Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Re-birth of Planet Earth”. And so closes our quarter’s lesson on the amazing book of Isaiah. A book that has remarkable coherency from beginning to end. A book written to the so-called “faithful ones” of that time. Illuminating their faithlessness and calling them to faithfulness. Illuminating their gross minds and hearts. Illuminating their sinfulness, of which they seem to be ignorant. Illuminating their need. Illuminating their high-calling as servants of God. And lastly, in this week’s closing lesson, illuminating the eternal home of the faithful. And so it is a book for us so-called “faithful ones”, too. It applies to all the “faithful”. For we all have the same temptations to have faithful appearing behavior, even as it hides a faithless heart and mind.
As I studied this week, I realized that circumstances for Israel at that time were much like they were for Israel at the time of the Exodus (and maybe even today, too). At the time of the Exodus and the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai, God had to display anger and scare tactics to get His people to listen and to consider the things of God. Our God of love needed to resort to emergency measures. He needed to scare them. Appealing to their baser motive of “fear of punishment” (as they understood sin… requiring to be punished). They were unable to fear sinfulness for its own sake… from “a sense of its inherent baseness” (Patriarchs and Prophets pg. 601-602). So they needed to fear an angry god. Perhaps their fear of that god would motivate them to come close to that god, and stay close to that god, until they came to know the true God as He really is. And see His display of anger for what it is. A potent demonstration of love from our God of love.
And so with the appeal to the heavenly bliss, as listed in the last chapters of Isaiah for our study this week. This, too, is an emergency measure. God is portraying an eternal home of beauty and joy. Of long life with all the pain and stress of a sinful life gone. This time, appealing to the baser motive of “hope of reward”. Because most are unable to love for its own sake… from a sense of its inherent goodness. So we need to love the reward from that god, to motivate us to come close to that god, and stay close to that god, until we come to know the true God as He really is. And see the reward for what it is. The true reward is… Him. Being with Him. So that we “would learn to hate sin, and to shun it, not merely from hope of reward or fear of punishment, but from a sense of its inherent baseness,--because it would be a degrading of (our) God-given powers… a stain upon (our) Godlike manhood” (Patriarchs and Prophets pg. 601-602). Loving Him and His loving ways more than anything. Even to sacrificing our own eternal security for love of others.
God shows us the “Heavenly Promised Land”, a land that exists only… ONLY… because our God is there. It is not a place that can even exist without Him. And it is His presence that makes that “Land” so attractive. But that land, as it exists since the inception of sin, is really more like a “Command Center” for the war waging in the hearts of each child-of-God on earth. Since then, it is not a place for God’s faithful children to retreat-to and escape-from the “war”. As His followers on earth, we need to follow our “Commander-in-Chief”. We are His faithful “troops”. We are to follow Him into the “fray” with His counter-part, the Holy Spirit, leading us. We are to understand our “Commander”, our Sovereign, and understand His “war aims” and His “war methods”. Those war aims? To convince every soul possible to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us” (Hebrews 12:1). And to convince every soul to return to the “captain of their salvation” (Hebrews 2:10). Those war methods? Love and truth. Love of such magnitude that we will sacrifice all for the objects of that love… our sinful brothers and sisters. Especially those who are really, really ensnared by that sin… our “enemies”. Even sacrificing our own eternal life for those grossest of sinners. Because we are utterly and totally committed to the “lost” and those who are so totally lost. Committed to God’s great “cause” of love. We are to “surrender (our) heart to the sovereignty of love” (Mount of Blessing pg. 46). Surrender all… especially ourselves.
God has shown us, in Isaiah, the lengths He will go to reclaim His children. Children that are dying. We have studied His methods all quarter. He will cajole, He will discipline, He will threaten eternal punishment, He will put-forth eternal reward. And He will lay-down His life for each of us to do with Him as we will. And this is what God has for us who choose to follow Him. A sacrificial-life like His. A life of such self-sacrificing love, that eternal-reward of itself has no charm at all. Eternal life for its own sake is seen as a self-centered, craven need to save self at all-cost. But this is not what God has for us. We are to “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (See all of Philippians 2). He wants us to be one with Him who loves us. That this love, is all. It is our motive. It is our hope. To be with Him and follow Him in all ways. May it be so for us all, is my prayer.
Love to you all,
Jim