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Daily Bible thoughts 756: Wednesday 26th November 2014:

 Isaiah 52:1-12

The proclamation of ‘’good tidings’’ at the core of this passage, is an announcement of freedom for the captives in Babylon. It is important to always remember that Isaiah wrote these words more than a century before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. During Isaiah’s lifetime, Assyria was Judah’s main enemy. But years in advance, the prophet was enabled to see not only Jerusalem’s fall to Babylon, but also the ultimate fall of the Babylonian empire. So we hear the good news that God is reigning, and the captives will be returning (7-10). Again, there is going to be a second exodus (4). God will lead them home (11, 12). God would not have to pay Babylon in order to retrieve His people; they never stopped belonging to Him (45:13).Although these verses primarily apply to the return from Babylon, they must have a greater relevance to the good news of worldwide salvation to come in the Messiah, Jesus (see Romans 10:15). The deliverance from Babylon was nothing in comparison with this. As so often in the prophetic writings, there are layers of meaning. It is fitting that this prophecy of Jerusalem’s redemption should be followed by the one about the suffering Servant. Through Jesus’ sacrificial death, worldwide deliverance was going to be made possible.

God’s punishment of His people, namely their exile in Babylon, provided a reason for the ungodly nations to ‘’mock’’ Him. They were saying, ‘’God can’t save His own people.’’ But God was going to take steps to reverse that opinion and glorify His Name before all peoples (4-6). ‘’…incessantly, my reputation blackened. Now it’s time that my people know who I am, what I’m made of…’’ The Message. In (7-10) Isaiah envisages messengers running across the ‘’mountains’’ towards Jerusalem, to bring the good news of the returning exiles. This return will silence the mockers (5).

In (11, 12) there is a final call to the captives to ‘’depart’’ from Babylon and its ungodliness. They should not defile themselves by touching any ‘’unclean’’ thing or engaging in any unclean act. This exhortation was particularly relevant to the priests and Levites in their company, who were charged with carrying back the sacred temple articles to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:7-11). In the New Testament era, we still need to heed this call to holiness (2 Corinthians 6:17). God has made it possible for us to ‘’Come out’’ from ‘Babylon’ and its pervasive influence. We don’t have to be controlled and dominated by it (Revelation 18:4).

By the way, Ezra, who led back the first group of exiles, must have taken this promise to heart (12; see Ezra 8:22, 23).

‘’In verse 2, Isaiah calls on the Daughter of Zion – Jerusalem and its people – to rise up. God has freed them; therefore, let them act like free people. This is a message for Christians today: we have been freed through Christ, yet too many of us live as if we were still in bondage to weakness, fear and sin. We need to ‘’rise up’’ and claim our freedom to live as free men and women (John 8:31-32, 36; Romans 8:2; Galatians 5:1).’’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1053

Prayer: Lord God, please give us beautiful feet, to carry your good news everywhere. Thank you for the greater freedom Jesus brings. Help us to fully live in it, and declare it to everyone we can.

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Daily Bible thoughts 755: Tuesday 25th November 2014:

Isaiah 51:17-23

This is the second of three ‘’Awake, awake!’’ references that come in the space of two chapters (51, 52). The first one was a prayer, asking God to do something (51:9). But in the next two references God responds by telling Jerusalem to do something (51:9, 52:1). In a sense, a prayer for revival is one in which we ask God to ‘wake up His power’. Of course God’s power is never sleeping, but, at times, it can feel like it is. So we ask God to show His muscular ‘’arm’’. Then, in revival, God wakes up His church. Only once in these two chapters does the church ask God to wake up, but twice, God tells His church to wake up. God doesn’t need waking up. It just seems to us that He does. But His church does require an awakening. We are so often like Peter and John on the Mount of Transfiguration: ‘’very sleepy’’. Only when we become ‘’fully awake’’ will we see Jesus’ ‘’glory’’ (Luke 9:32). What kind of impact would a fully awakened church have on this nation; indeed on this world? May God have mercy on us for being so dopey!

