesus...first David and then Jesus.

I think, though, that Psalm 2 is very obviously a Messianic Psalm speaking of Jesus Himself.  Who else could it be???  For who else does God sit on His throne and declare, "You are my Son."?  

So I leave you with this:  David was a PROPHET.  God said David was "a man after my own heart."  Why wouldn't he have been given the gift of prophecy?  It all seems so obvious now...I want to go on a quest!

In Pursuit of Christ,

Terrie

Jonah Taught Me Something Today

 I am 54 years old and I have never read through the Book of Jonah.  That says an awful lot about me, right there.  It is a short book of only 4 chapters, yet I had the audacity to think that I'd learned all I needed to know on a felt board in Sunday School class. 

Yes, Jonah didn't want to do what God wanted him to do.  Yes, he was silly enough to think he could run from God.  Yes, God made a storm on the water and Jonah was thrown over the side of the boat and ended up in the belly of a giant fish...BUT, there is MUCH more to the story.  In the short four chapters, God taught me a HUGE lesson about myself.  One I'd better not let myself forget.  

After he was "vomited onto the land", Jonah did go back to Nineveh and do what the LORD told him to do.  He preached about the coming destruction if they didn't repent.  Nineveh repented.  They even dressed their animals in sackcloth!  The king dressed in sackcloth and SAT in ashes.  Boy did they repent.  

And Jonah got MAD!

In Chapter 4 it says, "Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious.  This word furious means to blaze up, of anger, zeal, jealousy; to be agitated, be (become) angry, burn (with anger) diligently, to become enraged. These are strong words for how angry Jonah actually was.  Why was he angry?  Because God saw Nineveh's repentance and gave them time.  He tells God "Please LORD, isn't this what I thought while I was still in my own country?  That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place.  I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster." 

And now..."take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."  Jonah was so mad that he actually wanted to die!  

Then the LORD asked, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

Jonah left...it doesn't say anything about him answering the Lord.  So, I'm thinking he stomped out of Nineveh and the Bible says he found a place east of it.  He made himself a shelter and sat down in the shade to wait and watch the city...waiting for it to blow up.  (This kind of makes me laugh.  Because he's told off God, TWICE...once when he ran and now again.  He's stomped out of the city, told God to just let him DIE, he found a place east of the city, built a shade and sat and waited.  As if to say, Lord.  I'm waiting.)

Look what the Lord does next...

"Then the LORD God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble." YES!  He treated him with gentle loving care...even after the way Jonah had acted.  He was showing Jonah the same gracious compassion that He was showing Nineveh.  

The Bible tells us that Jonah "was greatly pleased with the plant."  STRONG's says that Jonah made the plant that God had given to him into an idol.  

Then, as the sun was rising, God sent an worm that killed the plant.  He sent a scorching east wind.  The sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted, and, yes...he wanted to die AGAIN.

Then God asked him one question, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?"

Jonah answers, "YES, it's right!  I'm angry enough to die!"

And this is how the LORD God answered him:

"You cared about a plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow.  It appeared in a night and perished in a night.  But may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?"

This is how the Book of Jonah ends.  This isn't really what taught me something about myself, though when I look back over it after reading the commentary, WOW!  How I must really test God's patience!  Here's what the commentary said:

God is immutable (He never changes).  However, God interacts with men, and men do change.  In this instance, God's ultimate intention toward Nineveh did not change--the city was later destroyed.  Nevertheless, God saw that their actions were a response to Jonah's message of the city's impending destruction.  This verse is one of great hope for God's people today.  If God is able to make provision for these people of Nineveh by suspending His judgment on them for over one hundred years, God is surely able to grant mercy to a believer today.  The phrase translated "relented from the disaster" implies that God "temporarily removed the calamity" that He had promised to the city of Nineveh.

Stay with me...the next commentary is where it hit me...cause I was being pretty judgmental of ol' Jonah.

Jonah had made the gourd that God had given to him into an idol.  THE FACT THAT HE WAS ANGERED BY IT'S BEING DESTROYED REVEALED THAT HE WAS JUST CONCERNED FOR HIMSELF.

Yep...that's what Jonah taught me today.  And this is where I put my face in my hands out of shear embarrassment.  How many times...let's just count the RECENT times...have I become so angry at God for my life circumstances?  When I look at them, I realize that when I become angry at Him, I have turned my eyes only toward myself...and they've been looking at only me for quite a few months now.  

Dear Loving LORD,

Turn my eyes away from me and toward others and their needs.  Help me to focus on those around me, not on ME.  Help me to help those who need help and bring happiness to those who need happiness.  Please let people look at me and see YOU...NOT me!