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Tag: Isaiah

Christ’s Corporate Community – a Christmas Question

Isaiah 7

13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Will you weary my God also? It is the question of the Prophet. It is the question of the fervent preacher of the Lord’s convicting word. It is the question of Jesus to the ‘church crowd.’

Mark 7: 6 He [Jesus] answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:

‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
7 And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men…

9 He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition….

… And many such things you do.”

14 When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: 15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. 16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”

The fervent preacher asks a church part-full of those who prefer to have their ears tickled with familiar music and familiar ‘worship,’ “WHY do we hold to our Christian ‘traditions?’”

The challenge of of the prophet Isaiah would be, ‘Does that which makes us feel good weary our Lord God?’

Isaiah and Jesus were not preaching to the gentiles here, but to those who claim to follow God.

The fervent question of the preacher is not for the unchurched or occasional visitor, but a challenge to each of us who attend church to listen to teaching from the Bible.

Answer this, dear brother, dear sister in Christ: WHY do our churches hold to such things for an hour (on most Sundays) and pour defilement from unclean lips the rest of the week?

Have we become so familiar with Jesus Christ that we do not even know Him?

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive…” we witness as audience of our annual Christmas pageants. Our “Christian” traditions (like those against which Jesus later warned the Pharisees) have renewed our warm-fuzzy feelings about Christmas. Yes, Christmas is about BABY jesus.

(‘We say, ‘Merry christmas,’ not ‘happy holidays.’ Everybody knows I’m a good christian who knows what Christmas is all about. I even buy presents for some of my family and sing christmas songs. ‘ I usually go to church on Christmas eve, too.)

But will you weary my God, also?

“Fear not,” say the angels in the Christmas pageant, so we do not even fear the LORD GOD!

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. God with us!

God is ‘with us’ in Jesus Christ. He was born a man (like you and me) and lived and lives yet! Jesus IS God with us.

Jesus exuded love. God is love. God so loved the world… (etc. etc.)

Yet are you so familiar with Jesus that you will not humbly bow down to Him as your Lord?

If the President of the US, or Prime Minister or King of a country were, in this moment of time, literally in the room with you; would you not at least show some humility and respect to their position and office?

Would you not at least show a superstar or sporting hero acknowledgement of their greatness of accomplishment by comparison to your own, though for a time they appeared as a mortal person ‘with us’ in your very company?

If Jesus had shown up in your gathering (for something else) today as ‘God with us, Immanuel,’ would you not listen to what He asked you in Person and consider your answer as if the words of your mouth have eternal consequence?

If Jesus were in the room, will you weary my God also?

Why do we not apply the lessons Jesus so often taught us in the Gospels?

Why do we weary the body of Christ, His church, by our hardheartedness toward one other?

Are we any better than Ahaz, to whom the Lord sent Isaiah? Are we any better than the Pharisees, to whom the Father sent the Son?

Consider our ‘traditions’ of Christmas, how by them even christians may have forgotten Christ.

Isaiah’s continued prophesy would be unfamiliar to us, yet perhaps time is near for Christians and the world to consider it.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Butter and Honey

We must understand the meaning of the Prophet. It is not butter for bread to which Isaiah refers, but rather, curdled milk, the acid of which is grateful in the heat of the East.

Isaiah has used a metaphor from the sermon of Zophar on the wicked man, preaching to the righteous man, Job, with the Messiah of God being the antithesis of all things evil.

Job 20:17 He will not see the streams,
The rivers flowing with honey and cream.

Isaiah refers to the sweetness of Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, whom we would know as a humble man like us. Though Israel was the land of milk and honey; though the sweetness of Jesus’ heart spoke kindly of the lost souls of His beloved sheep of the remnant and we of pastures of the Nations – though Jesus is our sweet Redeemer, He IS God Immanuel: Jesus IS Lord, KING over the Kingdom of all creation.

May we have the acid of gratefulness for Immanuel, the refining fire of our souls.

Another note of research on this passage from the Prophet Isaiah points out that honey is abundant in Palestine. ‘ Physicians directed that the first food given to a child should be honey, the next milk [BARNABAS, Epistle]. HORSLEY takes this as implying the real humanity of the Immanuel Jesus Christ, about to be fed as other infants ( Luk 2:52 ). Isa 7:22 shows that besides the fitness of milk and honey for children, a state of distress of the inhabitants is also implied, when, by reason of the invaders, milk and honey, things produced spontaneously, shall be the only abundant articles of food [MAURER].

