Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....April 9, 2018
Like Jesus, Trump hated by Establishment
As I was journaling a couple of weeks ago, I was in Mark and reading of Jesus going into the temple and turning over the money-changers tables. When I got to Mark 11:18, "And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching", I stopped and asked myself, is there a teaching here for today's world and the way it is so upside down? And God being God placed this on my heart to share with you.
Disclaimer....I am in no way comparing President Trump with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am however comparing their situations regarding the hatred spewed at them by the establishment that is/was in charge at the time...Here is my analogy:
A long time ago a man came on the scene and made many people unhappy. He was an outsider and a threat to the people in authority. He was hated by the establishment and they plotted to dispose of him. After approximately three years of teaching and preaching, the establishment succeeded in having Jesus, the Son of God, crucified.
There is a new man in Washington, D.C., who is an outsider and has become a man hated by the establishment. He is a threat to the establishment’s way of life, a life that they don’t want changed. Their comfortable nest is being disturbed, and they are fighting to stay in their comfort zone. The establishment is trying every way they can to destroy this new man, the President of the USA.
Washington, D.C., has two labels that we hear a lot about: Those on the left and those on the right. Jesus speaks of this. He calls all nations to him and he separates them into two categories: The sheep are on his right and the goats are on his left. Those on the right are his followers and those on the left are not. So we see here that there is a division, and for those on the left this is bad news. It looks a lot like Washington, D.C., today.
I compare the high priests of Jesus time with the establishment, or the "swamp", of today. Both were not happy with the way things were going so they seek to destroy by any means possible.
The president can’t be compared to Jesus, but it appears that those on the left hate the president so much that they would welcome his crucifixion. The future of the USA and the world is in deep trouble. How bad will it get before the end comes?
I will say this in closing, it is my firm belief that God sent the "outsider" to bring attention to the hatred in the world today. Just as the Pharisees, Scribes and Teachers of the Law in 1st century Jerusalem, had their own little game going, so too is it true in Washington, and the world for that fact, today. Just as the leaders of Jerusalem in the 1st century hated the fact that an "outsider" would dare to challenge their way of doing business, so too do the politicians and bureaucrats of today hate the fact that an "outsider" would dare to challenge their way of doing business and try to "drain the swamp.
Just as Jesus turned the world of the elite upside down in Jerusalem, so too is President Trump turning Washington upside down with his way of leading. Beware my brothers and sisters, God is preparing to clean up His creation very soon.
DID YOU EVER WONDER???
I was reading the other day and found this inspirational story and thought it might hep someone going through trials and tribulations in their lives right now.
Without questioning, when going through a serious illness, you learn to know what real love, faith and true beauty really is. You find out who's there at this most critical time of your life, as well as how you really feel about yourself.
se I've experienced many trials and tribulations in my life. One particular trial was having to raise my child alone after a broken marriage. For a while, you feel as if you did something wrong and that your life is over, because when that door closes, you can't see far enough to see another one opening. You feel as if the world you know, is ending. But thanks to my child, I found the strength, picked myself up and kept it moving.
Life was rough and very hard, at times, I didn't think we would make it, but because of the unconditional love of my child, the strength and fight I developed going through so much, I made it. I could have the worst day, and then I see the joy and smiles on my child's face, it's like all the bad erases, and things just don't seem that bad anymore, and I knew I had a purpose to go on. Through it all I gain my strength and more confidence in myself. My self-esteem came back with full force and I was loving myself all over again. I had a new beginning, all on my own.
But later in life, things turned around yet again in a negative way, in a way like no other. I had a head-on collision with not only breast cancer, but colon cancer as well, and it changed my entire outlook on life. I thought I had it rough years before, but going through cancer was the rest of the iceberg. There's nothing like it. You wonder what in life had you done so wrong to have this placed upon you. Why were you given this? Yet through my tragedies and all that I had to endure, it all became an awakening for me, in which I received all the strength and encouragement from and through the life I had with my daughter, and now my grandchildren. Their love was the greatest purpose to fight cancer and live. Through it all, not only did I find what life truly means, but I found what true beauty really is. Through all the chemo, radiation, the pain I endured, I still felt beautiful.
Whether we're dealing with an illnesses or any other negative feelings about ourselves, our lives or our bodies, we need to be our own cheering section. Through all my mishaps, I still feel beautiful and it's real. Yes, there's a lot of things out in the world to enhance our beauty, but we also need to feel beautiful and proud of who we are without the enhancements. I've come to realize that even going through such a dark time in my life, I still have a life to be lived, and I'm going to live it to the fullest. I also realized that I was about to face a new beginning, new hope, do and see more with a while new perspective on life. When I think about the individuals that are no longer among us due to such a horrific disease, I'm truly grateful, and I will not take my life for granted.
