Religious activity and even worship may not be pleasing to God. Heart attitude is the root to a pleasing service of worship but the "pleasing" is a pleasing of God and not necessarily man. As you read the following verses you must emphasize the "me" in the statements of offering and sacrifices.
"Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with frankincense. You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities.
Isaiah 43:22-24
Israel didn't really bring God their burnt offerings and sacrifices because their heart was not in their worship. They were offering stuff by mechanical practice but that means that you are then not offering to Him. They couldn't claim that God was burdening them because they were not offering in righteousness. They were simply burdening God with sins and iniquities. Their worship was fatally flawed because it wasn't pleasing to God.
We need to be careful in our worship to honor God and not simply figure that God must be pleased with what He gets if we are pleased with what He gets. He is the audience and we need to maintain that truth in the forefront of our thoughts about worship. We've spoken about this before, but since we are so accustomed to being the audience we must not forget that we are not the audience during worship. We should want to please the audience.
Ask yourself these questions. Why were Nadab and Abihu killed before the Lord for their form of worship (Numbers 3:4; 26:61; Leviticus 10:1-7) or Korah who simply wanted to press on with the priesthood of the believer above the leadership ordained by God (Numbers 16:1-49) or why did God strike Uzzah dead for keeping the ark of the Lord from falling off of a cart during a worship service (2 Samuel 6:1-11). David was mad but when he settled down he know what the problem was. David said, "we did not seek him according to the rule" (1 Chronicles 15:13). We worship a Holy God who really hates sin and we are sinners. Imagine for a moment what would happen if you prayed the first line of the Lord's Prayer and God's grace and mercy did not make it true and right for you to pray "Our Father, …". You would rightly be ashes just like those who stood with Korah and claimed to be holy. We should feel awe and little like it might feel to grab a high voltage power line when we are told it is OK now. It is safe. You can touch it and not die. Who am I to say "My Father in heaven" and not die? I am a sinner saved by a grace beyond my comprehension and mercy beyond measure.
"I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right. Your first father sinned, and your mediators transgressed against me. Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.
Isaiah 43:25-28
Here is the atonement again. He blots out your transgressions for His own sake. Not for any righteousness found in you. In the "courtroom" style, God asks for us to help Him remember. He wants an explanation of our our point of view and our continuing sin. However, from our first father (Adam) to the last we have transgressed against the God of the Universe and everyone from priests to kings will be sent into the Babylonian captivity.
God always has His people and a plan to redeem. So after the curse comes the blessing.
"But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, 'I am the Lord's,' another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, 'The Lord's,' and name himself by the name of Israel."
Isaiah 44:1-5
Looking forward 700 years from this prophecy and forward 2700 years we see the faithfulness of God even in the face of a people who cycle back into sin and failure. The names here indicate both southern and northern kingdoms. Then Jacob as usurper or deceiver contrasted with Jeshurun meaning my little righteous one. In using Jeshurun God is calling what isn't yet as though it is already. God has poured out His Spirit and blessing on us. The vision of water in dry places is repeated by Jesus in the following 2 verses:
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
John 4:14
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 7:38
We are part of this pouring out and all we do to minister in the gifts that God has given us is part of submitting ourselves to this blessing of God on earth. So as you give material blessings, spiritual blessings, or pray to open up new doors remember that you're submitting to God's ministry through you. You are created unto good works which God has prepared beforehand that you should walk in them.
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen. Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any."
Isaiah 44:5-8
God is both King and Redeemer. He is and He is without beginning or ending. God's shepherding of Abraham's descendent's (which we have become) is evidence of His participation in the history of mankind and we can even declare what will happen in the future because God has revealed it to us. Our God has told us what will happen. There is no other place than God to stand. There is no rock but Him.
Just in review as we look at these passages it is good to think of God's revelation of Himself as the Trinity again.
There is only one God as we see here and in many other portions of Scripture (Deuteronomy 6:4–5; Isaiah 44:6–45:25; Mark 12:29–30; 1 Corinthians 8:4; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Timothy 2:5). However, Scripture speaks of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working together to bring salvation (Romans 8; Ephesians 1:3–14; 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14; 1 Peter 1:2). When we use the historic biblical description of the Trinity we are not fully explaining it because we are not able to. We do have biblical boundaries for our thoughts about the mystery of the Trinity.
Jesus prayed to His Father and taught His disciples to do the same but He also communicated that He was personally divine. Belief in His divinity and in the rightness of offering Him worship and prayer is basic to New Testament faith (John 20:28–31, cf. 1:1–18; Acts 7:59; Rom. 9:5; 10:9–13; 2 Cor. 12:7–9; Phil. 2:5–6; Col. 1:15–17; 2:9; Heb. 1:1–12; 1 Pet. 3:15). Jesus also promised to send "another Helper" (John 14:16) to carry on His work as the first Helper (John 14:16,17). The Helper was the Holy Spirit, who came at Pentecost to fulfill His ministry. The Trinity is a biblical doctrine but the word trinity isn't used in the Greek (Matt. 28:19; Mark 1:9–11; 2 Cor. 13:14; Rev. 1:4–5).
The doctrine is complex. The three personal "subsistences" or persons of the Trinity are equal and eternal. Each person of the Trinity is an "I" in relation to the other two who are "You," but each has the full divine essence of God, the specific existence that belongs to God alone.
God is not one person who plays three separate roles; this is the error called "modalism." Nor are there three gods who only seem to be one because they always act together; this is "tritheism."
If you make a triangle with the three rules provided by B. B. Warfield which are:
- There is one God.
- The Father and the Son and the Spirit is each God
- The Father and the Son and the Spirit is each a distinct person
Then you've described what we know about the Trinity. You can speculate inside the triangle all you want as long as you don't break one on the sides of the triangle. Please note that we do not believe a contradiction as some have claimed who didn't pay attention. We believe that God is three in person and one in essence. We may not understand how he does that, and in fact we believe that it is beyond our ability to fully understand, but we are not promoting a contradiction or logical fallacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment