One Year Bible, September 11

ISAIAH 8:1 - 9:21                                                                                                                   FORSAKING GOD: By seeking help from the Assyrians instead of God, Ahaz forsook the Lord. Sure 'nuff. Assyria helped against Israel and Damascus, then just kept coming - right on through Judah! Their helper became their ruler. They swelled over the land like the flooding of the Euphrates.

GENTLE KINGDOM: V.6 the gentle brook of Shiloah represents the Kingdom of God with it's "meek and lowly" King. The only compelling rule is love and forgiveness.

REJECTED KINGDOM: By not trusting God to help and deliver us, and seeking help from other sources, we reject God and forsake Him.

ANTICHRISTIAN KINGDOM: ("anti" also means "instead of")  We never rule ourselves.  If Jesus isn't our Lord, then someone else is.   The mob of tyrants (our "affections and lusts") are looking for a vacuum.  They don't help - they rule.  Sin loses its pleasure (Heb 11:25).  We become slaves of our own lust as they carry us away like a flood.  Worship is freedom; what looks  like freedom (from God's rule) is actually slavery.

GROPING IN DARKNESS:  Emblematic of ignorance, sin, sorrow, death.   Into that setting shines a "Great Light". (knowledge, purity, joy, Life)  The process of depopulation in the Church is reversed and men flock to the Light. (power of the Cross).  The JOY of the Lord is from sharing in His victory (plunder), from reaping of His bounty, and from being emancipated from bondage.   Our conquering King has annihilated the power that held me bound.   Jesus' victory over the foe is so complete, even his weapons are destroyed.  They have been heaped in a pile and burned along with the blood-drenched cloaks.  

GOD IN THE FLESH:  He is our Victor, and "The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father".  The earthly divinity.   He is the Incarnate Word, warlike and mighty in battle.   His kingdom will never end.  The guarantee of these prophecies is the "zeal of the Lord of hosts".   "Zeal" is actually the word "jealousy".   JEALOUSY is love stirred to action by opposition.   He tolerates no unfaithfulness in the object of His love, and flames up against all antagonism.

JUDGMENT:  Israel (Northern Kingdom) was carried away captive in 734 BC; Samaria held on until 721 BC.   This was written in the intervening 13 years, prophesying Samaria's doom. Their leadership was ruthless and selfish and exploitive, and would be imprisoned by their enemies.  They had defied God and His prophets.  Their judgment was righteous.

RESPONSE:  Any attempt to gain "freedom" by defying God brings swift judgment.  Going outside God's law to gain freedom always leaves you more bound than before.   Freedom is ONLY found in submitting to God.   It is a paradox: Submission and obedience to God brings freedom.   Going to "outside help" brings slavery.

2 CORINTHIANS 12:1-10                                                                                                 
THORN IN THE FLESH:  This is a perpetual problem that pierces the FLESH (SELF).  This forces us to trust ONLY His grace so that our ONLY boast is in the Lord.  All our efforts cease and His effort is exhibited.  What we forfeit in exchange goes to the Cross.  Then the real test comes.  Our covenant with God demands an exchange, my "strength" (which was weakened by the "thorn")  for His strength.   I must forfeit using my own strength.  When I am weak, then I'm at my best!"  "weakness" and "infirmities" are the same Greek word and means "my inability to get results", "human limitations."   "Dunamis" (Greek word for "strength" or "power") is actually "perfected” (made mature, made complete) in my inabilities.  So "when I am weak, then am I strong".  Thorns do not help me to mature.  The obtaining of GRACE to handle the thorns (overcome their effects) is what produces maturity.

RESPONSE:   Human intellect is not a substitute for grace.  By all means, study and be prepared, but rely on the God for strength and "how-to".  God's grace is His strength, His power, and His sufficiency. It is all God has and all God is, and His willingness to use it on our behalf.   A thorn may be a perpetual problem in our thinking that we are inferior, or that we are ugly, or defective.   It keeps us dependent on God and afraid to trust in ourselves.

PSALM 55:1-23                                                                                                               
BETRAYED BY FRIENDS:  For David, it was Ahithophel, Bathsheba's grandpa. He had wormed his way into the Court and was David's best friend and advisor, a mentor and father-figure. Ahithophel not only encouraged Absalom to rebel against his father David, but he volunteered to pursue and humiliate David. This was a cruel betrayal - Grandpa and David had actually attended Temple together and prayed together!

REPONSE TO THREATS AND BETRAYAL: First reaction: Fear - "Heartache", "terrors of death", "fearfulness and trembling", "overwhelming terror". Second reaction: Revenge - "Destroy", "divide", "let death seize upon them and let them go down quick into hell".   Third reaction: Faith - "The Lord shall save me", "He shall hear my voice", "He has delivered my soul in peace", "He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved."

PROVERBS 23:4-5                                                                                                          
I've heard of money sprouting wings before and didn't realize that came from the Bible.  You cheat yourself by obsessing on money, the same as you do by obsessing on food.  Jesus said, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." (Luke 12:15)

RESPONSE:  I wonder how long David spent in his first and second reactions to betrayal. (fear and revenge).  I don't think he would have dwelt long on either of those, because Isaiah said that those passions will flood in on your soul, overwhelm you and carry you off captive. (see above) Mad, sad or bad thoughts must be dispensed with quickly by replacing them with PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING to God.