Sin separates us from God...but... (Part 3)
Hey all!
We left off last time with some descriptions of those who “conceive evil and bring forth iniquity”, those that “hatch vipers eggs and weave the spider’s web.” These don’t sound like any who are close to God or even want to be close to Him. I did mention that even we as God’s children, can do the same evil, that we are capable of any evil.
I found in Ephesians 4, Paul’s exhortation to us Gentiles, us who are believers and have received God’s grace and mercy, he tells us;
17 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,
18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;
19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But you have not so learned Christ,
21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
Paul in chapter 4 goes on to give us instruction like; “Be angry but do not sin”, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger”. That we should not “grieve The Holy Spirit by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption”. And then the last verse, verse 32 says; “And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Wow!
These Jews in Isaiah needed to hear this! But the sad truth is, Isaiah being the great prophet that he was, speaking the words that came directly from God, could not get these people to listen. He goes on in verses 9-15 to talk about their condition, and their state of mind.
Sin Confessed
9 Therefore justice is far from us, Nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
10 We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places.
11 We all growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We look for justice, but there is none; For salvation, but it is far from us.
Notice how verse 9 starts out with “Therefore”, well, as my pastor says and as I’m sure you’ve heard before, you have to ask, “What’s it there for?” It means, “in light of what I’ve just said, check this out!”
Isaiah is saying here (forgive the paraphrasing); “In the previous verses I have shown you and told you about your sin and behavior, and now I’m gonna tell you what the results of that sin and behavior are; for one thing, because of your iniquities, justice is far from us, as is righteousness. We look for light, not THE light. but any other light that isn’t God’s light, and we only find darkness. We look for brightness, but we walk in blackness, and it’s by our own choice, and by our own will!
We’re men and women acting blind, we have our eyes and they work fine, but we have them shut and are bumping into walls as if we had no eyes at all. Here we are in broad day light, the sun is shining, “The Son is shining”, and we have our eyes closed as if in twilight. You are acting now as you did and your ancestors those many years ago when you were in the desert, in the desolate place. You are still muttering and complaining as you did when you were sick of the manna, but you forget that God poured down meat for you and yours in those days. You growl like bears, but you moan like doves. You are as an individual standing in the middle of the desert, all alone, and as far as you can see there is nothing. How do you expect to gain justice, and even more, how are you in your own power ever going to gain salvation?”
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And as for our iniquities, we know them:
Think of the above verse and the fact that it was a pre-Jesus world, and compare it to our post-Jesus world, which is what we live in now. Isaiah is telling these Jews that their “transgressions are multiplied” before them. This is the idea that one sin is stacked on another, then stacked on another, then stacked on another. There was no salvation! Let’s look at it a different way, it was the picture of their sins being laid out before them, rather than stacks, they were end to end so they could see them, and each one of them testified against them, they screamed at them, they reminded them of how awful they really were. These they could not close their eyes to, these transgressions are with them. Compare that to our post-Jesus world, “As far as the heavens are from the earth, so far has He taken our sins from us!” “He who knew no sin, took on the sins of the world!” “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” Amen? Amen!
The end of verse 12 says; “And as for our iniquities, we know them:” We know them!
Isaiah describes what some of those would be.
13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
So what are the consequences of such behavior? What are the results of acting un-holy in the face of a Holy God? What about our un-confessed sin? Verse 14 and 15 tell us;
14 Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. 15 So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
“For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. So truth fails...” I really like how the NASB says it; “For truth has stumbled in the street, and uprightness can not enter. Yes, truth is lacking...” I’m not sure exactly sure what this is saying, so I thought I would start off by looking up the word “equity”, here’s what I found; “Equity – Fairness, Ownership, Right in property.” We know that because of their behavior, strong will and choices, that justice has turned from the direction it was headed, toward them, and is now walking away from them. We know that righteousness is standing “afar off”, I get the picture of righteousness standing on hill with a prefect view of this whole scene, and both are waiting to return to their rightful spot.
“Truth” and “Equity”, what is it that those two have in common? We know that “equity” has to do with “ownership”, “fairness”, and “right of property”. Could it mean that we have the “right of property”, that being the truth? That either we had the truth and lost it, or we never had it, but we can take “ownership” of it? I’m getting a picture of truth stumbling and falling in the street, it’s kinda like a scene from the Omega Man, ya know!? He’s standing in the middle of a New York City street, no people, no birds, no sound, only the wind that blows that newspaper and pieces of miscellaneous paper around for effect. He’s alone in a “desolate place”, truth has “fallen”, and because of these people’s state (and even our own at times) they we’re not in right standing with The Lord and therefore could not go in and rescue it, truth, they couldn’t take “ownership” of it, they didn’t see it as “fairness”. But as Isaiah has already told us in verse 4; “No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.”
In our next part we will look at God responds, and that there is A Redeemer!
Father! Thank You for being The “Hound of Heaven”, for finding us when we were so lost. Father thank You for Your word which shows us what we were at one point in our lives, and for saving us from ourselves. We are so sorry Lord when we fall back into these old behaviors. We are so sorry because we know it grieves You Lord. I pray for those who are still walking around as “blind men”, I pray that they would hear Your voices as You draw them to yourself. I love you Father! Amen!
In HIS Grip
Tony
Hey all!
