The Assurance of Isaiah Chapters 13 – 20

 

The other morning I read Isaiah chapters 13 – 20 and when I finished I felt an overwhelming renewal in our Lord Jesus Christ. I felt cleansed, washed, refreshed, and encouraged.

 

At first glance these prophecies appear to be about Israel, Judah, and the nations of the Ancient Near East. We read of Babylon, Assyria, Moab, Philistia, Damascus, Ethiopia, Egypt, Cush, and Israel. But what is really the message of these chapters? How might we relate to these passages today?

 

Our propensity is to attempt to align the Prophets with the news, with current events – to match this Bible passage with that current event. When we do this we are like puppies chasing their tails. Since current events are only current for a moment, we are always conjuring refreshed interpretations of the Bible, not being adult enough to question how a thing that was true yesterday is not true today because of changing circumstances. Do we not see what happens to us when our eyes wander from Jesus?

 

How many times can the world come to an end? Can we not see how religious hype is just that, hype?

 

Jesus is the Message of the Bible. God in Christ is the Message of the Bible. To see the Bible is to see Jesus, for Jesus comes to us through Scripture – He is always coming to us through Scripture – all of Scripture.

 

Why was I refreshed and renewed in reading Isaiah chapters 13 – 20? Because I saw that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in control of the affairs of people and nations. I saw that God’s righteousness and justice is working in the earth – whether I can see it or not, whether I understand it or not. I see that God has determined the trajectory of events from eternity past to eternity future. I see that He will judge some, protect others, and that He will always have His People. I see that in Christ we, His People, have a glorious destiny.

 

Every generation has its Babylon, its Egypt, its Assyria. God’s Israel, His heavenly People in Christ (Galatians 4:21 – 31; 6:16), are found throughout every generation in all people groups.

 

For those who trust in Christ, Isaiah reveals Yahweh as our Rock and Comfort and Hope – renewing our minds and hearts, refreshing our souls, unveiling that City to which we are called in Jesus Christ.

 

Let us not forget, that our Father is shaking all things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain…and those things which cannot be shaken are all found in Jesus Christ. (Matthew 7:24 – 27; Heb. 25 – 29).

Great Is Diana of the Americans

 I wrote this back in January 2020, I think it is still true.

Great Is Diana of the Americans

Robert L. Withers

Written in January 2020

 

During the past few years, as I’ve become increasingly concerned about the engagement of professing-Christians in the political melee in the United States, John Newton has become an historical mentor to me in thinking, teaching, and behavior. This mentorship is particularly pronounced in the area of politics and nationalism.

 

In August 1775, four months after Colonists and British regulars fought at Lexington and Concord, Newton, Anglican priest and author of Amazing Grace, writes to a young friend concerning Britain and the Colonies:

 

“As a minister and a Christian I think it is better to lay all the blame upon sin. Instead of telling the people Lord North [the Prime Minister] blunders, I tell them the Lord of hosts is angry. If God has a controversy with us, I can expect no other than that wisdom should be hidden from the wise…I believe the sins of America and Britain have too much prevailed, and that a wrong spirit and wrong measures have taken place on both sides because the Lord has left us to ourselves.

 

“It seems to me one of the darkest signs of the times, that so many of the Lord’s professing people act as if they thought he was withdrawn from the earth…instead of unavailing clamors against men and measures they would all unite in earnest prayer, we might hope for better times, otherwise I fear bad will be worse.”

 

As the letter continues, Newton turns his attention to the idea of liberty; turning to Jeremiah the prophet Newton writes:

 

“He [Jeremiah] preached against sin and foretold judgment, but I do not find that he made a parade about liberty…He does not seem to have troubled his head, who was scribe or recorder, or who was over the host [that is, who was in charge of government and the military], for he knew that whoever had the management, the public affairs would miscarry because the Lord fought against them. When I hear the cry about liberty I think of the old cry, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians’ [italics mine]. Civil liberty is a valuable blessing, but if people sin it away, it is the Lord [who] deprives them of it…

 

“However a believer has a liberty with which Jesus has made him free which depends upon no outward circumstances. It grieves me to hear those who are slaves to sin and Satan, make such a stir about that phantom which they worship under the name of liberty, and especially to see not a few of the Lord’s people so much conformed to the world in this respect [italics mine].”

 

When I first read the above letter, a year or two ago, I was taken with Newton’s image (no pun intended) of Diana of the Ephesians from Acts Chapter 19. A few days ago I realized that Newton’s use of Diana preceded his 1775 letter, for in a 1773 letter he writes to a fellow minister:

 

“On the other hand, you and I, dear sir, know how much they are to be pitied who are frantic for what they call liberty, and consider not that they are in the most deplorable bondage, the slaves of sin and Satan, and subject to the curse of the law, and the wrath of God. Oh for a voice to reach their hearts, that they may know themselves, and seek deliverance from their dreadful thralldom! Satan has many contrivances to amuse them, and to turn their thoughts from their real danger; and none more ensnaring, in the present day, than to engage them in the cry, ‘Great is the Diana Liberty!’ [italics mine].

