Posts
timewithgod.blog-city.com — August 2008
Isaiah 21-23 I KNOW Where MY Help Comes From
Isaiah is terrified by the vision God shows him about the destruction of Babylon (Iraq). It faces attacks from its southern and eastern neighbors. Just what kind of vision would terrify him so? Iraq's eastern neighbor, Iran, may
Isaiah is terrified by the vision God shows him about the destruction of Babylon (Iraq). It faces attacks from its southern and eastern neighbors. Just what kind of vision would terrify him so? Iraq's eastern neighbor, Iran, may be working on it right now.
The people of Jerusalem aren't to be spared either. Their misplaced trust and confidence in their own abilities, rather than relying on God, will bring about their ruin, Isaiah tells us. Rather than repenting as God has called them to do, "They are living riotously and callously. For this they will not be forgiven," my commentary says.
God will not be mocked. Those who fail to humble themselves and depend utterly on Him will find a surprise coming that won't be to their liking.
Father, You've taught me to depend on You and You ALONE for help. You've taught me to cry out to You in troubled times, and I've learned to trust Your word that says, "Lo, I am with you always." I cannot even depend on myself, but I can depend on You.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 24 -- The People Of The Earth Have RUINED It - (Hint: Not What You Think)
God created the earth, and He has every right to destroy it. The cataclysmic events Isaiah foresaw sound less like global warming and more like a coming ice age, for God had already promised never again to flood the surface of the earth.Yet her
God created the earth, and He has every right to destroy it. The cataclysmic events Isaiah foresaw sound less like global warming and more like a coming ice age, for God had already promised never again to flood the surface of the earth.
Yet here, the surface will be ruined. It will be empty. Yet amazingly, a few people will survive. Instead of flooding, it says, "The earth will dry up." There won't be any wealth left, because the disaster will have taken it all away. There will be no escaping it, either.
Rather than dwindling icepacks, perhaps the opposite sounds more likely. Verse 20 says, "The earth will stumble around like someone who is drunk; it will shake like a hut in a storm. It's sin is like a heavy weight on its back; it will fall and never rise." That sounds more like a disproportionate and lopsided buildup of polar ice that destabilizes the earth's spin to the point that it "wobbles" in orbit, until finally the weight at the poles cannot be overcome and moves to the outside of the spin -- the poles become the equator. However, the weight may be so lopsided that the spin can't be maintained and as verse 4 says, "The world will grow weak and die."
But it's not the burning of fossil fuels that causes all of this. Verse 5 says, "The people of the earth have ruined it, because they do not follow God's teachings or obey God's laws or keep their agreement with God that was to last FOREVER. So a curse will destroy the earth."
Father, no matter how the earth is to end, it's still sin that's the problem, and until the hearts of the people turn back to You, all the "repairs" we attempt will be for nothing. Please help the world to recognize the sin problem that is the root cause of all of our problems. Let them understand that we cannot ignore You to live only for ourselves.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 25-27 The Rock of Ages
In chapter 26, verses 3 and 4 say, "You, Lord, give true peace to those who depend on You, because they trust You. So, trust the Lord always, because He is our Rock forever."My commentary says that Augustus Toplady read this verse and
In chapter 26, verses 3 and 4 say, "You, Lord, give true peace to those who depend on You, because they trust You. So, trust the Lord always, because He is our Rock forever."
My commentary says that Augustus Toplady read this verse and wrote the song Rock of Ages. He was seeking shelter in a cleft in a rock crag during a violent thunderstorm when he wrote "Rock of Ages, cleft for me."
Being a rock climber, I know that cracks in the rock provide a place where I can grab hold, or hold on, or even rest as I climb. They are much better for climbers than just the uncracked face of the rock. Cracks themselves do not necessarily indicate weakness either. Indeed, Enchanted Rock, near Fredericksburg, Texas, appears to be a mountain of rocks. In reality, it is one rock -- one giant rock riven with cracks but still ONE rock. That's very descriptive of "Yah" (a shortened form of Yahweh) in this passage, for it helps us understand how all of mankind can find protection in Him.
Just like a crack in a mountain, we have to trust God to be "in Him" and when we climb into that crack for safety, we depend on it (Him) and we are given TRUE peace.
My commentary tells how D.L. Moody tied verses 3 and 4 together: "The tree of peace strikes its roots into the crevices of the Rock of Ages." In Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength, it says.