Did our Lord not eat the sweetness of scripture? Did our Lord Immanuel not refuse and rebuke evil in every instance? Did our Lord Christ Immanuel not instruct us to choose good, do good, speak good and witness the good known only in His Name?

If all is taken from us, do we not have the butter and honey of Christ’s righteousness?

If a man take all our earthly goods, if a man take our mortal life; do we not have in Christ Jesus, life eternal?

Will Christ Jesus Emmanuel not judge all the earth with fire? Will the Lord not bring forth the Kingdom of Heaven and the reward of righteousness for those who obey the Word of the Lord?

to be continued…

December 7, 2014
A Vineyard

Now will I sing to my wellbeloved

a song of my beloved

touching his vineyard.

My wellbeloved hath a vineyard

in a very fruitful hill:

And he fenced it,

and gathered out the stones thereof,

and planted it

with the choicest vine,

and built a tower

in the midst of it,

and also made

a winepress therein:

and he looked

that it should bring forth grapes,

and it brought forth

wild grapes.

Isaiah 5:1-2 KJV

‘Ah, another song’ you say, after having just read the beautiful Song of Songs.

Perhaps the beautiful bride comes to mind and what she might say in a wedding toast of her beloved bridegroom, her husband. Yet this lyric is more than that – much more.

The preceding book of the Bible paints a seductive and loving picture of a woman seeking the love of Solomon.

Song of Songs

1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

4:10 How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

5:1 I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.

How the loving wife desires her husband. How the fruit of the wedding becomes the celebration of the bride and of the bridegroom!

But what has happened here in Isaiah, first of the books of the Prophets?

Hear first, a young virgin bride praising her husband.

Isaiah 5 ESV

Let me sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:

Yes, well ought the loving bride sing a love song of the anticipation of her beloved.

My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;

An idyllic photo of a bridegroom and husband-to-be. He has prepared a place for the woman of his love, the woman of his betrothal. He will live in this place with his a bride-to-be forever (‘until we are parted by death,’ say our solemn vows before witnesses).

The bridegroom planted a vineyard in the fertile place, digging it out for the day the grapes could be pressed into choice wine. It would take some time, but the bridegroom has done this for his bride. The bridegroom has set a watchtower over what he has claimed for his bride-to-be.

On the side of a hill where grapevines grow a wine vat hewn from stone testifies to the groom preparing a place of permanence for his bride.

Then (as so often happens in familiar romances) the song of love takes a tragic turn. The perspective of the groom – the bridegroom who has prepared all this for his beloved now laments over the unfaithfulness of his bride.

and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.

The vineyard is the Lord’s! He has planted it. Jerusalem and Judah and the earth are His – He has planted it.

Listen now to the Groom:

3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?

Isaiah continues (later) to tell of the rule of the Lord over the end of the earth.

I ask you, dear brother, dear sister in the Lord – dear church, Bride of Christ Jesus – have you become a ‘wild grapevine’ in the garden of the Lord?

Isaiah 24:

Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate,
and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants…

7 The wine mourns,
the vine languishes,
all the merry-hearted sigh.
8 The mirth of the tambourines is stilled,
the noise of the jubilant has ceased,
the mirth of the lyre is stilled.
9 No more do they drink wine with singing;
strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
10 The wasted city is broken down;
every house is shut up so that none can enter.
11 There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine;
all joy has grown dark;
the gladness of the earth is banished.
12 Desolation is left in the city;
the gates are battered into ruins.

13 For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth
among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

Was the righteous olive tree, Christ Jesus, not beaten for your sins?

Will the Lord of all the earth not give the Son of Righteousness reign and judgement over all the earth?

Does the Song of the Vineyard of Isaiah, Prophet who so accurately foresaw the life of Christ Jesus as God Incarnate, not seem somewhat familiar from a parable of Jesus?

Mark 12: And he began to speak to them in parables.

“A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.

6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’

8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

O, beloved Bride of Christ:

Have we thrown the beloved Son out of the vineyard?

What will the Owner surely do?

Did our Lord not warn us (wild vines worshiping whatever we would)?

John 15 KJV

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

O beloved Bride, vineyard of the Bridegroom, betrothed of the King of Righteousness:

Do you abide in the life of Christ Jesus?

Surely He will return to the vineyard. Will the Bridegroom not expect grapes, and not wild grapes? Will the One who has prepared a place for his Bride not throw into the fire the one who would not wait for the Bridegroom’s on the clouds?

Will the Lord not take with Him only the faithful Bride?

