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Tag: Isaiah

  • Stubble & Chaff – Repentance before the Lord

    Stubble & Chaff – Repentance before the Lord

    “Behold, I send My messenger,
    And he will prepare the way before Me.
    And the Lord, whom you seek,
    Will suddenly come to His temple,
    Even the Messenger of the covenant,
    In whom you delight.
    Behold, He is coming,”
    Says the Lord of hosts.

    Malachi 3:1 NKJV

    The prophesy is clear from Malachi, Prophet of the Lord in Judea of Persia, perhaps shortly before his death in about 486 B.C. History of the next five centuries leading up to another Prophet in the wilderness and the Messiah would be tough times for God’s chosen ones.

    What main course awaits Priests, Rabbis and a defeated people of Israel?

    Repentance!

    Malachi 3: ESV

    refiners-fire Malachi 3.22 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

    For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver…

     

    Surely the LORD can do this. He can bring repentance to the life and purity to the heart of any man. Yet how we resist: Priest (sons of Levi) or Rabbi (teacher), or common one who knows the Lord and continues in the impurities of sin.

    The LORD is going to send a fuller’s soap man to the Jews to purify their hearts and prepare the Temple.

    Malachi 3:5 excerpt I will be a swift witness against

    • the sorcerers,
    • against the adulterers,
    • against those who swear falsely,
    • against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages,
    • (those who oppress) the widow and the fatherless,
    • against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and

    “I will be a swift witness against … those who do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. Mal. 3:5

     

    A mere mortal would come along in time to accuse a Jewish King rightfully of adultery. He would accuse officials of the Temple and teachers of the Law of their leavening of God’s word. Like Prophets before and John the Baptist, who would follow five centuries later, Malachi warns that God requires repentance.

    7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

    The Lord indicts us of our sin through the words of the Prophet Malachi. Note that some, not all respond.

     

    The Book of Remembrance

    16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

    Malachi 4:

    The Great Day of the Lord

    Malachi 4:14  “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

    sun of righteousness2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

    4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

    5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

    Five Centuries Later

    Luke 3:

    John the Baptist Prepares the Way

    3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

    7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.

    As humble as the Lord Christ Jesus IS, born in a manger, baptized by John though He is righteous, and sacrificed on a cross for our sins; He IS King and Lord yet to return on the clouds in these last days to call up the dead to judgment and the living to new and eternal life.

    Repent!wheat-kernals-in-hand1

    Turn back to your Father, the Lord. Bear the fruit of righteousness, fellow sinner condemned.

    Or meet your Maker as He separates the wheat from the chaff.

    Even the Chosen of God and christians only claiming Christ are lost without repentance, a turning of our hearts back to the Lord our God.

    Isaiah 33:

    10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord,
        “now I will lift myself up;
        now I will be exalted.
    11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble;
        your breath is a fire that will consume you.
    12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
        like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

    Are the warnings of God through the Prophets not more urgent to sinners in these last days?

    Therefore, repent! The Lord IS come.

    13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
        and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
    14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
        trembling has seized the godless:

    “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
        Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

    To be continued…

    These messages highlight the scripture of the coming of the Messiah, Christ Jesus, Who IS and was and will always be. Prepare your hearts in this year of our Lord, 2015, for Christmas and for the day when the Lord will return.

  • In the beginning, and through time…

    In the beginning, and through time…

    “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
        and the heavens are the work of your hands; – Hebrews 1:10

    11 they will perish, but you remain;
        they will all wear out like a garment,
    12 like a robe you will roll them up,
        like a garment they will be changed.
    But you are the same,
        and your years will have no end.”

