4-5-03

6:03 AM

Christian Playlist: Petra, Steve Green, Rockapella, Mississippi Mass Choir and others.

Isaiah 22 and 23

I�m not going to type these chapters out. Basically these two chapters are prophecies about Jerusalem and Tyre respectively. As with the past two days of study, these chapters also are filled with warning and seeming dooms-day portent. These two chapters are also talking of cities falling, the proud and vain being felled. This does not make me want to continue Bible Study at six in the morning.

All right, Father. What is it you want me to know from this? I don�t understand what you are telling me. Should I apply the lessons from these chapters to the current goings on in the Middle East? Should apply them to my own life, taking heed and receiving a warning about my own vanity? Have I become too boastful of my happiness?

I don�t understand. Reveal to me what you want me to know. I�m confused. You have told me that you are the God of peace, not confusion. (1 Cor:14:33). Confusion isn�t peace. What do you want me to know? Why are you showing me this, from my perspective, depressing and seemingly dooms-day stuff?

So, I then get Isaiah 65. This does seem to explain a little more. I think that God is telling me about the stuff going on in the Middle East. I think, however, that this can easily be taken two-fold. A warning/prophecy about those I have no contact with and a warning to myself.

I should return to being humble. It�s just not right for me to claim Godliness if I�m not really living it completely. *frowns in thought* My God has always protected me and kept me safe. He has never abandoned me, nor has He ever turned His back on me. But these warnings� they make me think that perhaps I should just shut up a little more� talk a little less and be more responsive to what God is telling me to do.

There are a few things He has told me to do which I�ve been putting off� I�ve been putting them off for quite a while, even. I�m getting down to the wire, I think. I have to stop putting off God�s projects. I think there�s something important I have to learn and since I�ve been asking God to speed up my progress, I think I may well have painted myself into a corner.

If I�m going to learn more quickly, I will have to hear and respond more quickly. That means no more procrastination. I�m getting better every day. I�m working out, I�m eating more healthy food with greater frequency. But I�ve been procrastinating the quitting smoking, cleaning my room and another important project God has set for me.

This weekend is going to be pivotal, I think. Since Mom and Dad are both going to be gone, Dad until next Friday and Mom until Tuesday, this will be an ideal time to both quit smoking and start cleaning out my room. I need to shovel out my life. I need to simplify.

So, though I think the main point of the chapters I�ve been reading in the past few days is as information about the goings on in the Middle East, I think they are also a warning to me that if I don�t do what God has told me to do, I will be counting myself as one who sins against God. One who does not do as God instructs is equal to one who intentionally sins. And, where would the world be today if Noah had waited until it actually started to rain before building the Ark?

So, I leave you with Isaiah 64. Come to your own conclusions.

1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!
2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!
3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear as perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you: for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.

8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter, we are all the work of your hand.
9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people.
10 Your sacred cities have become a desert; even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our fathers praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
12 After all this, O Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

Isaiah 65

1 �I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, �Here am I, here am I.�
2 All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations --
3 a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick;
4 who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat;
5 who say, �Keep away; don�t come near me, for I am too sacred for you!� Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.

6 �See, it stands written before me: I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps --
7 both your sins and the sins of your fathers,� says the Lord. �Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains and defied me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds.�

8 This is what the Lord says: �As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and men say, �Don�t destroy it, there is yet some good in it,� so will I do in behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all.
9 I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah those who will possess my mountains; my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live.
10 Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who seek me.

11 �But as for you who forsake the Lord and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny,
12 I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.�

13 Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: �My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; my servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; my servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.
14 My servants will sing out of the joy in their hearts, but you will cry out from the anguish of heart and wail in brokenness of spirit.
15 You will leave your name to my chosen ones as a curse; the Sovereign Lord will put you to death, but to His servants He will give another name.
16 Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the God of truth; he who takes an oath in the land will swear by the God of truth. For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.

17 �Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

20 �Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach* a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.
23 They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent�s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,� says the Lord.

* or / the sinner who reaches

Oh Father, bring that day soon.

See? This is what I usually get� something that leaves me feeling encouraged, uplifted and waiting expectantly for the future to unfold. Yay God, an end to suffering.