God tells Jerusalem and its people to wake up because it’s a new day. They had ‘’drunk from…the cup…’’ of God’s ‘’wrath’’ (17). This is like a cup of strong wine that overwhelms the drinker and makes him ‘’stagger’’. However, all that was in the past. Their enemies would now be made to drink from that bitter cup (22, 23).

‘’You’ve drunk the cup GOD handed you, the strong drink of his anger. You drank it down to the last drop, staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk. And nobody to help you home, no one among your friends or children to take you by the hand and put you in bed. You’ve been hit with a double dose of trouble – does anyone care? Assault and battery, hunger and death – will anyone comfort? Your sons and daughters have passed out, strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits, Sleeping off the strong drink of GOD’s anger. The rage of your God. Therefore listen, please, you with splitting headaches, You who are nursing the hangovers that didn’t come from drinking wine. Your Master, your GOD, has something to say, your God has taken up his people’s case: ‘’Look, I’ve taken back the drink that sent you reeling. No more drinking from that jug of my anger! I’ve passed it over to your abusers to drink, those who ordered you, ‘Down on the ground so we can walk all over you!’ And you had to do it. Flat on the ground, you were the dirt under their feet.’’ The Message.

It is a wonderful gospel truth that no-one in the world need fear drinking the cup of God’s anger, if they put their trust in Jesus who drank it to its dregs for them upon the cross (Matthew 26:39). This passage says that with God there can be a new day and a second chance. Ultimately, all new beginnings in the gospel stem from the cross.

Prayer: I may not know, I cannot tell, what pains He had to bear; but I believe it was for us, He hung and suffered there. Thank you Jesus.

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Daily Bible thoughts 754: Monday 24th November 2014:

Galatians 6:11-18

Some people think the illness that brought Paul into the orbit of the Galatians (4:13) was an eye condition. Here is one reason why (11; see 4:15) Paul suffered unimaginably for the gospel (2 Corinthians 11:21-33), yet he gives this fact only a cursory mention in (17). There is something profoundly touching and sad about his words. Paul was ‘’persecuted’’ (12; see 4:29) because he was cross-centred (12-15). One reason why the message of the cross leads to a backlash is because it crucifies pride. It gives you no ground for boasting about yourself and your achievements. You can’t say, ‘I’m in the Kingdom of God because of my efforts; my religious activity. I’m here because of my own merits, because I was circumcised (or some other religious thing.)’ The cross gives you nothing to ‘’boast’’ about except ‘’the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’’ (14). Simply through faith in ‘’Christ crucified’’ (1 Corinthians 1:23, 24) people are born again and made anew by the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17). We could argue that (15) sums up the entire letter to the Galatians. It is about ‘’grace’’ , ‘’mercy’’ and ‘’peace’’ (18, 16). We don’t earn anything; we don’t deserve anything because of some religious thing we do. We receive forgiveness of sins and a right standing with God through trust in Christ and His finished work on the cross. He puts His Spirit into us and makes us brand new people. ‘’When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.’’ The cross of Jesus gives you nothing to brag about, and that is one reason why it gets its preachers into so much trouble. Paul knew that the very people who insisted on the need for circumcision/keeping the law, in fact did not keep the whole law themselves. They were highly selective in what they did (13)