    Hebrews 1:

    1Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

    2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

    3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

    Isaiah 49:

    jesus the jew - a light to the Nations…5 And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, And My God is My strength), 6 He says,

    “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant

    To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;

    I will also make You a light of the nations

    So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

    7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One, To the despised One, To the One abhorred by the nation, To the Servant of rulers, “Kings will see and arise, Princes will also bow down, Because of the LORD who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”

     

    • Do you realize that the story of Christmas is the Redemption of Israel?
    • Do you see what I see, that the Messiah, born in a manger in Bethlehem of Judea, is a Light to the Nations?

    Luke 2:30-32

    “.. for my eyes have seen your salvation
    that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
    a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and for glory to your people Israel.”

     

    In the year of our Lord, 2015, have you looked to the Lord for your salvation, to the Christ of ‘Christ-mas‘ as the redemption for your sins?

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John:

    22:12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.

    13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

    14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.

    To be continued…

    This series in preparation for Christmas, in the year of our Lord, 2015, and His glorious return in these last days.

  • He hath led me (into darkness, not light)

    He hath led me (into darkness, not light)

    He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

    Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.

    He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

    He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

    Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

    Lamentations 3 KJV excerpt

    Harsh words, seemingly without hope. Who would say such a thing?

    In fact, a most godly man, the Prophet Jeremiah, after Jerusalem had fallen to enemies.

    These are not Psalms of restoration praising the LORD; in fact, these songs are best described as a funeral dirge. And what is the question they ask?

    How!?

    Fall of JerusalemThese sad songs of Jeremiah lament the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Nearly six centuries later in the time of the Messiah Jesus, Jerusalem yet remained in the hold of her enemies. A great darkness yet weighed on the hearts of God’s chosen people.

     Lamentations 1: English/Hebrew

     

    The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against His word; hear, I pray, all you peoples, and behold my pain; my maidens and my youths have gone into captivity. יחצַדִּיק הוּא יְהֹוָה כִּי פִיהוּ מָרִיתִי שִׁמְעוּ נָא כָל הָעַמִּים (כתיב עַמִּים) וּרְאוּ מַכְאֹבִי בְּתוּלֹתַי וּבַחוּרַי הָלְכוּ בַשֶּׁבִי:

    A Second Temple was rebuilt and rededicated after Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem in 445 B.C. It, too, would be destroyed. A Temple of Herod, built to glorify Rome in Jerusalem, would eventually be destroyed by the Romans. The alliance of Herod the Great with Rome also built Caesarea.

    A King allied with Caesar to rule over the people? Who can really rule when the captives disagree?

    Israel is destroyed for her sins. Yet no King or Caesar can prevail over the LORD. A place, Israel, is not heard in the darkness for more than two millennia, until a remnant is restored to share in some of its blood-stained soil in the year of our Lord, 1948.

    Once more, a renewed Israel had no King and a remnant worshiped recaptured soil rather than the Lord.

    Hanukkah LightAs light fails sooner and the days diminish into darkness, our hope of restoration remains in the Lord and not the remembering of miracles of the past.

    Where is your hope, O Jerusalem,

    Your light, O people of God?

    Why do we insist on restoration without repentance?

    Another Prophet even before Jeremiah had seen a greater King and a more perfect worship.

    Isaiah 9 ESV: {Chapter 8 in Hebrew}

    The people who walked in darkness
        have seen a great light;
    those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
        on them has light shone.

    ” … in the land of the shadow of death,” reads the King James Version of the Bible; “upon them hath the light shined.”

    It is prophesy of the birth of a Messiah, God With Us, in a manger in Bethlehem.

    Even Charlie Brown and Linus know the verses to follow.

    Will you not repent of the darkness of your sin and be restored in the Light of the Messiah Jesus?

    6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

     

    Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu v’kiy’manu v’higianu laz’man hazeh.

    In the year of our Lord, 2015, we worship the Light which shines in the darkness. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand! Even now in these last days, the Lord would be your Redeemer in Christ Jesus.

    To be continued…

    In preparation for the holidays of Hanukkah & Christmas for the beloved chosen of the Lord and peoples adopted into the Light of the Lord, in His Redeemer, Christ Jesus.