Isaiah 65:17-66:24
Again I feel myself becoming unusually emotional. This is the hope of nations written down on my page. But that is not where the emotion comes from. Anybody can write of such things. The emotion comes from seeing the history of first century Jerusalem pretty much laid out word for word centuries before it occurred. Jesus, the one who was humble and contrite in spirit was the one esteemed by the Father. His brothers hated him and excluded him because of God’s name. So God sent uproar on the city and had the Romans repay his enemies - the temple priests - with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD70 and the overthrow of the need to sacrifice bulls and lambs. But amongst this slaughter God extended peace like a river and he caused Jerusalem to be glad and to rejoice. Because in Jerusalem, before it was sacked, God caused his chosen ones to drink deeply and delight in the overflowing abundance of His Spirit. And it was in Jerusalem that God had gathered all nations and tongues to see the glory of Pentecost. And Paul and his fellow apostles did indeed travel almost in the order of Isaiah 66:19 to Tarshish and the Libyans and the Lydians and to Tubal and Greece and the distant islands that had not heard of Yahweh or seen his glory. And the nations did become brothers and did bring their offerings to Jerusalem and they did also become priests of the Most High God. And even now, many centuries later, while we wait for the new heavens and the new earth to be fully delivered we continue to see the work and the name of God enduring from one New Moon to another. We continue to see mankind bowing down before God and we continue to see the plight and woe of those who oppose themselves to God. O the depth of God’s disclosure to his this naked prophet that He would have shown so much to Isaiah so far in advance of it occurring. O the power and sovereignty of God that he brought about all that he had said so many centuries in advance. He is so deeply deeply amazing. My heart and my brain and my being cannot begin to take in his awesomeness. Maybe that's why I feel so emotional.
Ephesians 5:8-33
My brother used to speak to me with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. I wanted to smash his face in. I suspect we both needed to be filled with the Spirit. What is interesting in this passage is that Paul again rams home that Jesus’ work for us must turn into our work for others. He has made us light in the Lord so now we must bring light to those around us. And the first place to start is the home. Not all of us are married, but for those of us who are our marriage should be the place where the fingerprints of Jesus are most clearly seen. Husbands, what are you doing to make your wife holy? Paul says we should use the word to wash our wives and make them clean. We are not talking water-boarding - this isn’t ramming the word down our wives throats until they feel like they are drowning. But we should be lovingly bathing our wife in God’s word to her, speaking His love and His acceptance and His calling to her, desiring above all things not that she makes us feel good about ourselves but that she is radiant to God. And wives, how much are you seeing yourself as part of the same body as your husband, committing in every decision to act and speak like you are on his team, respecting his call as a man of God and valuing his role as the head of the household? These are great things to do to show Jesus our reverence for him. It is this stuff that really pleases the Lord.
Psalm 113:1-9
Who is like the Lord our God?
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