When I think of the “gift of life” that was given to me twice over, I knew that I would develop and gain strength through all my experiences. And I would never say having or going through cancer was a gift, surviving it, receiving a second and third chance on life, is the gift. Yet, through it all, I'm still me, and I didn't allow the disease to take away who I am, or what I stand for. I'm a survivor, as well as an example to show that my small mishaps are just that, and I can go on and still look and feel beautiful, inside and out, and it shines brighter. Each passing day I'm allowed to open my eyes, the days are brighter, because I'm able to see and appreciate it that much more.
Still today, I would look at the areas of my body where surgeries were performed, and how different it is, and it still bothers me. But within a moment I would look past it, because those areas could be covered up. True beauty is within and when you feel beautiful on the inside, it shows so clearly on the outside. Honestly, I could not have done or felt the way I did and still do, without my children. I feel within my heart that I survived cancer both times, to share my life with and through them, while sharing my story with others. I share my story with others hoping to make a positive impact on someone who's ill or otherwise, where they can proceed life in a whole new way and still feel beautiful along the way. We as women should never allow anything, or any circumstance to steal our joy, nor our self-esteem. Through any tragedy, we are and always will be beautiful and unique! Our bodies takes a licking, yet keep on ticking.
When I look back now, I must say, from the beginning I thought right away that my cancer diagnose was truly a death sentence. But I found out later that it was truly an awakening. I also realized that I was about to face a new beginning, new hope, do and see more with a whole new prospective on life. At the age of 62, I'm hopefully headed for a better life, one I'm cherishing each day, yet through it all, I feel that I'm still at my best, I'm very confident, as well as grateful, so who am I to complain? I truly believe when you survive a horrific tragedy or a horrible disease such as cancer, it's for a reason. You have a purpose, and through that purpose, compassion, strength, faith and true beauty is born.
BOOKS OF THE BIBLE...A TEACHING
A comprehensive failure (1:2–31)
In setting the scene for his ministry, Isaiah starts with what must have been obvious—even if the people will not accept his diagnosis, they cannot quarrel with his facts! Nationally (2–9), foreign invasions (7–8) have left a trail of desolation so that the ‘body politic’ (5c–6) is like the victim of a savage mugging. Religiously (10–20), there has been punctilious devotion—sacrifices in abundance (11), temple attendance (12), monthly and weekly observances (13–14), prayers (15)—but it has not got through to God and has done nothing to rectify the national plight. And socially (21–26), the city life is degenerate and dangerous (21), its leaders corrupt and self seeking (23a–d) and its needy uncared for (23ef).
Isaiah sets this three-part analysis of the contemporary scene as if in a court of law. In verse 2ab the witnesses are called, in verses 2c–23 the charges are laid and in verses 24–30 sentence is pronounced. Behind the observable facts Isaiah discerns the hidden causes: rebellion against the Lord (2d) as the root of national calamity (5); personal guilt vitiating religious practice (15); social degeneration through abandonment of revealed norms of justice and righteousness (21). All this gives color to a comparison with Sodom (9–10) and builds a case for divine punitive action (5, 20, 24, 28, 29–31), but, typically of Isaiah, there is also a surprise: hope is affirmed. The Lord has not left his people (9); when he acts it will also be to purge and restore (25–26), and the very justice and righteousness they abandoned (21) will be affirmed in a divine work of redemption (27).
i. The national situation (1:2–9). 2a. Isaiah does not explain why the heavens and earth are summoned to hear. The parallel address (10) to the accused suggests that creation is called to court as the perpetual witness of what happens on earth (Ps. 50:4–6) and is therefore able to affirm the truth of the divine accusations. But it may simply be to affirm the dignity of the One who can convene such a court (cf. 1 Chr. 16:31; Ps. 69:34–35) and the awesomeness of the occasion.
2. But even greater awesomeness is contained in the reason given why creation must pay attention: for the LORD himself has spoken. Here is One whom all creation must obey; it is to him that his people must render account; and in the unique marvel of revelation and inspiration the words of the prophet are ‘verbally inspired’, the very words of the Lord.
3. Israel’s (our) sin is simply unnatural. Look at the instinctive actions of the beasts! The locus of our disloyalty is the mind (know … understand) just as the mind is the focal point of all spirituality (cf. Ps. 119:33–34, 104, 130; Luke 24:27, 32; Rom. 1:28; Eph. 4:17–18, 20–22). While know can extend to include both personal intimacy (Gen. 4:1, NIV ‘lay with’) and lifestyle (1 Sam. 2:12), it retains its base-meaning of knowing the truth.