Father, thank You for placing a desire to rock climb in my heart years ago so that I could experience the strength of the cracks and know that my protection comes from them. You used a visual and physical memory to help me grasp the awesomeness of the peace You provide to me years before You ever pointed it out in these verse. Help me every day to strike my roots deep into the Rock of Ages.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 28-29 Such A Moving Passage For ME
There is so much going on here that sounds like our world today:"How terrible it will be for those who try to hide things from the Lord and who do their work in darkness. They think no one will see them or know what they do. You are
There is so much going on here that sounds like our world today:
"How terrible it will be for those who try to hide things from the Lord and who do their work in darkness. They think no one will see them or know what they do. You are confused. You think the clay is equal to the potter. You think that an object can tell the one who made it, "You didn't make me!" This is like a pot telling its maker, "You don't know ANYTHING!"
When we humans start treating God like that, our willful blindness will bring judicial blindness from God upon us. God's word will become unintelligible to us, almost like it has been sealed shut or written unintelligibly. Everyone will have an excuse.
"Their religion will then become purely external and their only fear of God is a matter of memorized creeds," my commentary says. "They have everything topsy-turvy, putting the clay in the potter's place and vice versa, thus denying God's power and knowledge."
Verse 13 & 14 tell us more, as God says, "These people say they love Me; they show honor to Me with words, but their hearts are far from Me. The honor they show Me is nothing but human rules ... Their wise men will lose their wisdom; their wise men will not be able to understand."
I know this because it happened to me. There was a time in my life, in college and thereafter, when I listened to the wrong voices. My pride took me where I shouldn't have gone. I was living life upside down. And God judicially blinded me for a season. Yet I praise Him because He NEVER let go!
My commentary fleshed out 28:23-29 about the way God deals with His children (of which I was one at that time):
1) As a farmer doesn't continually plow his field, likewise our trials are brought to an end as soon as they have accomplished His purposes in our lives.
2) As a farmer sows seeds with discernment, we can be assured that the Lord carefully selects the discipline especially suited to our particular need.
3) Just as the farmer gently beats the dill and strikes the cumin with a heavier flail, and employs a wheel just heavy enough to avoid crushing the grain, the Almighty uses the gentlest possible touch for our condition, never allowing the affliction to be greater than we can bear.
Father, thank You for Your mercy. You new where I was headed and yet You never gave up! You let me have enough rope to reach to the bottom of the well, thinking that I was climbing higher and higher. Yet You didn't leave me there. With gentleness and compassion, You helped me to see that I'd painted myself into the farthest corner from You, then You lifted me up, removed my blinders, and restored me. Then You even made 29:23 come true in my life: "When they see all their children, the children I made with My hands, they will say My name is holy." Thank You, Father, for never letting go!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 30 -- Inviting God to Bandage Our Hurts
God wants to be incredibly involved in our daily lives, helping us with each and every decision, if we will just invite Him to do so. When we fail to do that, He calls us "stubborn children".Here, He says, "They make plans, but t
God wants to be incredibly involved in our daily lives, helping us with each and every decision, if we will just invite Him to do so. When we fail to do that, He calls us "stubborn children".
Here, He says, "They make plans, but they don't ask ME to help them. They make agreements ... without asking My Spirit."
Failing to ask Him is not something He just considers poor manners, either. He continues: "They are adding more and more sins to themselves." God expects us to ask for guidance in every facet of our lives, and not doing so is a sin, He declares.
Such people, He says here, "are LIKE children who lie and refuse to obey; they refuse to listen to the Lord's teachings." Rather, they want to be told "things that will make us feel good."
God responds here, "If you come back to Me and trust Me, you will be saved. If you will be calm and trust Me, you will be strong."
"the Lord wants to show His mercy to you. He wants to rise and comfort you. The Lord is a fair God, and everyone who waits for his help will be happy.... The Lord will hear your crying and He will comfort you. When He hears you, He will help you.... He is your teacher; He will not continue to hide from you, but you will see your teacher with your own eyes. If you go the wrong way -- to the right or to the left -- you will hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the right way. You should go this way.' .... These things will happen when the Lord bandages His broken people and heals the hurts He gave them."
God wants to be that involved in our lives every day -- every minute. The world has presented us with loads of hurt. He wants and deeply desires to bandage us. In fact, sometimes He creates an opportunity to bandage us, to draw us closer to Himself.
