One Year Bible - September 21

ISAIAH 37:1 - 38:22                                                                                                           
IN "THE DAY OF TROUBLE":  There is always a REMNANT of righteous believers.   God will move for them. "The children have come to birth"...  All King Hezekiah's scheming of the past has come to haunt him.   He has already lost the treasures he gave Assyria in an attempt to hold them off.   He has lost several cities, and even people have been carried off.   He has nothing left.   He is ready to trust God now.

I'M TELLING GOD ON YOU!  God had already told Isaiah that He would take care of the problem, and Isaiah passed that on to King H.   A rumor caused the King of Assyria to go home, and he was killed there later.   When King H. got a letter from the enemy, it was the last straw for him.  He took the letter and spread it out in front of God and told God to read it!  The Assyrians had already destroyed other lands and other gods.  Their letter blasphemed Jehovah and claimed to be able to destroy Him too!   So God should destroy the Assyrians to protect His own reputation!

GOD'S ANSWER:  The Assyrians have overstepped; they were great only because God made them great.  Now they would be destroyed because of their arrogance.  God would put a hook in their nose and drag them home.   All this in fulfillment of God's own plan!   God's plans don't revolve around any of us.  They revolve around Himself and His purposes for this world.  "The Angel of the Lord" killed over 185,000 Assyrians in one night.   The Assyrian king was killed by his own sons. (God was making a way for Babylon to come into power.)

LOOKING BACK:  (Take my word for it, 38:6 had to have happened before chapters 36-37).   So, Hezekiah was real sick about 14 years before, while the Assyrians were still barking at his door and before they were slaughtered by God.

SICK TO DEATH: Picture this: you are sick, sick, sick!   Can't even get out of bed.  A trusted prophet comes and tells you that you are doing to die!   So Hezekiah faced the wall in his bed and cried and prayed.   The prophet had to come right back and tell him, "Okay, you get 15 more years."    And, that God would save them from the Assyrians.   As proof, God would cause a shadow on the sundial to go backwards from the sun.   However, King H would still die prematurely, so he was depressed and sorrowful and said he would wander about the rest of his remaining days in bitterness of soul.  He had a boil!

RESPONSE:   I have used King H's scheme too.  One time an employer cussed me out, spent a lot of time and table-banging to do it.  When he was finished, I just said, "I'm going to tell God on you!"  Then I went into the Ladies' Room and prayed.  When I came out, I got an unsolicited apology!  And can a person die from a boil?  Maybe before they had antibiotics.

GALATIANS 6:1-18                                                                                                     
BURDENS:  Rather than "provoking one another", we need to be part of the restoration process when another believer falls into temptation unintentionally.   Someone was caught off guard, and committed the trespass in a rash moment or under provocation.  This may even be talking about someone who was trapped in legalism and had become unfeeling and critical.   His restoration will not come from "the irritable and resentful" who might aggravate the situation, but from an experienced and matured believer.  Meekness signifies a fellow-sinner, saved by grace, who knows his own weaknesses.   We are not free to refuse to bear another's burden, because it is "the law of Christ" that we do. (v.5)  The "burden" we are to bear ourselves is our "assigned duty".   It is the "light burden" (Mat 11:30) that Jesus imposes on us.

YOU CAN'T OUTWIT GOD!  Sowing to the flesh is living for myself, selfishly pleasing myself.   If I sow to the spirit, I am selfless, taking every opportunity to deny the flesh.   Bearing burdens is one way we sow to the Spirit.   But if you are not wanting to be forgiven and restored, don't let your self-deception lead you to hell!   You can't outwit God.   Sooner or later, your "crops" are going to come in.  You can't behave any way you want to just because you are "free". You will reap what you have sown.   You can't sneer at God's laws or even at natural laws of the universe.   Living to satisfy the flesh will lead to decay and death.  Well-doing leads to rewards if you don't give up.

"GOD FORBID...."  "Glory in the flesh" VS "glory in the cross."   Trying to keep the Law is glorying in the flesh.   Relying on the death and resurrection of Jesus is glorying in the cross. "God forbid" actually means "may it never be, no, no, no, absolutely not, under no circumstance will I ever honor or praise or worship anything but the cross of Jesus Christ."   And the cross changed my relationship with the world (Gr: "kosmos" - world-spirit, world-systems, world-thought, etc.) We have parted company - the world is dead to me, and I to the world.   It no longer dominates my life.  I am not controlled by why 'they" think. 

"THE ISRAEL OF GOD":  This is ALWAYS been interpreted as referring to the CHURCH. (6:16)   No one ever questioned it, from earliest times, until the 1850's.  This is actually an indirect ridicule of the vain boasting of the false teachers.  Circumcision was cammoflage (outward show).  This is written to the children of Abraham by faith (Galatians 3:29), and thus includes all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, who are united into One Church.

RESPONSE: I spent years wondering why everyone criticized everything I did!  I couldn't seem to get anything right.  People at work criticized my abilities, my communication "skills", my clothes.  People at church said I was unfriendly and stand-offish. My family didn't like me either - and criticized me all the time.  One day I came across this verse - and realized that I was REAPING!  I was hyper-critical of everyone.  I believed that "behind every silver lining, there is a cloud."  I was suspicious of people's motives and thought most Christians were hypocrites. (at least the happy ones were) I was reaping corruption.  People took what I sowed, multiplied it (which seeds always do) and gave it back.

PSALM 65:1-13                                                                                                               
THOSE GOD BRINGS NEAR:  God "purged away" (atoned for) our transgressions and sins and iniquities so that we could be close to Him.   When we come near into God's Presence, we will be "satisfied", it says.   We should never leave His Presence until we are full.

PROVERBS 23:24                                                                                                         
We all want our children to be "righteous" and "wise". They will be if they highly prize TRUTH.

RESPONSE: God has gone to great lengths, including self-sacrifice, to bring us close.  The word "approach" or "bring near", is also the word for "sacrifice" ("korban").  We learn from Gen 22:5 that all worship is sacrificial (first usage).  When we are worshipping God, it overcomes our obsession with ourselves. John 4:4 says we are to worship Him "in spirit and in truth". The "spirit" part is our inward submission, and the "truth" is outward submission of obedience.