Bill Hybels, the senior pastor of ‘Willow Creek Community Church’ ,Chicago, was attending a party on a boat one night. Just as he was stepping onto the ladder to leave, one of the guests shouted to him, ‘’Hey Bill, What’s the difference between religion and Christianity?’’ He knew that he only had a moment or two in which to answer, but this is what he said: ‘’Well, I spell religion ‘D.O.’ because it’s about all the things that people do to try to get right with God. But I spell Christianity ‘D.O.N.E.’ because it’s about what Jesus has done on the cross to make it possible for us to come to God. We just have to receive this as a gift.’’ We could say that the message of ‘Galatians’ can be summed up in terms of ‘do versus done’. The Judaizers were saying, ‘Do’. They said there are things you have to do to be saved, in addition to believing in Jesus. Notably, they argued, ‘You have to be circumcised’. Paul, however, resisted that notion. ‘It’s all been done for you on the cross by Jesus,’ he retorted.’ You simply have to receive this gift.’ In every generation of the church, people will come along who in some way pervert the truth of the gospel. They will re-shape it in their own image. The error may take on a subtle form, or it may be glaringly obvious. However it appears; whatever shape it takes, ‘Galatians’ shows that Christians must stand for the truth standing on the truth. I don’t believe we should get obsessed with erroneous teaching. Some Christians do, it seems to me, and I don’t believe it is healthy. They become spiritual ‘bloodhounds’, with their noses perpetually to the ground, sniffing out heresy wherever they can find it. They end up finding it where it isn’t! Nevertheless we need to be always on the alert, and ready to put the ‘gloves’ on for the sake of truth.

Well, we can do no better than leave the final word with Paul: ‘’May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes! The Message.

Prayer: Thank you Father God for your amazing grace!

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 745: Tuesday 11th November 2014:

 Isaiah 49:1-7

A friend, who has been an energetic servant of Christ, had a heart attack last year, and he had to drop down a gear or two. The pace of his life had to slow. I’m pleased to say that he is now much better, and active again. But he told me (and shared this with others) that for a time he felt he was like the ‘’polished arrow…concealed…in his quiver.’’ (2b).

In 48:16 you read these words: ‘’And now the Sovereign LORD has sent me, with his Spirit.’’ Who is speaking? Some commentators believe it is Isaiah, interjecting a comment about himself and his ministry. But many others think it is the ‘Servant of the Lord’, who we meet in today’s passage. (If that is the case, we have a glimpse of the Triune God in that verse in chapter 48; the One only to be fully revealed in the coming of Jesus.) At first the ‘’servant’’ appears to be Israel (3). However, quite quickly, we see this figure as an individual emerging from within the nation. The servant is an embodiment of a perfect Israel, an idealized Israel. He will succeed in His mission where Israel as a nation failed. Here is someone who will have a ministry to Israel (5, 6a), and also to the world (6b). (Verse 6 has been called the Old Testament version of the great commission. Paul quoted it on one occasion, applying it to himself and Barnabas (Acts 13:46, 47). All believers share in the ‘Servant’s’ world embracing mandate.) Jesus is going to have a worldwide impact (7), but this will follow rejection by His own people (see also John 1:11). It is almost impossible to not see the Lord Jesus Christ in these verses. ‘’He says, ‘’But that’s not a big enough job for my servant – just to recover the tribes of Jacob, merely to round up the strays of Israel. I’m setting you up as a light for the nations so that my salvation becomes global!’’ ‘’The Message. For Jesus, there were many hidden years. There are days, weeks, months we know nothing about. But at the right time, God the Father ‘fired’ Him into the world (2) and what an impact He has had, and will continue to have until that day when every knee bows before Him, and every tongue confesses that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:11). I like how The Message expresses the first half of verse two: ‘’He gave me speech that would cut and penetrate.’’ The Words of Christ have so profoundly impacted human history. When preachers are filled with the same Spirit who came upon Jesus, their words can have a similar impact (Acts 2:37; see also Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12; Revelation 1:16).

Note that God’s glory is supremely manifest in His Son (Hebrews 1:3; John 17:4).

‘’In verse 4, we see the servant frustrated and discouraged; his mission seems to have failed. Yet he places himself in the Lord’s hands; the Lord will surely vindicate him and reward him. All of this came true in the life of Jesus (1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 12:3). And it continues to come true in the lives of Jesus’ followers today. Let Christian workers not be surprised when they meet with frustration and failure; their Master did likewise (John 15:18, 20). But like their Master, they will ultimately receive their reward.’’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1049.