We left off last time with some descriptions of those who “conceive evil and bring forth iniquity”, those that “hatch vipers eggs and weave the spider’s web.” These don’t sound like any who are close to God or even want to be close to Him. I did mention that even we as God’s children, can do the same evil, that we are capable of any evil.
I found in Ephesians 4, Paul’s exhortation to us Gentiles, us who are believers and have received God’s grace and mercy, he tells us;
17 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,
18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;
19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But you have not so learned Christ,
21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
Paul in chapter 4 goes on to give us instruction like; “Be angry but do not sin”, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger”. That we should not “grieve The Holy Spirit by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption”. And then the last verse, verse 32 says; “And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Wow!
These Jews in Isaiah needed to hear this! But the sad truth is, Isaiah being the great prophet that he was, speaking the words that came directly from God, could not get these people to listen. He goes on in verses 9-15 to talk about their condition, and their state of mind.
Sin Confessed
9 Therefore justice is far from us, Nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
10 We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places.
11 We all growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We look for justice, but there is none; For salvation, but it is far from us.
Notice how verse 9 starts out with “Therefore”, well, as my pastor says and as I’m sure you’ve heard before, you have to ask, “What’s it there for?” It means, “in light of what I’ve just said, check this out!”
Isaiah is saying here (forgive the paraphrasing); “In the previous verses I have shown you and told you about your sin and behavior, and now I’m gonna tell you what the results of that sin and behavior are; for one thing, because of your iniquities, justice is far from us, as is righteousness. We look for light, not THE light. but any other light that isn’t God’s light, and we only find darkness. We look for brightness, but we walk in blackness, and it’s by our own choice, and by our own will!
We’re men and women acting blind, we have our eyes and they work fine, but we have them shut and are bumping into walls as if we had no eyes at all. Here we are in broad day light, the sun is shining, “The Son is shining”, and we have our eyes closed as if in twilight. You are acting now as you did and your ancestors those many years ago when you were in the desert, in the desolate place. You are still muttering and complaining as you did when you were sick of the manna, but you forget that God poured down meat for you and yours in those days. You growl like bears, but you moan like doves. You are as an individual standing in the middle of the desert, all alone, and as far as you can see there is nothing. How do you expect to gain justice, and even more, how are you in your own power ever going to gain salvation?”
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And as for our iniquities, we know them:
Think of the above verse and the fact that it was a pre-Jesus world, and compare it to our post-Jesus world, which is what we live in now. Isaiah is telling these Jews that their “transgressions are multiplied” before them. This is the idea that one sin is stacked on another, then stacked on another, then stacked on another. There was no salvation! Let’s look at it a different way, it was the picture of their sins being laid out before them, rather than stacks, they were end to end so they could see them, and each one of them testified against them, they screamed at them, they reminded them of how awful they really were. These they could not close their eyes to, these transgressions are with them. Compare that to our post-Jesus world, “As far as the heavens are from the earth, so far has He taken our sins from us!” “He who knew no sin, took on the sins of the world!” “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” Amen? Amen!
The end of verse 12 says; “And as for our iniquities, we know them:” We know them!
Isaiah describes what some of those would be.
13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
So what are the consequences of such behavior? What are the results of acting un-holy in the face of a Holy God? What about our un-confessed sin? Verse 14 and 15 tell us;
14 Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. 15 So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
“For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. So truth fails...” I really like how the NASB says it; “For truth has stumbled in the street, and uprightness can not enter. Yes, truth is lacking...” I’m not sure exactly sure what this is saying, so I thought I would start off by looking up the word “equity”, here’s what I found; “Equity – Fairness, Ownership, Right in property.” We know that because of their behavior, strong will and choices, that justice has turned from the direction it was headed, toward them, and is now walking away from them. We know that righteousness is standing “afar off”, I get the picture of righteousness standing on hill with a prefect view of this whole scene, and both are waiting to return to their rightful spot.
“Truth” and “Equity”, what is it that those two have in common? We know that “equity” has to do with “ownership”, “fairness”, and “right of property”. Could it mean that we have the “right of property”, that being the truth? That either we had the truth and lost it, or we never had it, but we can take “ownership” of it? I’m getting a picture of truth stumbling and falling in the street, it’s kinda like a scene from the Omega Man, ya know!? He’s standing in the middle of a New York City street, no people, no birds, no sound, only the wind that blows that newspaper and pieces of miscellaneous paper around for effect. He’s alone in a “desolate place”, truth has “fallen”, and because of these people’s state (and even our own at times) they we’re not in right standing with The Lord and therefore could not go in and rescue it, truth, they couldn’t take “ownership” of it, they didn’t see it as “fairness”. But as Isaiah has already told us in verse 4; “No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.”
In our next part we will look at God responds, and that there is A Redeemer!
Father! Thank You for being The “Hound of Heaven”, for finding us when we were so lost. Father thank You for Your word which shows us what we were at one point in our lives, and for saving us from ourselves. We are so sorry Lord when we fall back into these old behaviors. We are so sorry because we know it grieves You Lord. I pray for those who are still walking around as “blind men”, I pray that they would hear Your voices as You draw them to yourself. I love you Father! Amen!
In HIS Grip
Tony
posted by In His Grip at 4:01 PM
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