Father, I know of those today who desperately need something. They need You to bandage them, and some may even be afraid to ask. You have a divine encounter waiting. Help them not to miss it.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 31-35 What Do ALL These Have In Common?
I struggled for quite some time to understand what was important today. There seemed to be such a conglomeration of ideas this morning. I seemed to keep finding stuff that bordered on the unimaginable, or at least that certainly will be d
I struggled for quite some time to understand what was important today. There seemed to be such a conglomeration of ideas this morning. I seemed to keep finding stuff that bordered on the unimaginable, or at least that certainly will be different that what we know today:
-- "The Lord All-Powerful will come down to fight on Mount Zion"
-- "People who are now worried will be able to understand. Those who can't speak clearly now will then be able to speak clearly and quickly."
-- "Then the desert will be like a fertile field and the fertile field will be like a forest."
-- "Hail will destroy the forest and the city will be completely destroyed."
-- "No longer will you see those proud people from other countries, whose strange language you couldn't understand."
-- "Look at Jerusalem ... a tent that will never be moved; the pegs that hold her in place will never be pulled up."
-- "No one living in Jerusalem will say, 'I am sick'."
-- "The Lord is angry with all the nations ... He will destroy them and kill them all."
-- "The sun, moon, and stars will dissolve, and the sky will be rolled up as a scroll. The stars will fall."
-- "The desert and dry land will be happy."
What do all these seem to have in common? Maybe it's simply the fact that reality AS WE KNOW IT will CHANGE. What we cannot imagine right now will be commonplace and accepted. I think it's already begun:
-- Who'd have dreamed that back in 1989-1990 the USSR would disintegrate?
-- Who'd have believed that oil would reach $140 a barrel?
-- Who'd have predicted that Russia would pour in and occupy a tiny neighbor as the old USSR often did?
-- Who'd have imagined that the U.S. would pay three times the price for oil AND prevent the production of our own vast reserves?
God is at work changing our realities, on a macro scale and a micro scale. How important it is to see these signs, to recognize that God is in the impossible. And what we've dared not even dream may be the norm tomorrow.
Father, You shook things up in Isaiah's day. Since that time, Jerusalem has been destroyed and rebuilt twice. Help us to keep our eyes on You. Help us to watch for such signposts: "A road will be there; this highway will be called 'The Road To Being Holy'....That road will be for the people God saves.... Their happiness will last forever. Their gladness and joy will fill them completely, and sorrow and sadness will go far away."
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 36 -37 God Coming In Through The Back Door
The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, had directed his army to capture most of the strong-walled cities of Judah. They had only Jerusalem left to go. With prideful talk that couldn't help but evoke a response from God, Sennacherib's m
The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, had directed his army to capture most of the strong-walled cities of Judah. They had only Jerusalem left to go. With prideful talk that couldn't help but evoke a response from God, Sennacherib's messenger tries to make the people of Judah look foolish for trusting in God.
King Hezekiah tore his clothes, as his 3 advisors had already done, displaying their great distress. Then he went to the Temple. (Notice how he first displayed humility and helplessness, then went to worship the only One who could save them. Strangely enough, the priests didn't stay in the Temple to pray. Instead, they went to Isaiah!
Hezekiah had prepared a message for Isaiah, which they delivered. It sounded only lukewarm in its hopefulness: "Maybe the Lord Your God will hear what the commander said and will punish him for it."
Isaiah had heard from the Lord, and being the "back-door-kind-of-God" He is, He delivered much more than they even dared ask. Rather than arming the Israelites in some way, God instead simply called the angel of death to wipe out the Assyrian army overnight, while simultaneously planting a rumor in Sennacherib's mind that he needed to return home at once. There, he was assassinated by his sons! The Israelites didn't have to lift a finger!
I've watched over the last several years as God has worked the same way in my life. I've learned not to expect Him to do the obvious (showing up at the front door), and because of this, I've learned to alter my prayers accordingly, not limiting His responses by what I pray.
Father, as this new school year starts today, do something amazing at all 3 campuses here in Hamlin. Let students be amazed by the refreshed teaching abilities You give to our teachers. Let the teachers be thrilled by the renewed desires to learn and the willingness of the students to connect with what they're learning. Show up on our campuses in a big way, God. After all, they're Yours to begin with!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 38 -- The Peace From God We Need
For the past three days, I've suffered from some terrible, debilitating headaches. They seem to begin in my neck, working upwards. This morning as I woke up, I experienced a few minutes of relief before my conscious thoughts clicked i
For the past three days, I've suffered from some terrible, debilitating headaches. They seem to begin in my neck, working upwards. This morning as I woke up, I experienced a few minutes of relief before my conscious thoughts clicked in, and that made me decide that there must be something related to tension or stress that is not present when I'm sleeping.
