One Year Bible - September 24

ISAIAH 43:14 - 45:10                                                                                                    
TIRED OF GOD?   (43:22) If God were tired of us, I could understand it.  But He isn't.  Instead it feels like that game we play at bedtime with the kids: "I love you more than you love meeeee!" God demands nothing of us, but He is grieved when we neglect Him.  He gets tired of seeing us pervert our relationship with Him by sinning.   BUT, even then......He is "He that blots out our transgression for His own sake and will not remember our sins."

"YET....."  God is always Great, and He is always Good (full of mercy and grace).  We are blessed because we are in covenant with a Great God.  We do not have to be afraid of what comes in life!  When we say, "I am the Lord's" (v.5) He pours out all of Himself on us - and because the picture given is WATER, this means I can be soaked in God, permeated with God, filled with no empty spaces with God, overflow with God, be totally satisfied with God.

"A LIE IN MY RIGHT HAND!"  God went out of His way to show us why it is so absurd to trust in anything except Him.  Idolatry is vain - empty, unfulfilling, criminal and absurd.  One of God's goals in sending us into captivity in Babylon is to cure us FOREVER of idolatry.   We live among idolaters and no one thinks anything of it.  Man has deep, abysmal hungers inside that must be satisfied with SOMETHING.  Idolaters use SUBSTITUTES or COUNTERFEITS for personal satisfaction and fulfillment.  Our problem is that we are idolaters by NATURE, and that makes us prone to have some respect or fear for other peoples' idols.  All idolatry is blasphemous and destructive.  If we have to protect our idol, it is not a god at all.  NOTE: These idols are made in the form of a MAN! (44:13)   This is man-centered religion. (wood-carved) "He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand?"  An idolater not only forsakes God, but he forsakes reasonable behavior.

JUST REMEMBER THIS: (v.21) God will never fail to be faithful to us.   (v.22) God will always forgive us and blot out the wrongdoing when we repent.  (v.23) God redeems us and glorifies Himself in us.  (v.24-28) God created and upholds all things and rules all things.

GOD'S PLAN TO CAPTURE BABYLON: Cyrus is God's servant, even tho he is an "outsider".  Isaiah here predicted the rebuilding of the Temple, which had not yet fallen!  And God would show the plan to dry up the Euphrates River so that Cyrus and his army could walk dry-shod under the watergates into Babylon!

CYRUS, A TYPE OF JESUS CHRIST: Cyrus is God's anointed.  God strengthened him for his work.  He was the deliverer of God's people from bondage.  God gave him everything he needed to fulfill his purpose (all the Kingdoms of the world, all the Treasures, all Power).   God used Cyrus to fill earthly kings with fear, to declare Himself, to pour out righteousness, to silence the naysayers, and to build His city.

OUR SOVEREIGN GOD:   God has no equals. He has appointed a people for Himself from Eternity. He orders the affairs of earth from Eternity. He declares what shall be from Eternity. He even ordains what WILL happen, from Eternity. In spite of everything we have done, HE IS OUR GOD. WE HAVE NO OTHER!  He is sovereign over all things.   Salvation can ONLY come from Him.  His rulership extends to everything, even evil  (V.7) (DEFINITION: catastrophe, adversity, wretchedness, calamity, destruction, breaking to pieces, NOT moral evil.)

"WOE TO HIM THAT STRIVES WITH HIS MAKER!":  Arguing with God!  We must look like defiant 2-year-olds to Him.   Our fight is hopeless, and foolish.   Are we demanding that He do what we tell Him to?  God's purpose in everything He does is REDEMPTIVE.  Can we say that?

RESPONSE:  For something to be "redemptive", it must ransom something back from darkness and confusion.   It should have grace in it somewhere, too.  This includes our words, our motives, our deeds, our prayers, our hopes for the future.

EPHESIANS 3:1-21                                                                                                      
THE GREAT MYSTERY: "God's eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" - - -  TO SUM UP ALL THINGS (in the universe, thru the ages, in eternity, vast and infinite, all things we find out by revelation) IN CHRIST.  The Fall and Redemption did not interrupt God's "eternal purpose" (Eph 3:11; Rom 8:28).  Remember, Ephesians begins in Eternity with God's thinking out loud.   God's whole plan was completed in the "eternal counsels".  The "Divine counsels" (1:11) links "before the foundations" with "eternity future" - and gathers it all up (including each one of us) into God's Son, Jesus.  Eph 1:4, 12 show that "all things" relates to believers now, too!  Our significance reaches into eternity, and beyond "time".  As believers, we are to be an expression or outward manifestation of God's thoughts.  To really "know" Christ takes eternity.   God's eternal purpose is the progressive unveiling of God in the Son, and progressively bringing the universe into that fullness.  

BASIS OF GOD'S SUCCESS: Vital union with God through Jesus Christ.   Hence, the prayer in chapter 3.   (1) "That you be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man;  (2) That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; (3) That you might be able to comprehend the love of God;   (4) that you might be filled with all the fullness of God."   This is all "according to the riches of His glory" (a blank check, rather than just what He allows us at His own whim.)  God counted the cost and is able to carry out His whole plan within each one of us.   So the other half of this proposal is "according to the power that works in us."   That is His resident power in us.  The riches and power are there to fulfill the prayer.  Outward evidence of the fulfillment is Christ in possession of us, and our love for Him  deepening all the time.   He no longer lives in us as just our Savior.   That would break His heart because it is so limiting.  No!  He lives there now as owner of the dwelling place, making Himself at home, changing things around, in control.

"PRINCIPALITIES & POWERS IN HEAVENLY PLACES":  The Church is the corporate expression of God's thought.  The principalities and powers are watching to diabolically get the advantage and destroy the church.  BUT, the "manifold wisdom" of God is being made known by the Church.   The devil can't get the advantage - we are not "in Adam" and vulnerable in that way anymore.   Jesus is in us corporately, defeating these powers.

RESPONSE:  "Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think" becomes a scary proposal.  To think that I am a part of eternity past and eternity future just boggles my mind.  How Paul saw all this, I can't even imagine.  Such vast power and such vast wealth, and such vast love - - - all living and available IN ME.

PSALM 68:1-18                                                                                                                 
"ARISE O God, let Your enemies be scattered":  The Ways of God are the ways of victory, as seen in the history of Israel.  His Presence was represented by the Ark, which was lifted on shoulders, and carried out front.   Here we see that what was manifested on earth was but a reflection of what actually was happening in the invisible spirit realm (the heavenlies). When the Ark moved out, God rode out with His escort in heaven.  He "marched through the wilderness" with them, causing the earth to shake.   Some translations say that He rode in chariots from Sinai to Zion, then on up into the heavens (v.33). The point is:  When things take place in earth, there is corresponding action in the heavens.  Or is it the other way around?

PROVERBS 24:1-2                                                                                                          
ENVYING SINNERS:   We should never want to BE them, or even be like them, no matter how good their lives look.   Not only is their end destruction, but their ways now are not anything to emulate either.  We should feel sorry for them.

RESPONSE: My granddaughter has reached an age where she notices things like how rock stars dress, how they move, how they talk and how they relate to one another.  She is only seven (7)!  I keep reminding her that if it doesn't please God, or if it makes her "forget" about being a Christian (lover of God), then it is dangerous.   Her decisions have eternal consequences, and she must be more discerning.