Tag Archives: Isaiah

Beloved Gentiles

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BELOVED GENTILES

“As He says in Hosea: ‘I will call them “my people” who are not my people; and I will call her “my loved one” who is not my loved one,’ and “in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called “children of the living God.”

“Isaiah cried out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only a remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out His sentence on earth with speed and finality.’

“It is just as Isaiah said previously, ‘Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.'” Romans 9:25-29.

Paul was concerned that his own people had got it back-to-front. They considered themselves God’s privileged people; therefore they were high on the agenda of God’s priorities while the Gentiles, who were scum in their eyes, and naturally, in God’s eyes as well, according to them, were the rejected ones.

But God had other ideas. Through Hosea’s own tragic experience, He had shown Israel that, because of their unbelief, they had become the rejected ones. Like the loose woman whom Hosea married and who bore children that were not his, God’s people were living like spiritual prostitutes and reproducing themselves in their offspring, and not children who loved and obeyed God. Hosea reflected, in the naming of Gomer’s children, God’s attitude towards His people. ‘Not my people! Not loved!” was His cry against them.

But it is not in God’s nature to go back on His word. He had called Israel to be His own people and, in spite of their disobedience, He promised that there would always be a remnant who would remain true to Him. From them He would rebuild the nation – a people who would be true to Him and who would fulfil His desire to call the Gentiles into faith as well.

Through God’s mercy, there were many Jews who embraced Jesus as their Messiah and the restoration of God’s rule on earth, and went forth in obedience to Him to take the good news to the world. The rest of the Jews, in their mistaken racial pride, persecuted the remnant for daring to include Gentiles in a relationship with God which they believed belonged exclusively to them.

Paul and his fellow apostles tasted the viciousness of their opposition in every city and town they visited. So relentless was their campaign against them that Paul cried out to God for relief.

“In order to keep me from becoming conceited, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties for, when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7b-10.

What was Paul saying? Just as God had warned Israel in the early days of their nationhood, that they would be persecuted by those who rejected His ways (Numbers 33:55; Judges 2; 3), so now the Jews who rejected Jesus were thorns in the flesh of believers. They disqualified themselves from receiving God’s mercy, opening the door for the Gentiles to become part of the people of God.

The unbelieving Jews had themselves to thank, in the sovereign plan of God, for giving the opportunity to the despised Gentiles to hear the gospel from the very men who had preached to them and offered them the first choice to receive their Messiah. Paul had decided that he would no longer waste his efforts on them. To the Gentiles he would go – and they received the message gladly!

Acknowledgement

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Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Five

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DAY FIVE

In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple.

Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings:

With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.

And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

the whole earth is full of His glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips;

your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Isaiah 6:1 – 7

 

Isaiah was exposed, in his vision, to the awesome holiness of God.  In the light of God’s purity, he became painfully aware of his own impurity. What is God’s holiness?  The best understanding I have is that God’s holiness is the guarantee that He will always be who He is, in nature and in action.  He is totally separated from sin and impurity. He can never change or think or act differently from who He has revealed Himself to be.  He is absolutely consistent with Himself. His holiness is not something to fear but rather it is our security and our hope because He has promised to make us holy because He is holy.

Thunder In The Desert!

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THUNDER IN THE DESERT!

“In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius — it was while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; Herod, ruler of Galilee; his brother Philip, ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis; Lysania, ruler of Abilene; during the Chief-Priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, John, Zachariah’s son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went through all the country around Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“Thunder in the desert!

‘Prepare God’s arrival!

Make the road smooth and straight!

Every ditch will be filled in,

Every bump smoothed out,

The detours straightened out,

All the ruts paved over,

Everyone will be there to see

The parade of God’s salvation.'” Luke 3:1-6 (The Message).

It was now some thirty years later. Luke was careful to pinpoint the exact time in history, all verifiable facts if one has the historical records to go by. After all, he did assure Theophilus that he had carefully researched his material before presenting it to him.

What was John doing during the formative years of childhood and youth? We have only a few clues to help us guess. In his prophetic outburst, Zachariah revealed that he had fully embraced his son’s destiny — prophet of the Highest. He no doubt schooled his little son in the Word and ways of God until John was old enough to attend the Beth Saphar, elementary school where he was taught the Torah – the Teachings of the Lord contained in the Books of Moses.

By the age of twelve, the time of his initiation into manhood, he could recite and knew the meaning of all the words of the Torah. Having passed that phase, he would have gone to Jerusalem for his tertiary education at the Beth Talmid – discipleship school. There he would have been instructed by an authoritative rabbi, probably Hillel who was also Paul’s teacher. Who knows but that John and Paul might have been in class together!

Tertiary education covered the entire Old Testament which John could recite by the age of thirty. He was now qualified to be a rabbi – a teacher – and one who was authorised to have his own band of disciples because his authority had been recognised and confirmed. We know that because only a rabbi with authority was permitted to have his own followers and John was making and baptising men who were his disciples (John 4:1). He was also addressed as “rabbi” by his followers (John 3:26).

It seems that, after he completed his education at rabbi school and before he began to prophesy, he spent time alone in the wilderness. So did Jesus! What was he doing? I think he was thinking deeply about everything he had learned at rabbi school. He needed to know where he fitted in to the scheme of things. He had heard from his dad often enough the story of his conception and what the angel had told his father about him. Where did he go from there?

Is there a lesson in that for us? How often a young person hears the call of the Lord to “full-time service” (as if being a follower of Jesus isn’t a full-time occupation!), and follows the prescribed ritual; Bible School, then apply to a missionary society; wait to be accepted; deputation work to announce yourself and garner financial support; oh! and prayer, and then off you go to the foreign field to teach the heathen about Jesus.

What did John do? Apparently something quite similar, really; rabbi school, no “missionary society”, only time alone with God. Wait, listen, follow, obey. John’s entire ministry of six months! was encapsulated in these four little words, “Thunder in the desert”. A huge flash of light and then he was gone. Was that what he expected? Probably not but it was God’s purpose for him to light the way for Messiah and he did it!

He earned from Jesus the title, ‘The greatest of all the prophets!” Six months? Yes!