Sunday, July 05, 2020
"Israel, the Blind" Sermon: Isaiah 42:18-25 (manuscript)
“Israel,
the Blind”
[Isaiah
42:18:25]
July
5, 2020 YouTube
After showing that idols are unworthy of worship and
explaining that all the world will praise God in the end – when He punishes
those who worship idols and never believe in the Servant Savior, God now turns
to Jerusalem’s present condition and her impending conquest and exile into
Babylon.
God tells Jerusalem why she is going into exile.
And we see, first, the Lord made His Law glorious.
“Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may
see! Who is blind but my servant, or
deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as
the servant of the LORD? He sees many things, but does not observe them; his
ears are open, but he does not hear.”
God accuses Israel and Jerusalem of having their eyes
open and not seeing and their ears unblocked and not hearing. And here the servant is obviously Israel,
because the servant is a sinner – one who has sinned against the revealed Word
of God. They hear and see the Word of
God, and they say they understand – that they have taken it in, but then when
it comes time to act on God’s Word, they are completely oblivious – they don’t
know what God or the prophets are talking about.
You may have children and when you explain something to
them – and their eyes are open and their ears are unblocked, but when you
finish speaking and they say they understood, you ask them to say what you
said, and they cannot say a word. They
are blind with seeing eyes and deaf with hearing ears.
If you are a teacher, you may explain certain things to
your students, only to have them say you never explained the thing or never
told them about it at all.
I know I have people tell me I never say on which day of
the week our Christmas Eve service will be – among other things.
Of course, this is more serious, because God gave His
Word to His people and told them to observe and obey it. We are told to know the Word of God and to
obey it – and we don’t.
Understand, all mere humans are sinners, that’s not what
we are saying here. The point is that
they and we tend to ignore the Word of God.
We come to worship and hear the Word of God read, and then we never have
any contact with it during the week, and we forget and do not practice what we
hear in worship.
The answer, of course, if we do believe that the Bible is
the Word of God, is to be in the Word during the week – every day reading
something – meditating on it – discussing it with others, and seeking to live
out whatever God’s Word says to do. We
are a people who believe that right doctrine leads to right action, so if we
are not doing what is right – as a habit – then we don’t understand or haven’t
actually heard the right doctrine that has been put before us.
Israel had the prophets and the priests. Attending worship was a regular part of
life. They memorized God’s Word because
they didn’t have Bibles to carry around.
But it didn’t sink in – it didn’t change them.
In Malachi’s day, Israel was similarly condemned for
their not internalizing and obeying God’s Word:
“For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and
people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the
LORD of hosts” (Malachi 2:7, ESV).
Isaiah continues:
“The
LORD was pleased, for his righteousness' sake, to magnify his law and make it
glorious.“
God’s
Word – His Law – should never be understood to be a heavy burden – to be
onerous. Rather, for the sake of God’s
Righteousness, He made His Law beautiful and revelatory of Who He is.
David
writes about this in Psalm 19:
“The
law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is
sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the
heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening
the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the
LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great
reward” (Psalm 19: 7-11, ESV).
We
should never read God’s Word and come away saying, “Aww! You’re ruining my fun!” If we feel like that, our sin has been
exposed, and we should repent and obey what God has said. God gave us the Law for our good – and, if we
look at it carefully, it all points to the Savior, Jesus.
We
were created to enjoy God – why else would He have created such a pleasurable
world? But we were also created to obey
God. Yet, we do not obey God as slaves,
but as sons and daughters who will inherit the Kingdom at the end of the age.
Paul
explains:
“So
then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the
flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the
Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are
led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of
slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as
sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God
and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may
also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:12-17, ESV).
God
does not mean that we must perfectly keep the Law to be saved by Jesus – Jesus
came because it is not possible for us to keep the whole Law before He saves
us. No, one of the reasons God gave the
Law is to show us that we are unable to save ourselves. (Those who say that the Jews are saved
through the keeping of the Law have misunderstood the point of the Law and
Original Sin.)
Now,
however, as believers, we are to keep God’s moral Law and we are able to keep
the moral Law, because God the Holy Spirit lives in us and enables us to do the
good works that God requires of us.
And,
as we read God’s Word and obey it, we should be able to see Jesus in it.
We
read: “And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should
suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all
the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27, ESV).
Jesus
explains to the men on the road to Emmaus how all of the Scripture – all of
God’s Law – points to Jesus and His work in one way or another. Sometimes it will be obvious. Sometimes it may take some work to understand
how the Scripture relates to Jesus.
As
Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17, ESV).
However,
the people did not know God’s Word or keep it – they brought their discipline
and exile upon themselves:
“But
this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes
and hidden in prisons; they have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with
none to say, ‘Restore!’”
In
and of themselves, Jerusalem had no hope.
But we know their hope and our hope is in Jesus.
So,
let us love the Word of God and see Him in it and rejoice and be filled with
joy as we pray that God the Holy Spirit will enable us to do all that God calls
us to do as His people.
Second,
the Lord disciplines His people.
When something bad or painful happens, we tend to ask
“why?”
