Damariscotta Baptist Church

 

 

Two weeks ago, our Scripture verses described foreigners and eunuchs who were obedient and covenant keeping. Today’s Scripture has the sound of judgement. Isaiah has not written about judgement since chapter 34. It is a signal for us to “beware.” 

Isaiah begins by attacking Israel’s “watchmen” verse 10, and compares them to “dogs” who don’t bark because they are sleeping with a full stomach. He also compares them to stupid “shepherds” who are more interested in taking care of themselves instead of their flock. 

Isaiah is definitely speaking to the spiritual leaders this time. He is pointing out their ability to return from captivity was no guarantee they were going to change their behavior. 

What they needed was a drastic change in the leadership. Notice the current behaviors of the leaders:

self-centered and power hungry. 

Verse 9, tells us this behavior results in their flock being overtaken by their spiritual enemies. When we continue reading in chapter 57:1-2 we discover that their spiritual perception is so off kilter that when the “righteous” disappear, no one will even notice. How sad to read that the older, more faithful generation will pass away, and no one will be alarmed. Somewhere along the line, the leaders and the followers became out of touch with holiness and became more comfortable in a degenerate society. 

In verse 3, of chapter 57, Isaiah speaks directly to the people and accuses them of being idolaters at heart. 

 

 

He compares them to:

those who worship rocks and trees, v. 5-7

those who engage in ritual prostitution, v. 8

those who sacrifice their children, v. 5 & 9

What it boils down to is,

their real desire is to manipulate divine power 

in order to get what they want. 

They even mock those who are passionate about obeying God’s strict covenant, v. 3-4. And they feel justified in doing so, because they are the elect, and they have been freed. 

We then read in verse 10, that manipulating divine power to one’s own advantage isn’t easy. It requires a great deal of energy. But somehow, they were able to stick with it, with resources found within themselves, they manage to muck it out. 

Isaiah has just given us the behavior of the leaders and the people. Now he is giving us God’s response, and it is judgement. He begins with the question, 

I am reading from “The Message,”verse 11

“Who talked you into the pursuit of this nonsense,

    leaving me high and dry,

    forgetting you ever knew me?”

Had they so quickly forgotten how God

had graciously delivered them from captivity in Egypt, 

how He had stuck with them during their years of apostasy, 

until He had to deliver them again from Babylon? 

How could they not remember and so quickly come up with their own religion?

He continues in verse 11 with an ironic question, 

again I am reading from, “The Message.”

“Because I don’t yell and make a scene

    do you think I don’t exist?”

Actually, the reason behind the Israelites’ behavior and behind the behavior of many today, 

is the depravity of the human heart. 

Looks to me, that there were no other gods who had terrified them into abandoning what they knew, and God has been speaking to them all along. In actuality, the issue boils down to the fact that God asks too much. 

Christianity does the same. 

It’s not just acceptance of what Christ did for us on the cross, it is the reality of giving up control of our lives, abandoning ourselves into God’s hands in glad obedience. The second part of verse 13, makes that clear. 

It is too much for many today, just like it was too much for the Israelites back in Isaiah’s day. 

 

People would rather reconstruct their religion so that it seems to give them control over their destinies and seems to let them decide what is right and wrong. Which may work for a time, but as the first part of verse 57 reveals, 

“The wind will carry all of them off,

    a mere breath will blow them away.”

Today we have become sophisticated and we restrict our understanding of idolatry to worship involving imagery. Since we do not use images in our worship, when we read about pagan worship, we think it does not pertain to us. 

However, there is an attitude that leads us to the worship of images, that is separate from the images themselves. Paul gives us an example of this in Colossians 3:5 and Ephesians 5:5 and it has to do with greed.

Colossians 3:5 New International Version (NIV)
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”

Ephesians 5:5

“For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

What Paul is getting at in these verses is there is an attitude behind covetousness that says if I can just have all the things I want and I see, I will be happy. 

If some is good, well, then more is better. 

This has become the American way. Consumerism at its best. We are indoctrinated with this thinking on a daily basis. 

We are trying to be convinced that what I really need is connected to material, physical things. From this thinking, emerges the worship of images. We are encouraged to figure out how to manipulate the physical world around us in order to guarantee we are financially and physically well off. If we can do this, we have solved the riddle of life. We have it made. 

Unfortunately, those in the church are not immune to this thinking. Many church goers have such an attitude. One can believe all the right things mentally and still be trying to manage their religion to achieve their own goals of security and serve their own ends to supply their needs. Many use prayer, devotion, worship and service as devices to serve their own ends and thus their Christianity is actually only another form of paganism, which is described as: 

“the attempt to manipulate the divine to one’s own ends.” 

This can be recognized when religion becomes more and more formal and more and more lifeless. 

Paul describes it this way in 2 Timothy 3:5 …. “having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

When the leaders of a church have this condition, it can be devastating. 

When leaders are motivated by what they can get out of their positions, whether by money or by admiration or praise, they stop focusing on their parishioners. 