4. Four nouns of privilege: the unique nation; the redeemed people; the ‘seed’ or brood (the word used for the line of descent from Abraham in 41:8); and children (or the Lord’s ‘sons’). Four descriptions of the lost ideal: sinful, from the participle ‘going on sinning’, or missing God’s target; loaded with (possibly ‘heavy with’, hinting that the Lord who carried them felt the burden; cf. 46:3–4; Exod. 19:4) guilt, i.e. ‘iniquity’ (‘āwôn), meaning sin as corruption of character and nature; of evildoers, i.e. the chosen seed has become those who commit evil; and, lastly, given to corruption, ‘acting corruptly’, from Heb. šāḥat, to spoil, ruin. They have forsaken … spurned … turned their backs: here is the basic principle of spiritual decline, a sustained rejection of the Lord. Maybe we should translate ‘turned themselves back into aliens’, i.e. reverting to what they were prior to their redemption. On the Holy One of Israel see Introduction, pp. 28–30. The height of their privilege, to know the Lord in the fullness of his holy nature, became the benchmark of the depth of their fall.
5–8. What is important in these verses is not which historical invasion they reflect. The choice probably lies between the Aram-Ephraim incursion, c. 735 BC (2 Kgs 15:37–16:6; 2 Chr. 28; see Introduction, p. 23; cf. on 7:1–2) or the Assyrian attack in 701 BC (chs. 36–37; 2 Chr. 32; see Introduction, p. 24). The important thing is Isaiah’s view of history as the arena of divine moral judgment. The enemy depredations (7–8) which have left the nation crippled (5–6) from top (head) to toe (foot), inwardly (heart) and outwardly (head … foot), and without remedy (not cleansed … bandaged), were a divine chastisement, with more to come if they persist in rebellion. None of Isaiah’s kings (1:1) was inept. They managed a sound economy and followed clever policies, yet the land was devastated (5c–7), fragile internally (8bc) and threatened externally (8d). The key to national well-being is righteousness, i.e. what is right with God (Prov. 14:34), and in this the prophet records dismal failure.
9. But for the Lord’s people there is another factor, the surprising element of hope. Merit says one thing; mercy says another. As far as desert is concerned the Lord must either apologize to Sodom or visit judgment on Israel! But he is the Lord Almighty, literally ‘the LORD of [who is] hosts’—where the plural indicates that in himself he is and has every potentiality and power. Consequently he is sovereign to act in whatever way accords with his nature. The same Lord (2) who judges also acts in forbearing preservation
Because of the Lord’s love, we are not terminated, for his compassion's do not fail (Lam. 3:22). Thus Isaiah rounds off the section.
The religious situation (1:10–20). Isaiah turns now to the religious life of the nation. The placing of this topic between his review of national fortunes (2–9) and social conditions (21–23) is significant. The kernel of every national problem is how people relate to God. They cannot be right anywhere if they are wrong here. Religion determines everything.
But the people were extremely religious: they expended time on monthly, weekly and other observances (13); the financial cost of sacrifices and offerings (11) was considerable. It would be strange if they did not ask why, since they did so much for him, the Lord seemed to be doing nothing for them. But that is just the point: their religion was ‘what we do for God’ and not ‘how we enter into the grace he offers to us’.
These verses have been the center of a difference of opinion. Some note how in verse 11 the Lord denies the significance of sacrifices, in verse 12 their divine authorization, and in verse 13 issues commands to end them. On this view, Isaiah is calling for ‘morality without religion’, an ethically focused walk with God devoid of ritual observance. But it can be questioned whether this understanding is true to Isaiah. Is it likely that he was so revolutionary as to repudiate the tradition in which he had been nurtured and which he would have traced back to Moses? Such a conclusion would require more than the ‘say so’ of a brief passage like this!
Furthermore, if the passage repudiates temple rites, then it repudiates equally the Sabbath (13) and prayer (15)! Rather, Isaiah invites us to recall that in the Mosaic system redeeming grace (Exod. 6:6–7; 12:13), the gift of the law (Exod. 20) and the forms of religious observance (Exod. 25–Lev. 27) followed one another in that order as parts of a single whole. The law was given so that those who had already been redeemed by the blood of the lamb would know how their Redeemer (Exod. 20:2) wished them to live.
The sacrifices were provided to cover lapses in obedience (cf. 1 John 1:7). But as Isaiah looked around he saw people long on religion and short on morality. They were as morally negligent as Sodom (10), their offerings were meaningless (13; lit. ‘a gift of nothing’) because the Lord cannot bear wickedness coupled with religious punctiliousness. The hands they raised in prayer were blood-stained from wrongdoing (15). Like all the prophets Isaiah operated squarely within the Mosaic revelation, and his charge in this passage is that his contemporaries had put asunder what the Lord, through Moses, had joined together, namely, the means of grace (the sacrifices) and the obedient life which they were intended to sustain. The act—the ritual, divorced from its source in a heart grateful for redemption, and from its function in the obedient life—was meaningless and abhorrent to the Lord (13).