‘’The paradox of an Israel sent to Israel is part of the powerful thrust of the OT towards the NT, since not even the ‘remnant’ of true Israelites…can fulfil the boundless expectations of vs 1-13. We are driven to seek a more perfect embodiment of God’s light, salvation (6) and covenant (8) in Christ at the head of his church, ‘the Israel of God’ (Acts 13:47; Gal.6:16). Also the theme of conquest through service, broached in 42:1-4, has begun to sound the note of suffering and rejection (4, 7), which will increase in sharpness and significance in the third and fourth ‘Songs’.’’ Derek Kidner: ‘New Bible Commentary, p.660.       

 Prayer: Thank you God for the wonder of Jesus. Thank you for the light He shines into my life.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 723: Friday 10th October 2014:

Galatians 3:10-14

There are two key messages in these verses:

  • We are saved by faith and not law (10-12);
  • We are saved through Christ (13, 14). His work on the cross is central to our believing and receiving the gift of the Spirit. So see:
  •  The curse of the law (10, 12): Paul quotes from Deuteronomy 27:26 and later from Leviticus 18:5. The Law demands obedience, and the problem is that it’s not just a bit of obedience that will suffice. There must be obedience in ‘’everything’’. As someone has said, the law is not a religious cafeteria where you can pick and choose (see James 2:10-11). I took an examination some years ago, made up of four parts. But if you failed one section you failed the entire exam. It’s rather like that with the Law. To be saved by the Law you have to do it all No one can and that’s why no one can be saved by the law. If you think you can be spiritually rescued by keeping the Ten Commandments, the bad news is that if you’ve so much as broken one of them you’ve failed to get the pass mark!
  • The content of Paul’s message (11): Habakkuk 2:4 was a key text for the apostle Paul. We could say that it is theme text out of which Romans is developed (Romans 1:16, 17). Paul was insistent that people are not saved by doing good deeds but by believing in Christ. It’s not just that the law can’t save anyone (and that much is clearly obvious) but it is also about what is written in the Old Testament Scriptures. Way back when, the Word of God said you cannot be saved by working and earning, but by believing and receiving. The only way to find true life is by faith.
  • The cross at the centre (13, 14): Paul quotes some more from Deuteronomy (21:33): ‘’Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’’ The Jews did not crucify criminals; they stoned them to death. But in cases of shameful violation of the law, after the stoning, the body was hung on a tree and exposed for everyone to see. This was a great humiliation, because the Jewish people were very careful in their treatment of a dead body. After the body had been exposed for a time, it was taken down and buried (see Josh.8:29; 10:26; 2 Sam.4:12). Of course Paul’s reference to ‘’a tree’’ has to do with the cross on which Jesus died (Acts 5:30; 1 Peter 2:24). He was not stoned and then left exposed on a tree. But by dying on the cross Jesus bore the curse of the Law for us. We can be free from it, and experience redemption, with the Holy Spirit in our lives by faith.

Abraham was saved by a faith that works, and not by faith plus works. The Judaizers, who were infecting the church with their error, were arguing for the latter. The flesh loves legalism. It means we can boast about our religious achievements, and compare ourselves with others who don’t keep the rules as meticulously as we do. But this is not the way of Jesus. The gospel calls us to a simple faith in Him. All boasting is excluded. Through trust in Jesus alone we are made right with God, and even the faith to believe is a gift from God. The cross lies at the centre of our message and experience, and at the cross pride has to die.

Prayer: Lord keep me from trusting in Jesus plus my own efforts. Teach me to live by the gospel.

 

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 582: Thursday 27th March 2014:

 Micah 4:1-5
These beautiful words are also found in Isaiah 2:1-4. (I believe I am right in saying that glorious words from verse three are to be found in the U.N. building in New York City. The people who work for that organisation must often feel that this is an unattainable ideal, but they don’t give up. Someone has suggested that the U.N. should move their headquarters to Jerusalem, because one day Jesus is going to achieve universal peace from there.) As you listen to and watch the news, you can’t help but long for the day when this prophecy fully comes to pass and Nations will quit fighting each other, quit learning how to kill one another. Each man will sit under his own shade tree, each woman in safety will tend her own garden. The Message. This is not the world as we find it now, but we can be sure that it is how it will one day be, for the God of truth has spoken.

