Before I leap into today's chapter, I have to take one step back briefly to the topic of Jesus as the living water. John 7:37-38 records what Jesus declared on the last day of the fall Festival of Tabernacles AKA Feast of Booths celebration - about 6 months before his death. It is significant in our journey through Lent - so I don't want to miss this opportunity to share just a bit more about Jesus' profession of being the living water.
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
He is the source of life. He is the living water. His Holy Spirit, which He poured out at Pentecost, allows us to jump into that stream of life and water - to be filled with God's presence and living water, and have it flow into us and through us. It is the Good News of the gospel: Jesus came that we might have life, and have it to the full - abundant life! His life!
My chapter for today is Isaiah 56. It begins with defining the plumb line to live by: The ESV translates it as: "Keep justice and do righteousness" The NIV says, "Maintain justice and do what is right."
This chapter prophesies the coming of the One who will come. It states, "My salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed." Jesus is that Salvation.
It is exciting to see the prophecies throughout the Old Testament that point to the Messiah - God's Salvation - but it is also good to pay attention to the reality so clearly conspicuous that 'soon' is in God's timing - not what men might have thought. Isaiah recorded this portion of what God revealed to him approximately 690 years before the birth of Christ - yet God's call to His Old Testament followers was a call to faithfulness in doing what is right to others, and living right by God's standard in personal practice. Even then, God's design for life was grounded in faithfulness in relationships to others and to God. That is significant. And 'soon' was still 690 years off....
This chapter has some other wonderful nuggets. One is the affirmation for the 'stranger.' Even though God sent Jesus to His own - the Jews - God makes it clear that the foreigner who is committed to Him is not excluded. He even promises the eunuchs, who could never be fathers to birth children, that they have an inheritance in the LORD.
The chapter ends with a rebuke of Israel's teachers - blind guides who are without knowledge, according to verse 10. Verse 11 says they are shepherds who have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all.
That brings 2 Timothy 4:3-4 to mind, which is a warning we need to pay attention to today:
"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
I learned a hard lesson a few years ago. People can be honest, good people, and still not tell the truth - because they don't have the truth to tell. There are lots of areas within God's Kingdom where a diversity of opinions are O K - - but the basic Good News of the Gospel is not up for grabs. There is only one way to God. It is through Jesus Christ - through the blood that He shed on the cross. Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. God had His salvation story in place before creation. He is all-knowing. He knew what would happen - and he planned for it. Jesus' death was no accident. He wasn't killed because He upset people. He was killed to be the one final required blood sacrifice. He was the perfect lamb.
God limited the option for Salvation to being through Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life; the door to the sheepfold; the one and only way to God. Salvation does not come on a potluck platter with a number of options to choose from. God is very clear about that. Yet, it is a popular teaching these days - that we wouldn't want to limit God - that if God chooses He could save through any number of other ways. He can't. He gave His Word - His living, loving Word. There is only one way to get our names on the guest list - and God's Word spells it out clearly.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain....
Just a little bonus for today: Jesus is the Lamb of Revelation - the only one worthy to open the seals. Just as Isaiah was prophetic - and has come true - so The Revelation of John is prophetic - and will come true. It is distressing when I hear teaching that tries to reason away God's truth - people who don't tell the truth, not because it is their intent to lie, but because they don't know. And those teachers always manage to find itching ears to teach to.
Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."
We live in that time - when people call good evil, and evil good. When people exchange light for darkness.
Matthew 6:23 laments, "But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"
The good news is: I don't have to shout against the darkness. Shouting against darkness doesn't dispel it - it just makes a lot of noise. All I have to do is shine light into it. Light dispels darkness. That light is Jesus Christ. Shine, Jesus, shine!
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