10. Like all the prophets Isaiah held that he was the mouthpiece of the Lord, the channel of the divine word. Law means ‘teaching’, the imparting of truth, within which, of course, there is a place for authoritative direction, command and prohibition. But the Lord’s law first of all is the loving instruction that a caring father gives a loved child (cf. Prov. 4:1–2). Apart from mercy they would have been judged like Sodom and Gomorrah (9), but it surely is mercy, for they are like Sodom and Gomorrah in fact.
11. The standing error of the ritualist is that if all depends on performing the ceremonial act, then the more you do it the better. Says is a continuous tense: ‘keeps saying’—as something he presses home upon us. Apart from Psalm 12:6 only Isaiah (1:18; 33:10; 40:1, 25; 41:21; 66:9) uses this verbal form referring to divine speech. To the Lord the ritual act means nothing (11ab), adds nothing (11cd) and does nothing (11ef). No pleasure: 53:10 uses the same verb (‘it was the LORD’s will’) of a mighty sacrifice which delighted him.
12. Appear before me (or ‘meet with me’) may also be translated ‘see my face’, depending what vowels we supply to the consonants of the Hebrew text. The two ideas taken together express the reality and wonder of true worship (cf. e.g. Exod. 23:15, 17). Trampling: a religion of ritual is only the noise of feet on a pavement.
13–15. The denunciation continues. Become a burden (14): i.e. the rituals are not themselves a burden, for the Lord commanded them to start with. It is not the use but the abuse of divine ordinances that vexes him. This is true even of prayer (15), for we can ‘pray on Sunday and prey on our neighbors for the rest of the week’. Hide my eyes: the opposite of the shining face of approval and blessing (Num. 6:25; Ps. 4:6). What makes prayer unavailing is unrepented personal wrongdoing (hands … full of blood). Not only the Lord’s eyes but his ears too are alienated from such praying: literally ‘I am not even listening’.
16–20. But there is a way back and through to God: actions they can take (16–17, nine commands), a promise they can experience (18), a blessing they can find (19) or lose (20). In verses 16–17 the nine commands fall into three groups of three. First, ‘make yourselves clean before God by the cleansing ordinances he has provided’ and this will take your evil deeds (lit. ‘the evil of your deeds’) out of my sight. The cleansing offered is effective before God. Now follow three commands to reorder personal life: stop, a decisive abandonment of sin; learn, the cultivation of a new mind; and seek, set different objectives.
Justice (mišpāṭ from √šāpaṭ), ‘to determine authoritatively/judicially what is right’, is often used, as here, to express the sum total of what the Lord judges right, the will of God for his people’s conduct (cf. 42:1, 3–4). The third triad of commands calls for the reformation of society: encourage the oppressed translates an altered Hebrew text: literally ‘reform/set straight the oppressor’. Society must be transformed both at the point of the one inflicting—the oppressor—and at the point of the one suffering hurt—the fatherless … the widow.
In verse 16 the Lord called his people to resort to his cleansing ordinances. In verse 18 he pledges their effectiveness. Scarlet is the color of guiltiness (cf. 15). Reason (Heb. √yākaḥ, sometimes used of arguing a case in court, e.g. 2:4): the Lord calls his people to the bar of his justice where, of course, they can only be found guilty. But it is there that they hear words of free pardon based on the substitutionary death of a divinely appointed sacrifice. The Lord’s pardon, like all his actions, accords perfectly with his justice. See below on 49:24–26. Snow … wool: both naturally white, not made so by bleaching. The promise, therefore, is of a new, holy nature, not just the cleansing away of the past.
Obedience is a serious matter (19–20). It is a ‘means of grace’ bringing the best. They must ‘obey willingly’ (be willing and obedient), not just offer conformism. The commands of verses 16–18 are backed by serious divine sanctions: obedience is the key virtue of God’s people and disobedience their worst calamity. Sword: the forces at work in history are at the Lord’s command in the interest of his just punishments, see on 10:5–15. For the mouth …: a very emphatic attribution of Isaiah’s words to the Lord himself.
Motyer, J. A. (1999). Isaiah: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 20, pp. 53–54). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Motyer, J. A. (1999). Isaiah: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 20, pp. 52–53). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Motyer, J. A. (1999). Isaiah: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 20, pp. 51–52). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Motyer, J. A. (1999). Isaiah: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 20, pp. 50–51). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Motyer, J. A. (1999). Isaiah: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 20, pp. 49–50). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
HAVE A SAFE AND BLESSED WEEK:)
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