You will note, I’m sure, a dramatic gear change between 3:12 and 4:1ff. The temple hill in Jerusalem will become a mound overgrown with thickets (3:12); but in the last days (4:1) the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the world’s mountains. He is referring to a time when the Messiah comes; days that began with the first coming of Jesus and that will culminate in His second advent. Already, to some extent, there is a fulfilment of these words. Today, under the reign of Jesus, His church, comprised of Jews and Gentiles, is being built as a city set on a hill that cannot be hid. The Word of God goes out from the church and Many nations are streaming into it. Under His rule there is peace, security and willing worship. But the fullest realisation of the prophecy will be seen when Jesus returns to the earth and establishes His Kingdom over it. I remember our highly intelligent and very godly Director of Studies at Bible College saying that there are passages in Scripture that really only make sense if there is to be a literal reign of Christ over the earth. This is one of them.

By the way, (5) is not implying that it’s okay for the pagan nations to walk in the name of their gods. He is just stating what the norm is currently; what is likely to happen. This is how it has been throughout history, but when Jesus comes back all will submit to Him (Phil.2:9-11).

F.B. Meyer writes eloquently about this passage in Great verses through the Bible,p.352: In a deep and true sense it has come to pass that the Lord’s house has been established in the top of the mountains, and has been exalted above the hills. The church is a conspicuous and influential object among the forces of the world; and peoples are flowing towards it. In very many cases whole nations have flung away the religion of their ancestors, and gathered within that Christian temple which has been built upon the foundation of Judaism. Out of Zion there has gone forth the law; and from Jerusalem the Word of the Lord. In Jesus, the Jew is still the centre of the world’s vision. But the full accomplishment of these words waits behind the curtain that is so soon to be rent at the coming of our Lord. Then holy influences will proceed from the chosen people who shall have been led to recognize Christ as their Messiah. From these the Gospel shall go forth unto all the world. Beneath the hallowing influences of that age…the canon shall be as obsolete as the tomahawk; the explosives of war shall be stored in museums; whilst schools for training the art of war shall be used as missionary seminaries. There shall be no war, because there shall be no fear…And there shall be no fear, because universal love shall reign towards God and man.

Prayer: I thank you Lord Jesus that a day is coming when you will make all wars to cease across the earth. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

 

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Daily Bible Thoughts 764: Monday 19th January 2015: Isaiah 65:17-25

Isaiah 65:17-25:

This is a remarkable prophecy. It’s theme is picked up and reiterated in the New Testament ( See, for example, Revelation 21, 22.) Although Isaiah may have had in mind, to some extent, the joy and peace to follow the restoration of Jerusalem and return from exile, it is obvious that he had in mind something greater and far more glorious; a reality that even now is obviously still future tense. The vision of the Bible is immense, and we so often scale it down. God’s purpose is nothing other than a totally renewed cosmos, free from the ugliness of sin, suffering and pain. The allusion to (11:6-9) implies that this will be brought about through the Messiah.

‘’The new is portrayed wholly in terms of the old, only without the old sorrows; there is no attempt to describe any other kind of newness. Hence the familiar setting, Jerusalem, and the modest satisfactions, largely the chance to ‘enjoy the work of (one’s) hands.’ This allows the most important things to be prominent in the passage: the healing of old ills (17b); joy (18-19); life (20…); security (21-23a); fellowship with God (23b-24) and concord among his creatures (25). The point of a hundred years old is that in this new setting a mere century is shamefully brief, so vast is the scale…all this is expressed freely, locally and pictorially, to kindle hope rather than feed curiosity.’’ Derek Kidner: ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.669

Prayer: Thank you for the glorious hope you hold out to all your people,

 

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