As I read of Hezekiah's illness today, I read his own words as he thought about the premature death he was facing: "I will not see the Lord in the land of the living again." My commentary said that he was meaning that he would not get to experience the goodness of the Lord again. It noted the indistinct view that Old Testament saints had of what would happen to our spirits when our bodies die.
I thought of how people back then assumed that blessings in life somehow showed God's favor, while hard times showed His disfavor. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and Hezekiah at one point seems to gain an understanding of this. He said, "It was for my own good that I had such troubles." God was teaching him to rely on Him, and that knowledge made all the difference in his outlook.
Father, I'm relying on You now. I pray that You will calm my thought and allow the tiny, anxious muscles in my neck to relax. Please get me back to the point of enjoying everyday life again, Father, rather than having to deal with it in this manner. Be my peace today, Father.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 40-41 God In The Math
God's greatness and glory and superiority over anything manmade are displayed here. His ability to tell the future can easily be seen in the references to John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus and references (given in the past ten
God's greatness and glory and superiority over anything manmade are displayed here. His ability to tell the future can easily be seen in the references to John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus and references (given in the past tense) to Cyrus the Great, who had not yet even made it onto the world stage.
I've always been intrigued by verses 4 & 5 in chapter 40. Maybe it's because I've always liked math and statistics. My commentary said, "The preparation for His coming is moral and spiritual, not topographical."
In statistics, we often try to see a pattern in the data by looking at what we have measured already. The picture may look like a fuzzy scattering of dots on a graph. We draw a line that best fits between all the dots, so that the distance between all the dots and the line we've drawn is the least that it can be. If we think of that line as God's will for our lives -- what He desires from us -- then where the dots fall around it, either close or far away, shows how well we've followed Him or how we've "missed the mark" (sinned).
Isaiah says to prepare ourselves by raising up the valleys and making flat the mountains. In other words, by removing from our lives those times when we were farthest from what God wants from us. We are to home in on that line.
In statistics, "the sum of the errors" describes just how well everything fits the line we've drawn. God desires that the sum of our errors be zero.
Father, I thank You for taking me through courses that have helped me to understand Your word, even though they are far removed from the spiritual. You use everything in our lives to help us understand you better. You created not just the earth, but also the math and science rules that govern it, so it's entirely appropriate that You would also use them to describe our walk with You.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
Isaiah 39 -- Opening The Doors To Satan
Note: For some reason, after I published this on August 27th, it was dropped from the blog. Sorry for the incovenience! Didn't want you to MISS this!King Hezekiah falls for the biggest line anyone ever fed him. "
Note: For some reason, after I published this on August 27th, it was dropped from the blog. Sorry for the incovenience! Didn't want you to MISS this! Be sure to read Isaiah 40-41 which FOLLOWS this one as well.
King Hezekiah falls for the biggest line anyone ever fed him. "We're so happy that you've recovered! Here's a get-well gift we brought!" the Babylonian spies proclaimed. He showed them everything. And later Isaiah told him, "Everything in your palace and everything your ancestors have stored up until this day will be taken away."
What was Hezekiah's sin? Pride. Pure and simple. What really got me was the "ancestors" part. It made me think of how hard my great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents worked, not only to provide for their families, but also to build honorable names. To squander an inheritance would be bad enough. But to tarnish their family name by sins I might choose to commit dishonors them as much as a slap in the face. But more importantly, if my "family name" is Christian, then I really dishonor my Father when I choose to sin.
And just as Hezekiah opened the storehouses of Israel's treasures, exposing them to the thieves who would rob him, so too I risk my most treasured possessions when I choose to open myself up to Satan's attacks. Many times, they come just as Hezekiah's did -- looking inviting and promising, when in actuality they are shallow, robbing me of my dignity, my innocence, and my close relationship with God.
Father, please help me to be extra careful and vigilant whenever Satan sends his lies my way. Give me the discernment to readily discover them and help me to protect what You have given me -- most importantly my close walk with You. For that will protect everything else.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
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