Reflection on Isaiah 7:10-16

December 12, 2016 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

pharisees1-720x300

Passage: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+7.10-17

Scripture

But the king refused. “No,” he said. “I will not test the Lord like that.”

Observation

The Lord sends a message to King Ahaz inviting him to ask God for a sign. But the king refuses, saying he will not test the Lord.

Isaiah responds that the lord will send him a sign anyway. A virgin will conceive and bear a son who will be called Immanuel. By the time the child grows up, he will be eating yoghurt and honey because the lands of the kings that Ahaz fears will be deserted; it will be a time of peace and prosperity.

Application

There is a religious spirit that blinds the heart of its victim to the grace of God. Everywhere there are people who despise the mercy of God, preferring to prove their own righteousness.

If the Lord tells you to ask for a sign, it is because He wants to show you something amazing. It is arrogant and stupid to refuse to do what the Lord tells you to do on the grounds that you are too religious. Who are we to think that we are more righteous than God?

In Acts 10, Peter has a vision of a sheet containing all sorts of animals considered unclean. A voice tells him to eat, but Peter refuses because they are unclean. God rebukes him for calling unclean what He has declared to be clean.

We are not saved by religion. We are not put right with God by following rules. God forbid that we should ever get to the place where we start to believe that we know more than God about what pleases God! But this is the distortion that the religious spirit bring to our thinking.

Often our refusal to obey God comes from fear of people. We fear what people may say about us. We fear people more than we fear God.

The Lord wants us to break out of the prison of blind adherence to rules and regulations in order to walk in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

True faith comes from at the point where we delight in the will of the Lord, regardless of religious fear or the fear of man.

Prayer

Holy Spirit come and make me more sensitive to your commands. When you tell me to do things that offend the religious spirit, may I have the grace to obey you. Amen.

Reflection on Isaiah 11:1-10

November 29, 2016 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

new_growth_from_cambium_root

Passage: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+11.1-10

Scripture

In that day, the heir to David’s throne

will be a banner of salvation to all the world

The nations will rally to him

and the land where he lives will be a glorious place

Observation

A Branch will come out of the stump of David’s family. The Spirit of the Lord will be on him- the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

He will delight in obeying the Lord. He will give justice to the poor. Even the natural order will be changed so that deadly enemies will live in peace together.

The heir to David’s thrown will be a banner of salvation to all the world.

Application

The great and mighty tree that was the royal line of Judah, the house of David, seemed dead. Like a mighty tree cut down and poisoned, just a stump remained. But, Isaiah says, that stump is going to spring forth a Branch who will bear fruit.

Jesus is the Branch. He is the one who comes out of David’s line bearing the Spirit of the Lord, and judging in righteousness and gentleness, and winning the whole world to His side.

Jesus carries the banner of salvation. He is the banner of salvation. This flag shows how to come back to the Lord. It is a sign of redemption, reconciliation, grace, forgiveness. We were far from God, but now Jesus is this banner, and the whole world rallies to Him looking for the miracle of restoration into the Kingdom of God.

Jesus is our King, a royal conqueror who over comes the world with His grace. What kind of King conquers with love? What kind of King wages peace on His enemies?

King Jesus- the Son of God, Son of David, redeemer of all.

Prayer

Jesus you are my King. No longer a branch growing from a stump, you are the banner of salvation to the nations. All who come to you will be free of the tyranny of sin. Thank you. Amen.

Reflection on Isaiah 2:1-5

November 22, 2016 / newlifenarrabri / 2 Comments

l_16f5dcd33d_1650

Passage: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+2.1-5

Scripture

Many people will come and say:

“Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord

to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways

so that we may walk in his paths.”

Observation

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established. People from around the world will flock to Zion to learn from the Lord

Individuals will learn from the Lord how to walk in His ways, and disputes between nations will be settled by the Lord and not by war.

Application

We are living in the end times, and we already see many of these prophecies being fulfilled.

The mountain of the Temple, Jerusalem and Zion refer to the people of God- the church. All over the world people are flocking to the house of the Lord to seek His ways. Excluding some Western countries, this is literally the golden age of the church. Never before has the gospel been preached and accepted by so many people.