And there is a natural tendency to do that – to think of
life as a quid pro quo – a phrase we all now understand. We want to know what we did to deserve this
or that, or why something we do not think we deserve is happening to us. “Why is this happening to me?”
“Why did I get cancer?
Why did I lose my job? Why did I
get mugged?”
But God says that is the wrong question – what we should
be asking is “Who is doing this to me? Who
is ultimately behind what is happening to me?”
“Who
among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come?
Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers?”
God
asks Jerusalem if she is willing to listen – to hear the Lord out. And He asks her, Who gave you up to the
looters and plunderers? Who allowed them
to conquer you and destroy the nation and take you into captivity?
God
answers this way, “Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, in whose
ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?”
Who
allowed the Covid virus to travel around the world and kill millions and
destroy economies and business and individual lives?
Ultimately,
God. Why is another question. But as for Who – if we believe that God is
absolutely sovereign, as the Scripture tells us:
“all
the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to
his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and
none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:35,
ESV).
So,
looking at everything that happens throughout time and space, we can say that
everything is occurring according to the Plan of God. However, we must hold that in tension with
the fact that God cannot sin or do evil.
So,
when Joseph confronts his brothers, speaking of their selling him into slavery,
he can say, “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” In other words, God sovereignly ordained that
Joseph would be sold into slavery to achieve the good result of saving millions
of lives. Joseph’s brothers freely chose
to sin against Joseph and do evil, but God used that act to achieve His good
plan.
I
recently listened to a sermon by Dr. Joel Beeke, and in it, he used an example
of an elder in his church who needed to have a knee replacement. After the knee replacement was over, it got
infected, and they had to do surgery again.
And they sent him home, but his knee got infected again, so he went back
into surgery. And they told him if it
got infected again, they would have to take his leg, The knee did get infected and they did take
his leg, and when Dr. Beeke went to visit him, unsure of what to say, he met
the man in good spirits, and the man told him, “My Father must have something
to teach me.”
I
don’t know why that happened to this man, but he got the question right – he
looked beyond his circumstances to God Who is sovereign over everything that
happens. Nothing can happen to us that
God does not do or permit. And that
should be a comfort to us.
Now,
we think of discipline – God is disciplining Jerusalem by allowing the evil
Babylonians to do evil and conquer Jerusalem to achieve the good discipline
that God desires to have happen. And we
all know that no one likes discipline:
“And
have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not
regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he
receives.’
“It
is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For
what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without
discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children
and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and
we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits
and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them,
but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the
moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields
the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it”
(Hebrews 12:5-11, ESV).
The
question becomes, do we receive the discipline and grow from it – become the
men and women that God wants us to be – or do we become angry and worsen under
the Hand of God?
Jerusalem
worsens.
“So
he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on
fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not
take it to heart.”
God
says He poured out His Wrath on Jerusalem and disciplined her in war and
actually set her on fire, but she still wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t repent. She wouldn’t take the discipline to heart.
What
is the point of discipline?
Restoration. If there is no
restoration after discipline taken to heart, all you have is abuse. Discipline is given by One Who wants us to
return – to become conformed to the Image of His Son.
That
doesn’t make it easy or enjoyable – the author of Hebrews has already said
that. But once you are spanked or given
your time-out, you should return more obedient and to the arms of those who
love you.
This
is the judgment that hangs over the whole world – God has given His Law for us
to love and to see Jesus in and to obey – and if we do not, He disciplines us
in whatever way He deems best. And if we
do not respond by being repentant and striving to better follow God –
ultimately, if we shake our fist at God and say that Jesus is not the Savior,
He will give us over to the fire for all of eternity.
So,
let us remember that God disciplines His people because He loves us and wants
us to be restored and to progress in the holiness we are called to.
When
we suffer, let us turn to the One Who is Sovereign over all and seek His face
for wisdom and endurance and for growth.
Let
us not resent our discipline but be thankful when we are restored and become
more the man or woman God has called us to be.
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God, as we look at our text this morning, we find two things that we do not
naturally believe: Your Law is good and
beautiful, and Your discipline is good and for our restoration and growth. Help us to learn and to obey all that You
have said and help us to respond rightly when You Fatherly Hand disciplines
us. Help us to have hope and joy by
knowing that You are Sovereign over all of history – even our very lives –
nothing escapes You, and nothing is out of Your control. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Saturday, July 04, 2020
Review: "How Not to Diet" (manuscript)
How Not to Diet:
The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss is the
sequel to Dr. Michael Greger’s How Not to Die. As you might imagine, Dr.
Greger of NutritionFacts.org looks at the science behind weight loss. One of the differences between Dr. Greger and
other whole-food plant-based diet proponents is the amount of scientific study
that is reference. In this almost 600-page
book, almost 5,000 scientific sites are referenced – and yes, if you want to
read the study yourself, Dr. Greger has links to them for you.
Much in keeping with his previous book, he begins by
arguing against the standard American diet and in favor of a whole-foods
plant-based diet that is “microbiome friendly, rich in fruits and vegetables, rich
in legumes, and satisfying” (table of contents).