 

“…And already in some pulpits, (proh dolor!) [Latin: oh the grief!] a description of the rights of man occupies much of the time which used to be employed in proclaiming the glory and grace of the Savior, and the rights of God to the love and obedience of his creatures.”

 

It seems to me that Christian nationalism, and Christian political engagement, whether it be from the “right” or the “left”, or even the “center” – is a snare to the professing-church in that it obscures our witness to Jesus Christ and His Gospel as it exalts our “rights” and “liberties” and “personal freedoms”.

 

There is a sense in which, for the disciple of Jesus Christ, there is no “personal freedom”, for we are called to be servants of Jesus Christ; indeed, since we have been purchased and redeemed by Jesus Christ, we are no longer our own possession – to echo Paul, we are not our own, we are bought with a price.

 

The People of God are called to be distinct from the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are called to be distinct from the “right”, the “left”, the “center”; our Gospel is to be for all mankind without regard to ethnicity or national flag or economic system.

 

We are to discern the difference between the Bible and the constitutions of nations, the political systems of nations, the economic systems of nations, and the foreign policies of nations. If the Gospel of Jesus Christ is transcendent then the Church of Jesus Christ ought to express itself, in Christ, transcendently. How can this be otherwise, unless professing - churches within national boundaries prostitute themselves in the service of the world? Babylon the Harlot rides the beast until the beast destroys her (Revelation Chapter 17). Can we not be a foolish people?

 

We have been taught to make idols of liberty, prosperity, pleasure, our founding national documents, our foreign policy, our economic policies – and we seek our identity in these things rather than in Jesus Christ. As we fail to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven (Philippians 3:20) we fail to be good neighbors to our fellow earthly citizens and neighbors.

 

When we adopt a faulty sense of our national identity in place of a true sense of “a better country, a heavenly country” (Hebrews 11:16) and we cease to live as pilgrims and strangers we, as Esau, sell our birthright for a mess of pottage; we trade our high calling for short-term pleasure and gratification. We forego identification with the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ for temporal agendas that will turn to dust. The beast will eat us and we are so drunk with the world that we won’t even know it – it devours us even as I write this.

 

Newton chose Christ above everything. When other ministers of the Gospel attempted to pull him into political and nationalistic orbits Newton resisted, when others appealed to “liberty” Newton recognized the danger of liberty outside of Jesus Christ. Newton saw the that great need of mankind was not political liberty, but rather liberty from sin and death. Newton saw that Christ held him accountable for preaching the Gospel, and that not a day was to be spared in the service of temporal movements outside of the Gospel.

 

Newton saw that the turmoil of his nation and world could only be the result of sin, and that there is no political remedy for sin.

 

Lest we forget, Newton was engaged is serving the fatherless, the widow, the hungry, and the slave; the Gospel of Jesus Christ for John Newton included serving the “whole person” – John Newton knew, as we should know, that the only hope for this world was, and is, Amazing Grace.

 

 

Psalm 2 – Reflections

 

 

The history of the world is bound up in Psalm 2 and Daniel 2. There are two trajectories, that of the Kingdom of God and that of the rulers and peoples of the earth who are in rebellion against God. Professing Christians pray that the Kingdom of our Father will come and His will be done, but often we’d rather He would wait to bring the fulness of His Kingdom – for the fulness of the Kingdom of God means the final destruction and end of the rebellious kingdoms of this age…and we’d rather not have to experience that.

 

Why do we invest ourselves in attempting to shore up and save that which cannot be saved? Why do we think that we can exempt our own nation or political system from the image of Daniel 2 or the peoples and kings of Psalm 2:1 – 3? Why do we not live as citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20)?

 

The agenda of the rulers of the earth is “Against Yahweh and against His Anointed.” They are perpetually saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!”

 

There is no aspect of life in which this agenda is not active, from education to the arts to sports to government to economics. Sometimes the agenda may appear uplifting, sometimes benign, sometimes wicked – but it is always there; sometimes it may appear quite religious, quite “Christian.”

 

While we are called to serve those affected by the collapse of moral and spiritual order and compassion, we are not called to align ourselves with the agendas of this present age – no matter their political color. We are not called to participate in the chaos around us but rather to be exceptions to the chaos, to be safe places, in Christ, for others.

 

Jeremiah and Gedaliah are two examples of men faithful to God in the midst of religious, political, and military chaos – virtually no one listened to them, but they remained faithful – do we not want to remain faithful to Jesus Christ?