Despite the constant bad news coming out of Syria and a few other countries, there have never been so few wars. Some people attribute this to the McDonalds effect, but it is more likely the Holy Spirit laying an era of peace and prosperity in the world as the Kingdom of God grows.

This is the age of the Holy Spirit as more and more people listen to the “still small voice” and to prophecies and words of knowledge in order to learn of the ways of the Lord.

All of this is not without cost- the “birthpangs of the Kingdom.” Satan is enraged that his plan for undermining the Kingdom of God is coming to nothing.

The seeds planted many years ago are bearing fruit in many different ways. The fields are white to harvest, but satan looks for ways to stop the harvest coming in- from apathy to persecution.

But our God will prevail. The Kingdom of God will continue to grow,

Prayer

Lord Jesus, you told us to pray that workers will go out into the harvest field. So Lord as the harvest field is right before us, as you draw people to “Zion” and “Jerusalem,” may the gospel be preached in power and even more lives saved. Amen.

Reflection on Isaiah 5:1-7

August 9, 2016 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Pokolbin-Holiday-22

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+5.1-7

O my vineyard

I planted you

And made you great

Your choice vines I planted

But they produced lemons

Sour little grapes

My vineyard beloved

Will you now bear fruit?

Don’t let me abandon you

Bring forth the grapes

The fruit of good deeds

Hearts surrendered in love

Reflection on Isaiah 1:10-20

August 2, 2016 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Your sins are red

Dripping with blood

The blood of people hurt

by word or neglect

Feel the cleansing flow

The Blood of Christ

Washing you clean

White as fresh snow

Turn to God

Turn from your sin

Let God’s huge love

Recreate His likeness in you.

Everybody Knows…

March 31, 2016March 31, 2016 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

authoritarian-cartoon-man

Last night’s cell group meeting generated an impromptu study on who satan is and when his fall from grace occurred. This was partly sparked by discussion on the early chapters of Genesis which record, amongst other things, the first temptation of Adam and Eve.

I looked up a couple of web-sites that asserted that satan, also known as Lucifer, was originally an archangel and the leader of the heavenly praise. There were no scriptures to back this up, so it seems to be a tradition rather than Bible teaching.

Discussion turned to two traditional passages used in the discussion- Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. These passages often confuse me because some preachers confidently assert they talk about Lucifer in his pre-fall condition. I struggle with this because they are passages addressed as taunts against two particular human rulers. I can see how you might get an interpretation that the passages are talking about satan but they explicitly state in the text that they are addressed as taunts against the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14) and the King of Tyre (Ezekiel 28)- in fact the Ezekiel passage says this twice.

Then the revelation came. One of the group members read the Isaiah 14 passage and I heard the word I have never read before:

“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!

Isaiah 14:14

The New Living says this:

How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!

I asked the group member, “Is that the New King James?” to which she said “Yes”

So the New King James follows the original King James in translating the “morning star” as Lucifer, and then helpfully adds the section heading “The Fall of Lucifer” right before it.

That’s where they get it from.

Here’s the problem. Lucifer is a Latin name meaning “light bearer” and was used to refer to the morning star, Venus. But the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, not Latin. So when the translators of the King James Version were doing their translation work in the early 1600’s they were still influenced by the so-called Latin Vulgate Bible which was the official Catholic translation.

The translators of the NKJV have no such excuse. They should have translated is as “morning star” and maybe referred to the Lucifer translation in a footnote.

You can still choose to interpret these passages as referring to satan if you like. To me it’s a bit of a stretch to do that, especially when the original writers were clear about whom they were directing their comments at.

The NLT Study Bible, in the footnotes to Isaiah 14:12 say this:

Some see the fall of the king of Babylon here as symbolising the fall of Satan. However there is little here to suggest that Isaiah understood it in this way. He was thinking of the historical king of Babylon… the Hebrew text makes no apparent reference here to the name of Satan.

All of this shows that we should not blindly accept what people teach us about the Bible. If something doesn’t seem to make sense in the way people interpret Scripture, you should always ask for more information about why they believe that.

In an ideal world, every christian would know Hebrew and Greek. Failing that, I think it’s always a good idea to check several versions of Scripture to try and gain a better understanding of a text. Software makes this so easy to do, or use Bible apps or internet search sites such as Bible Gateway.