It can get worse, because often the parishioners will begin to emulate the leaders, often without even thinking about it. Before you know it you have a congregation full of religious people, focused on themselves and fitting into the world so that neither the leaders or the congregation are even aware of what is happening. 

There are at least two areas in which this passage relates to our contemporary life. 

One – the satisfaction of supposed needs

Two – the contemporary belief that all ways of thinking

lead to God

First, one of today’s society primary focus is satisfying one’s own desires. We begin practicing even our religion to satisfy our desires. We do the things the Bible instructs us to do, as long as it fits our schedule and our plans.

At this point, our religion becomes a form of paganism. 

There is a fine line between gluttony and asceticism. Think about it, 

we drink to excess, we eat to excess, 

we cannot get enough sex of all sorts, we lie and cheat, for example on our tax returns, 

to get more money to buy more things, to put into more storage facilities, 

we sacrifice time with our children, 

all to the satisfaction of those needs. And when we do these things, we fool ourselves by thinking that is what one does to enjoy life, or to at least look like we are. Why, that is what society teaches us.  

How is one to act differently in today’s society? 

For the past centuries, the church has said that answer is “the mortification of the flesh” in other words, asceticism.  

We have read about the saints who were dedicated to self-denial and refused to satisfy their personal needs except to maintain but the bare necessities of life. 

This approach means we will have victory if we are able to feed the spirit and completely deny our desires. This form of self-denial is not biblical. And according to Paul has no power over the control of our passions, Colossian 2:23, 

“Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

So how can we be victorious over our trying to satisfy our desires? 

It starts with recognizing our desires were created by God and are good. Not only that, God takes joy in fulfilling them. The key is “self-surrender.” Paul calls it, “dying to oneself”

 

Romans 6:11

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Galatians 2:20

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Colossians 3:3-5

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”

Here is how it is done:

 

> we surrender our needs to God

> we determine to be faithful to Him and His ways, above all else

> we leave the fulfillment of our needs in God’s hands

When we do this, what do we receive in return?

> freedom without excess, and

> satisfaction without indulgence

For the Christian, we know that in the end, 

it is God that we want, and 

that another half gallon of ice cream will never truly satisfy our longings.

The second area of life this passage relates to is the contemporary belief that all ways of thinking lead to God.

When we look back at the Persian Empire at the time the Israelites returned from Exile around, 538B.C., 

due to the careful organization of the empire and the increased communication, there was an increased awareness of the rest of the world. With this came the increased sense that all religions were basically the same. At least this was true for all the pagan religions, in the Ancient Near East. 

I remember taking a religions class in college where we studied how every religion had a similar “Noah” story, where the world was flooded.  However, a problem arises when you look at the religion of Yahweh. Yahweh is NOT the same as Baal. We can look back at the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who were willing to die for this truth. Unfortunately, the majority of Judeans did not feel the same as these three men. When they were freed from Babylon, they surrendered to the prevailing view of the Persian Empire and later on to the Greek Empire. 

There is a similar pressure for us today. Society tells us that in order to be tolerant we need to recognize that ALL ways of thinking lead to God, which is based on the false assumption that all religions are only human gropings for a higher power. Not only that, we are to recognize that ALL expressions of God are at the same time partial and partially true. Which means that for any one religion to insist that they are the only way to God is not only arrogant, but down right sinful. 

Okay, I have heard that argument more than once, and not just in secular circles. There are many church going believers who believe that we can all find God on our own, in whatever path we choose, my way is as good as yours, because ultimately nothing spiritual is absolutely so. 

To which I would like to offer this thought. 

Suppose that what is true in the physical world is also true in the spiritual world. That there are indeed things that are absolutely so and things that are absolutely not so. Black is not white and no amount of intellectual actions to obscure the facts will change this. The fact that gravity allows you to sit in the pew is black not white. Neither can you wish it to be so. However, paganism refuses to believe this because if they did, they would have to admit that we are not God and that we can neither find our way to Him nor manipulate Him to take care of us. They would have to face the fact that we are NOT in charge. 

Just like those Israelites living in the Persian Empire, we too have to stand on uncomfortable facts. 

Fact number one – there is a God who is other than the

created universe, because of this

Fact two – human intellect cannot comprehend Him

We can see the evidence of his existence but that in no way allows us to comprehend him or manipulate him

Fact three – the only way we can know God is if He reveals Himself to us in ways we can comprehend Him

This was done through the life of the descendants of Abraham, originally physically than spiritually and then through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Fact four – There is only one Creator and there is only one Savior

There is the truth……there we must stand. 

Ready to enter the fiery furnace.

The Judeans ultimately managed to stand on what they knew at the time, and because the first Christians were willing to stand on further revelation through Christ, the Christian faith exists today. 

Had either group kowtowed to the secular pressures of their day, there would be no Christian faith today. 

My questions for those of you who profess to be Christians, 

Are you willing to stand on uncomfortable facts? 

Are you willing to claim and defend that Christianity is NOT one more of the world’s great religions but rather the only religion that connects us to God. 

If not, we are confirming what the world proclaims, Christianity is an incredible figment of fevered imaginations that does not deserve to exist. 

Let’s pray.