 

When Jesus says that the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head, is He not also speaking about His People? Where can we lay our heads, where can we find rest on this earth, during this pilgrimage? It is not in an economic or political system, it is not in sports or entertainment, it is not in education or the arts, it is not in moral improvement – it can only be in Jesus, He and He alone is our Sabbath and the fulness of our Sabbath awaits us when we enter into the City whose Builder and Maker is God (Hebrews 11:13 – 16).

Two Psalms, Two Ways

 

This was originally written and published on my blog Kaleidoscope on January 1, 2021. As I look back, little did I conceive what was coming within a few days. I had forgotten writing it until this morning, when I began working on reflections on Psalm 2. I am reposting it and also sending it to friends.

 

Jesus must always be our All in all…always and forever…and when we arrive in “Forever” we will be glad He is.

 

Much love,

 

Bob

 

 

Two Psalms; Two Ways (January 1, 2021)

 

Over the past several weeks, as I have dealt with my own fatigue regarding the chaos surrounding us; from the pandemic, to the suffering of the world and the people in my own country, to a failure of political leadership which fiddles while its citizens suffer and its national security rots, to much of the white “Evangelical” church trading the Lamb of Revelation Chapter 14 for the political and economic beast of Revelation Chapter 13, I have faced the temptation to just “go fishing.”

 

What I mean by “go fishing” is to hang a sign on the shop door which says, “Closed, gone fishing,” meaning that I’ll shut down for a while and come back in a few weeks or months and see how the world and church are doing. But, life is a marathon and when we hit our heartbreak hills the importance of patient endurance becomes more apparent than ever – we continue in faithfulness to Christ and others, we continue in intercessory prayer and living, we continue in desiring to serve people in Jesus Christ; we remain on the course no matter how painful it is to put one foot in front of another. We do this because we love Jesus Christ and we love people – we do not do this primarily for ourselves; this is not about me (or you), it is about Christ and others (Hebrews 12:1-3; 1 John 3:16; 2 Timothy 2:10).

 

I’m reminded of a book that Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote, The Priest Is Not His Own, in which Sheen’s central thrust is that the priest is both priest and sacrifice, which of course speaks to us of our Lord Jesus. If we are indeed a priesthood in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6), then our calling to be priest and sacrifice is clear – no matter what “Christian” self-centered heresies may teach.  

 

No doubt there have been times when you’ve seen photos or video of the aftermath of earthquakes in nations with shoddy and unscrupulous building practices. Multistory apartment buildings lie in rubble, beneath which are lifeless bodies whose lives were snatched from them in what they thought was a secure home. The morning of the tragedy it is unlikely that any of the deceased wondered, “Will my home crumble today, will it fail to withstand the shock of an earthquake?”

 

When watching such scenes have you ever thought, “That would never happen in the United States because our building codes are better than other most nations and they are enforced”?

 

Paul writes that we, as God’s People, are to grow up in the unity of the faith, becoming a mature corporate Man, “to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. So that we will no longer be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming…” (Ephesians 4:13b – 14).

 

One of the things that the present chaos has revealed, to those who care to “see”, is that the professing church in the United States is childish, and that our insatiable desire to be entertained, to have our egos stroked, to be fascinated by talking heads and political events, to be excited by eschatological fancies that require nothing of us but imagination and gullibility; has led to us being buried beneath piles of rubble. In our drunkenness we cannot see the rubble, we cannot feel it, for we are blinded and desensitized.

 

I do not think it hyperbole to consider that we are seeing a great apostasy in the professing church (2 Thess. 2:3) in which we would rather have Barabbas than Jesus, in which we would rather be imprinted with the mark of the beast than of the Lamb (Rev. chapters 13 and 14). I am not saying that this is “the” “falling away/apostasy” of 2 Thessalonians, but whatever it is, we see the working of the “man of lawlessness” when we see professing Christians abandon fidelity to Christ for fidelity to political, national, cultural, and economic agendas. There is a reason the Apostle John discusses the world and the antichrist in the same breath (1 John 2:15 – 17).

 

There are no better passages with which to begin the new year than Psalms 1 and 2. In Psalm 1 we have two ways, sinful man’s way and God’s Way. In Psalm 2 we have two kingdoms, the kingdom of this present age and the Kingdom of God; we can either align ourselves with the rulers of this world (Ephesians 6:12) or we can live under the dominion of the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.

 

Every day of this new year we will either be living in the “way of the wicked” or the “Way of the Righteous” (Psalm 1:6).

 

Every day of this new year we will either be living as citizens and subjects of the nations and rulers of this age, or as citizens of the Kingdom of God and subjects of the King of that kingdom, the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Which shall it be in my life?

 

What about your life?

 

Perhaps you might consider making these two psalms a focus of meditation for January?