November 15, 2014
Personal Witness of a Personal Love

Luke 10:23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Isaiah 53

Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

John 1:

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Who IS Jesus Christ?

And what is the witness of His divinity?

Note that I ask, ‘Who IS Jesus Christ,’ not, ‘who was Jesus Christ.’

For if Jesus Christ is not divine – if Jesus Christ is not God; then Jesus was and is not; for the son of man was not and is not the Christ – God with us. If Jesus is not the Christ, then the gospel is not true witness and our faith would be in vain (as states Paul in 1 Corinthians 15).

Yet again, as Paul did witness, as the Apostles did witness, as John the Baptist did witness, as Jesus’ mother and brothers did witness, as many were witness to the resurrection of Christ Jesus: He IS Divine – Jesus, with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit IS GOD! This is our witness of the gospel of grace for those who will believe.

Where were you three years ago (in 2011)?

Were you walking near to the life of a loved one? Were you involved in the daily life – the comings and goings of one so dear that you knew nearly their every action, most of what they said and understood much of what they thought? Were you – three years ago and for these past three years – that near to your beloved, a man or woman of this flesh? Were you near to their soul? Are you joined in your purpose and understanding even now to do what they would have you do?

And where are you now (on this day in the year of our Lord, 2014)?

Have you remained faithful in your relationship and love to your beloved? to your husband (or wife)? to your children? to your brothers and sisters in the Lord?

I would venture to say that you have NOT been as near to any soul, to any of flesh and blood, as was the John the Disciple to Jesus. (And may we be convicted by the Spirit for our neglect of the love of those nearest to us in Christ Jesus.)

This was the intimacy of John, Peter and the Disciples of Jesus: they lived with the Man, they ate with Him, they traveled with Him, they listened to His teachings in public, they listened to His instructions in private, they witnessed His miracles in public and they witnessed His Power in private.

It is with this intimacy and understanding of the risen Christ and the Incarnate Son of Man that John the Apostle witnessed Jesus by his Gospel, his letters and his Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was, IS, and is to come – GOD!

AND God is love.

How can we, a mortal man (or woman), a soul surrounded by flesh and bone and a mind finite in understanding, grasp the fullness of the love of Christ Jesus?

Indeed, we cannot; but must know the Lord by humility and faith. We must believe by faith the many witnesses of God in the flesh.

The witness of John the Apostle in his first letter [KJV]:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

NO faithful Jew speaks lightly of GOD – of ‘That which was from the beginning.’ John makes a remarkable statement about God here:

‘That’ which WAS FROM THE BEGINNING (Only GOD IS from the beginning), we have heard and we have seen with our eyes.

We have touched GOD! And He has embraced us!

How near may a man stand to God? How near dare a mortal come to the Immortal?

John is witness that God, in the Person of Christ Jesus, came near to us – near to him. Is it any wonder that John’s witness is: God is love?

John comforts us, “our hands have handled … the Word of life.”

Following the resurrection, the Holy Spirit was witness to John and the disciples of the divinity and power of Jesus. Following these letters of John the risen Christ is once more witness to John on Patmos (after the other Apostles have been martyred for Christ). Yet prior to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, GOD the Father gives witness to the Son in the presence of John.

Matthew 17

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light…

5 He [Peter] was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”

We may also be familiar with the witness of God the Father at the witness of Jesus’ baptism by John. We are perhaps less familiar of the following witness of God the Father to Jesus Christ the Son, near the completion of Jesus’ three year ministry on earth.

John 12

Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead…

9 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead…

12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord…

23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified… 27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

John, the Beloved Disciple, is witness to the love and glory of Christ Jesus. John says of his Holy friend:

1 John 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

John held the hand of God, in Christ Jesus. John lay upon the breast of our Lord Jesus, hearing the beating of His mortal heart. John beheld the holes of the nails of the cross in the flesh of the hands of the risen Christ Jesus. John is witness that God is love and in Him is no darkness at all.

John 13:23 KJV Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

John’s Gospel and witness and Revelation reveal the light and life and truth of God in Christ Jesus, that only in Him is light and life. He IS the living water. He IS the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

Only in Him will you have eternal life. Only in Christ Jesus will you have the fellowship of love. Only if by faith you follow and witness by His love: Jesus IS Lord, will you have any life and hope and love for your soul – in this life and that which is to come, which we cannot understand, except by faith in Jesus Christ.

May our Lord draw you into His arms of love and light and life.

Amen.

October 20, 2014