In the previous pondering I looked at cultural attitudes and asked if any of the words in Isaiah 1: 4-9 can be seen in the current world’s culture. In this pondering I want us to focus on the words from both Isaiah and the connecting verses. In doing this, try to imagine God saying these very same things to every assembly or congregation today. I believe God is saying similar things to every church today, and I also believe that time for mankind is running short, very short.
Isaiah |
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Comment & Other Scriptures |
| 10 Hear the word of Yahweh, rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, people of Gomorrah! | The prophets frequently used this phrase to legitimize their message: It is from God, not of their own making. | |
| 11 What is the abundance of your sacrifices to me? says Yahweh. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened animals and I do not delight in the blood of bulls and ram-lambs and goats. | 1 Samuel 15:22 So Samuel said: Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. | |
| 12 When you come to appear before me, who asked for this from your hand: you trampling my courts? | James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. | |
| 13 You must not continue to bring offerings of futility, incense—it is an abomination to me; new moon and Sabbath, the calling of a convocation—I cannot endure iniquity with solemn assembly. | Revelations 2:12-17—12 To the messenger of the church in Pergamum, write: The one who holds the sharp, two-edged sword, says this: 13 I know where you live. Satan’s throne is there. Yet you hold on to my name and have not denied your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed in your presence, where Satan lives. 14 But I have a few things against you: You have there some who hold to the teaching of Balaam, the one who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice immorality. 15 You also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 So repent. If you don’t, I will come to you quickly and wage war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 Let everyone listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone. On the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the person who receives it. | |
| 14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become to me like a burden, I am not able to bear them. | Amos 5:21 I hate, I despise your feast days, And I do not savor your sacred assemblies. | |
| 15 And when you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not be listening. Your hands are full of blood. | Jeremiah 11:14 So do not pray for these people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry out to Me because of their trouble. | |
| 16 Wash! Make yourselves clean! Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes! Cease to do evil! | John 5:14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. |
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| 17 Learn to do good! Seek justice! Rescue the oppressed! Defend the orphan! Plead for the widow! | James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. |
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