After this, he moves into two sections on weight-loss
itself: “weight-loss boosters” and “Dr. Greger’s twenty-one tweaks.”
The twenty-one tweaks were the most exciting part of the
book for me – as someone who needs to lose weight. I am not going to list them all here, because
you should buy the book, but I will say that I have added several of them into
my daily routine, and I have begun to lose weight.
I have added not eating after 7 PM, drinking water before
each meal, adding an amount of ginger and cayenne pepper, and front-loading
calories during the day – having my largest calorie meal first and the least
last. You can read his explanations of
why these and other tweaks can help.
I have been on a whole-foods plant-based diet – for the
most part – for some time, but I am also on medications that cause weight gain,
so I am encouraged that what he recommends is starting to help me. It’s well worth the try.
[This review appears on my blog, my YouTube channel,
Amazon.com, and Goodreads.com.]
Review: "The Patient's Guide to Neurosarcoidosis" (manuscript)
There are very few
popular and affordable books on neurosarcoidosis, so, when I saw, The
Patient’s Guide to Neurosarcoidosis by Denise Sutherland, I picked it up.
So, what is neurosarcoidosis? It is an autoimmune disease that I have that
takes the good tissue of the brain and turns it into scar tissue called, “granulomas.”
About five percent of sarcoidosis patients also have
neurosarcoidosis. Sarcoidosis is the
more general disease which attacks most of the organs in the body, but especially
the lungs.
About six out of every 100,000 people get diagnosed with
it.
It tends to appear between the ages of twenty and forty
and it can go into remission or be a life-long problem. There are theories about how you might get
the disease, but no definitive answer. There is no known cure, but prednisone
is the usual maintenance medication for the joint pain and swelling.
For neurosarcoidosis, the granulomas damage the nerves
resulting in many different possible symptoms (11-19). Mine include phantom smells, hallucinations,
seizures, neuropathy, stuttering, misusing words, etc.
Sutherland explains the tests that can be done to
determine if you have sarcoidosis and neurosarcoidosis.
In the third chapter, she explains the medications that
are used for the pain and swelling, as well as all the side-effects of the
medications.
In the fourth and fifth chapters. She looks at the emotional
impact of the disease and habits that can help you deal with the disease and
what it does.
The second half of the book is a collection of anecdotes
from people with neurosarcoidosis.
The book ends with further reading (143), a table of
abbreviation (146), a glossary of terms (which are in bold type throughout
the book, 147), a reference page (154), and an index (157).
I have done a lot of reading on sarcoidosis, so this book
did not add much new knowledge to me.
However, it is an excellent, well-written resource, and I would
recommend that everyone who has neurosarcoidosis or a family member with it to
buy it and keep it on hand.
[This
review appears on my blog, my YouTube channel, Amazon.com, and Goodreads.com.]
Review: "40 Questions About Islam" (manuscript)
I am thankful to Kregel Academic for sending me a copy of
40 Questions about Islam to review.
There are a growing number of Muslims in my community and I wanted to
better understand their religion. To
that end, I did buy a Koran, but I haven’t read it yet. This book gives me a good background for when
I do get around to it.
Michael Aaron Bennet, the author of the text, explains
that Islam is not a monolithic religion – which surprised me. I had heard of Sunnis (which make up 85% of Muslims
world-wide) and Shiites, but I didn’t realize that there are many smaller “denominations”
of Islam – it is like Protestantism in that way (13).
The reason for the different branches of Islam is due to
a controversy over what line of decent on follows from Mohammed. Since the Sunni branch is the largest, Bennet
focuses primarily on the Sunnis.
The first part of the book – questions 1 through 6 (19-61)
look at the traditional history of how Islam came to be.
Then Barret looks at the sources of authority for Islam (questions
7-12, pp. 65-104), the theology of Islam (questions 13-18, pp. 107-147), and the
practice of Islam (questions 19-24, pp. 151-192).
In the fifth part. He compares the history and teaching
of the Bible with what the Koran teaches about the same characters (questions 25-30,
pp. 195-232).
Part six looks at the critical scholarship concerning the
Koran (questions 31-34, pp. 235-258), and Bennet begins with a disclaim asking his
readers not to use this section to bash Muslims about their religion – it will
not be helpful in any way. This section
is written to help the Christian – in particular – understand where there are
issues that they may find useful in lovingly discussing with Muslim friends.
The final section looks at the difference between the
teaching of the Koran and the Christian Gospel (questions 35-40, pp. 261-295). One of the issues that he looks at is if Muslims
and Christians worship the same God – there has been debate about whether the
monotheistic religions all worship the same God or not.
The book ends with a glossary of select terms, a select
bibliography, and an index (297-303).
This book is a tremendous resource for anyone who wants to
understand the basics of Islam – especially for Christians – as that is the
perspective the book is written from. It
is a book I will hang on to and look to as I talk to my Muslim friends and
neighbors. Islam is currently the world’s
fastest growing religion. It would do us
well to have an understanding of it.
Especially if we are to love our neighbors and introduce them to the
Christian Gospel.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
[This
review appears on my blog, my YouTube channel, Amazon.com, Kregel.com, and
Goodreads.com.]
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