“15 Look down from Heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy Holiness and of Thy Glory: where is Thy Zeal and Thy Strength, the sounding of Thy Bowels* [Sympathies] and of Thy Mercies toward me? are they restrained?
16 Doubtless Thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel** acknowledge us not: Thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer; Thy Name is from everlasting.
17 O LORD, why hast Thou made us to err from Thy Ways, and hardened our heart from Thy Fear?*** Return for Thy servants’ sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance.
18 The people of Thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries**** have trodden down Thy sanctuary.
19We are Thine: Thou never barest rule over them;**** they**** were not called by Thy Name.” (Isaiah 63)
[* This is a terrible translation. God did not have gas. The figurative meaning should certainly have been employed.
** This refers to the Patriarch, Jacob, not the people of Israel as a whole, his descendants. The comparison is to their progenitors, who, having lived a millennia earlier, did not know them. But God knows them; as David said, He knew us when He formed us in the womb.
*** This is a powerful verse concerning not merely God's Sovereignty, but His Determinism. Were it not true it would be blasphemy for Isaiah to have expressed this; but Isaiah was not a blasphemer and God did not rebuke him because Isaiah spoke truth. It is the Goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance; it is God Who worketh in you both to will and to do of His Good Pleasure. The wind bloweth where it listeth [determines] ... so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. The Lord hath created all things for Himself, yea even the wicked for the Day of Evil [Judgment].
**** These refer to the people of His Curse against whom God declared Eternal Wrath, the Edomites (and their kindred) of verse 1.]
—and the subject of this email is not merely a string of 6 words. I mean it. Let each search his heart, repent, obey what God has commanded, and cry out to Him to forgive us, be true to His Covenant and deliver us. As Jeremiah said, "Turn us again and we shall be turned"...!
18I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus;
'Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn Thou me, and I shall be turned; for Thou art the LORD [Yahweh —EXISTENCE ] my God.
19Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth'.
20 'Is Ephraim My dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore My Bowels [sympathies] are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him', saith the LORD.
Can no one say Amen? You reap what you sow. They who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that sows to his flesh shall reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit shall reap live everlasting. He who sows [carelessly, inordinately—in violation of what God commanded] to the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
"12 'Therefore also now', saith the LORD, 'turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
13And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for He is Gracious and Merciful, slow to anger, and of Great Kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil [the Judgment you deserve].
14Who knoweth if He will return and repent [of administering the Judgment that you deserve], and [instead of that Judgment] leave a blessing behind Him; [therefore, why not repent of your sins and give] even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God? " (Joel 2)
"How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him." (I Kings 18:21)
"14Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.
15And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24)
Does anyone in Christendom know what "Lord" means. I am not talking about LORD, which is the Name Yahweh, "I exist"; but the word Lord. Christians sing about their Lord—but they sing to themselves or the evil government. Lord means Boss, Master. The one you serve; not merely the one to whom you give lip service. The one you truly fear, respect, obey.
As the old saying goes, "If being a Christian were a crime, would there be any evidence that could be used against you?"
Look at it this way: Consider your daily schedule, all you do from the time you get up and go to bed (and also remember, Martin Luther was known to pray on his knees through the night!)... when God reviews your itinerary, your daily schedule, week after week after year... how much of what you do in every waking hour have you done FOR HIM? what percentage of your day—your life—have you devoted to Him? how much of what you do each day pleases Him? honors Him? demonstrates obedience to Him? How much of the time do you read His Word which contains His Will concerning what He wants you to do and the attitude with which you are to do it?
Christendom has failed.
If it were not true, homoperversion, multiculturalism, multi-religionism, "humanism" and immorality and perversion of every stripe would not be in militant ascendancy and Christians would not be cowering in the closet, walking on their tiptoes throughout the day, throughout society, their job, the grocery store.
If evil that strolls casually throughout all of society does not know what you think about it, that you hate it—IF you obey God and hate it*—then you are failing and A.W.O.L.
[* "Ye who love the LORD hate evil" (Psalm 97:10); "The fear of the LORD is to hate evil" (Proverbs 8:13) The inverse of this, therefore, is if you do not hate evil you do not love or fear the Lord. Jesus said if ye love Me keep My Commandments (the very same Commandments of the Father that He kept to set for us the example) and likewise, if you do not obey Him you do not love Him. Obedience is on God's terms, not what man feels like doing. The curse causeless shall not come.]
The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the true Church—that means Hell should be on the defensive and the Church on the offensive obeying Christ's Command: OCCUPY TILL I COME. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rebuke them. All those who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution...
"12Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." (Matthew 5)
Salt preserves meat because it kills bacteria. In order for salt to remain salt, it must be separated, sealed; when it absorbs contaminants from the environment around it, it becomes polluted, is no longer salt but a melting pot of worthless minerals and has lost its electrical charge. When salt has lost its "savour"—this does not refer to being yummy tasting. The Greek word means INSIPID—stupid, ignorant, dull, heedless, simpleton, blockhead, fool.
Christendom or ChristenDUMB (which is actually Antichristendom)... choose sides.
Christ, the Personification of Wisdom declares,
"But he that sinneth against Me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate Me love death." (Proverbs 8:36)
Wisdom is relinquishing your selfish folly to embrace Truth as God has revealed it and to conform your mind and ways to that Truth (obedience). "To obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams." Why? Obedience prevents sin; if you don't sin you don't have to confess it; clean up after it, make restitution, go through life with a stained conscience (if you have a conscience that is even concerned about being stained). To clean up after sin required blood sacrifice. To continue carefree in sin, if you are truly coverted, is to cricify again the Lord of Glory and consider the Blood of the Covenant wherewith you were santified to be worthless, and you trample under foot the Lord of Glory. God is the Boss. He is God. He owns you. Obedience is not an option. You can't "obey in your own way".
If your actions don't demonstrate that you are on God's Side that simply shows what God has determined. If you are fine with that, go back to sleep... we now return you to your regularly scheduled program...
But if you are concerned, then seek the Lord while He may be found and bring forth fruit meet for repentance.
"13 'And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.
14And I will be found of you', saith the LORD: 'and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you', saith the LORD; 'and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive'." (Jeremiah 29)
Seeking with ones whole heart entails casting aside every obstacle, relentlessly seeking, and not being turned away when one finds that the price is everything—the Pearl of Great Price. Seeking with ones whole heart entails unfettered obedience with no divided loyalties: no other gods (including self). Short of that, one has not sought with ones whole heart and one did not desire salvation; those who turn away do so because they were only interested in Salvation if it could be had for a bargain price.
As The Book of Common Prayer (first written in 1549) in the General Confession, the collective prayer that opens the service of (the nearly extinct, Reformed Anglican church’s) Morning Prayer, reads ever so eloquently:
“Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred and
strayed from Thy Ways like lost sheep, We have followed
too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We
have offended against Thy Holy Laws, We have left undone
those things which we ought to have done, And we
have done those things which we ought not to have done,
And there is no health in us: But thou, O Lord, have
mercy upon us miserable offenders.”
This above prayer should not be prayed out of rote ritual—but from the heart with mirror in hand and the Word of God in the other.
“20Now the God of Peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant, 21Make you perfect in every good work to do His Will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in His Sight, through Christ Jesus; to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13)