One Year Bible, September 14

ISAIAH 15:1 - 18:7                                                                                                            
"THE PRIDE OF MOAB": (16:6): God sent Assyria against Moab to humble and destroy them.  Moab represents the selfishness and arrogance of the flesh, and is attacked at night. Things got so bad, that Moab appealed for sanctuary with Judah, but got refused.

DAMASCUS, A "RUINOUS HEAP": (capital of Syria) Damascus had joined with Ephraim (Northern Kingdom) against Judah, and now must be punished by the Assyrian invasion. Damascus represents the fleshly lust for riches and power. Everything will be reaped or gathered up and taken captive by Assyria, or burned and destroyed.

"GLEANING GRAPES": A small, sanctified remnant will be left like the poor remains of an olive tree when all but the unreachable have been harvested. That remnant will cast off idolatry and look to God for deliverance and sustenance.

A "DALLIANCE" WITH DAMASCUS:  Flirting with the flesh makes destruction inevitable. God takes this as "forgetting" Him. It is sin and leads to a Godless life.   It is "natural" to fall into it because of the constant pressure of circumstances and the "mind of the flesh".   Notice that these seeds grow and produce quickly - in days.  God is our ROCK (stability, massiveness, defense, security) and our SALVATION; turning our back on Him is criminal and absurd.  Now we have to make painful efforts to make up the loss.   Hungry desires drive us to feverish activity.  We work harder at damning ourselves than we did at clinging to God! (Pursuing pleasure is hard work!)  Quick-growing plants seem to appeal more than slow-growing ones that bear in the next life!  The "God-forgetting" man's work will make up only one "harvest heap" (17:11) from all that long struggle.   He has harvested "grief and desperate sorrow".   But they that hope in the Lord will never be disappointed.

WOE TO ETHIOPIA: (modern Sudan) Represents darkness, the land "shadowed".   Its messengers were told to go back home and wait for God, while He prepared their judgment.  Ethiopia aligned themselves with Egypt and were eventually destroyed by Assyria.

RESPONSE:   Have you noticed that there are LOTS of countries that represent the flesh - and only ONE that represents God or the Spirit???   The flesh must be tricky, virulent, endless, arrogant, rebellious, and you-name-it.   There sure is a lot of it!   Joshua called it a "long war" when he warred with all those nations.   The outcome is assured, IF we don't align ourselves with the flesh!

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
(from New International Version - 2 Tim 3:16-17)

The only Scripture this could be talking about is the OT!   That's all there was at the time this was written!    This means that when we put FUTURISTIC interpretations on Scripture, we put them out of our reach.   We are also SPECULATING, which the Bible tells us not to do!  The other thing that happens is that futuristic interpretations make the Scriptures EXTERNAL - neglecting all good hermeneutical principles of application,  and then they don't speak to our inner man where it will bring "rebuke, correction, and training in righteousness."  And so, we must do like the New Testament writers did - interpret the OT PERSONALLY so that we can be corrected and trained.

GALATIANS 1:1-24                                                                                                               
CHRIST "IN ME":  With Christ IN US, we become like a house divided against itself.  It becomes the Spirit vs the flesh (myself).  "Contrary" means opposed, set against, antagonistic, at war with.   FLESH is described as slavery to SELF, the law, and self-interest.  It is proud, rude, does not yield to authority, loves legalism (rules that it keeps to glorify SELF).  SPIRIT in Galatians is described as  "free" and it inherits the Kingdom of God.  We express our freedom by living by the Spirit.   We are changed from the inside, out.  Anything else is superficial, temporary, and only muzzles the flesh.

THE GREATNESS OF JESUS CHRIST:  Galatians shows us the Church in the making - an entirely NEW THING - that we are not "hybrid Jews"!  Paul is FULLY Christian and his life documents the Church coming out of Judaism with an identity and doctrine of its own.  Bringing a new believer out of paganism (that includes most of us), is a living, inward process as we grow in realization of what it means to have "Christ in me."   Paul did not just know Christ, he was one with Christ: "joined to the Lord, one Spirit" (1 Cor 6:17). 

GRACE & PEACE:  Not the usual greeting this time, because it is appended with "from God the Father and from Jesus Christ Who gave Himself for our sins....."   Paul is documenting the greatness of Jesus to people who are in danger of falling away from "grace and peace".

CURSE HIM!  Any man that would lead others AWAY from the Gospel of Jesus Christ or who would pervert it, "let him be accursed." (set apart for destruction)  This is serious.   The whole Truth of the Gospel is at stake.  Not to oppose them would make us traitors to Jesus.   If people's approval clashes with God's, then I choose God.  There is one Gospel, and it is fixed, unchangeable, inviolable, dogmatic, incontestable and settled in Heaven.  To tamper with and mutilate the Gospel with self-interested interpretations is a sin against God!   Truth is the self-assertion of Christ in me.  The differences between Truth and the perversion are presented in contrasts throughout the book of Galatians.

HOW PAUL CAME TO THE TRUTH:  He got it straight from Jesus' lips.  He was really "into" what the "troublers" in Galatia were teaching, to the degree that he tried to destroy the Church in his zeal to promote Judaism.   Jesus Himself intervened in Paul's life, and "called by His grace, to reveal His Son in me...."  Because he received the Gospel straight from God, he is not at liberty to please men!   In the light of the inner revelation of Jesus, Paul received his commission to preach to the "heathen".  NOTE: He was set apart in his mother's womb!  After his conversion, instead of going up to Jerusalem to meet with the original apostles, he went alone into the wilderness, where he was taught and dealt with by God.   Paul maintained his separation from the "establishment", although there is no hostility or rivalry, but only brotherhood and respect.   After a 15-day visit to Jerusalem, Paul spent about 14 years "preaching the faith which once he had destroyed" in the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and so was unknown by face to the churches of Judea.

RESPONSE:   The Church isn't even 100 years old yet, and already someone is trying to pervert the message for their own self-interests!  Praise God for people like Paul who stood up for the Truth.  That God had set him apart before he was even born - - - and then orchestrated his life so that the message of the Gospel that came from Paul could not be questioned.  God amazes me.  I wonder if my own life has actually been orchestrated????   Could it be that all my past experiences have brought me to where I am today?   Did some of them even prepare me for today?   Am I still being prepared, trained and taught for a future assignment?

PSALM 58:1-11                                                                                                                 
SPARE ME AS I SPARE MY ENEMIES: (Matt 5:44)  "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;"  We don't claim to be perfect, but we are "better off" (more fortunate) than our enemies if we are trusting God!   God's character demands that He judge and avenge Himself on the wicked - - - eventually.  But, there is no question of taking the law into my own hands; vengeance always belongs to God.   We pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" - and this Psalm just spells out what that means - - - the overthrow of evil and the punishment of the wrongdoers!

PROVERBS 23:12                                                                                                         
Don't just hear instruction, but take it to heart and DO it.

RESPONSE:   For God's Kingdom to come on earth, then the Kingdom of Darkness must be overthrown and displaced.  That means that evil men will lose their jobs.  Evil governments will topple.  Certain businesses will go bankrupt.  Some of us might get caught in the wreckage!  Did you ever think of that?