Hello my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
If you are a parent or grandparent, I wonder how you have handled the frustration which occurs when you have spoken truth and wisdom to your children or grandchildren but they ignored what you’ve said? They rolled their eyes and perhaps even told you that you’re out of touch with reality or the challenges they face in life cannot be met with the solutions from previous generations?
What makes it worse, of course, is when they find themselves in a mess because they disregarded your warning and wisdom and you know full well their disaster could have been averted if they had only taken heed of your warning and wisdom. Have you ever considered THAT is exactly the place God finds Himself with His people so often when He warns us and we disregard or even ignore God?
Yesterday I left you with the prophet Isaiah as he was having a life changing encounter with God through a vision in which he had seen God in the Temple surrounded by six winged seraphim angels proclaiming “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD God Almighty…” Isaiah had felt overwhelmed with God’s majesty & holiness and by contrast the sinfulness of both himself and the people of Israel. So Isaiah had responded “Woe to me! 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!” (Isaiah 6:5) Isaiah had then experienced a purification from God and God’s invitation to be His spokesman to the people. Isaiah had responded “Here am I. Send me!”
Have you ever given much thought to how similar Isaiah’s experience was to that of Moses at the burning bush as recorded in Exodus 3? In both cases the encounters these men had with God were totally unexpected, overwhelming and life transforming! In both cases their life mission changed that day and for the rest of their lives they were primarily a spokesman for God speaking to the people very important messages they had received from God.
They both felt totally inadequate to the task, but overwhelmed by the majesty and awesomeness of God they went forth speaking what they’d received from God, with great boldness. And sadly, with both men, the response of the people was most often less than enthusiastic, in fact it was sometimes outright reluctance and disbelief in God.
For Moses and the Israelites their ignoring God resulted in that faithless, rebellious generation wandering around in the desert for 40 years until that generation died off and the next generation was given the opportunity to enter the land of God’s Promise. (Numbers 14:21-24; 29-31)
For Isaiah, his role as God’s spokesman lasted even longer, beginning in 740bc and lasting, we believe, almost 60 years! But the response of disbelief or even outright rejection from the people was very similar to what Moses had experienced.
The commissioning message from God to Isaiah, in response to his willingness to be sent as God’s spokesman, is deeply troubling and found in Isaiah 6:9-13. 800 years later, in Acts 28, the apostle Paul, having finally arrived in Rome and living under house arrest awaiting trial, quoted this Isaiah message as Paul explained his role as a spokesman of God to his generation.
Paul’s words give Isaiah’s message greater clarity: “Go to this people and say, ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.’ For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.” (Acts 28:26,27)
Paul and Isaiah both were speaking to the Jewish people and God’s accusation was that the Jews had received many times very clear messages from God, but they remained ABLE to hear but UNWILLING to understand. Notice I said, “UNwilling to understand”.
Oh, God had given them, as He does EVERY person, ears to hear and minds to comprehend. God had sent messengers to speak in the language of the people, using words they clearly understood, but their hearts remained hard, ignoring God, refusing to receive and think about God’s warning messages to them! Oh my friends, do you see any evidence of that today, among people you know?
In the apostle Paul’s case, under house arrest, Paul was sitting in Rome receiving a regular flow of Gentiles to hear Paul explain God’s remarkable good news (The Gospel) that Jesus Christ is God the Son, and Jesus had come to earth to give His life as the full atonement payment for everyone’s sin, so that any repentant person, Jew or Gentile, could be reconciled into relationship with Holy, Almighty God, both now during our earthly lifetime and for all eternity!
In view of the reluctance of Jews in Paul’s day to hear and respond to God’s message through Paul and the disciples of Jesus, Paul made this proclamation: “Therefore, I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen.” (Acts 28:28) For the Jews this was outrageous, it was beyond reasonable. Jews believed God cared only about His chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
They strongly believe God cared nothing about the rest of the world’s population, Gentiles, and they could not imagine Jesus Christ’s atonement death was intended to include salvation for Gentiles! So most Jews rejected Paul and his message, which he claimed to have received from God, as they had rejected Jesus and many prophets before them, going all the way back to Isaiah and further back to Moses!
Dr. Luke concludes his record of the book of Acts with this summary statement: “For two whole years Paul stayed there in Rome, in his own house and welcomed all who came to see him. HE proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ – with all boldness and without hindrance!” (Acts 28:31)
Amazingly the same could be said about Isaiah, although Isaiah was God’s spokesman to the people of Jerusalem and Judah for 60 more years, after his 740bc life changing encounter with God as he records for us in Isaiah 6!!
I think we need to pause right here friends. In our generations, how would you describe the response of the people you know to God’s message of love and hope found only in Jesus Christ? What about God’s warnings against unrepentant sin and rejection of God’s Truth?
On a personal level, have you felt the frustration of your words of wisdom and warning to your own family have gone unheard or if heard then not understood? Let’s reflect on this my friends and tomorrow we’ll see how Isaiah responded to this dismal prediction by God.
No song today my friends, just time to think and pray, search our hearts and talk with God about this.
Today’s Scripture: Isaiah 6:8-9.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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