Reading from Thursday, September 16

Yo yo. What's up friends? I've missed the last few nights due to fatigue and lack of internet. I'm in Brooklyn right now for work, and I'm working off the Hotel's "free" wifi - which is slower than the 3G on my phone.

If you are on a network that was updated after 1998, unlike myself right now, I would highly recommend - no - I would highly demand that you go and listen to this sermon right now. This is the second sermon in the series of our church's "Big Picture" series where they cover the overall story of the Bible in eight weeks. This particular sermon focuses on "the fall" but really addresses the problem of evil in a really interesting way.

Christian, Atheist, Agnostic, Muslim, Buddhist - take a listen, I think there's some value in this one for everyone. 

Reading for September 16
Isaiah 22:1-24:23
Up until this point, Isaiah has been making prophesies against the enemies of Israel. Countries and territories that sought to hurt Israel were to be dealt with harshly by the Lord, and as we saw a few night ago, many of these predictions came to pass if you believe the timeline of events.

So I would imagine that the original readers of this text would be pretty revved up at this point after reading how all the people who caused them fear or pain would get what was coming to them. However, in these three chapters, Isaiah prophesies about the destruction of Jerusalem and then the entire world.

After the prediction of these terribly scary things that will happen to Jerusalem, and how the people will react to the terror by trusting in their own methods of saving themselves, Isaiah concludes with this message:

¹¹[...] But you never ask for help from the One who did all this.
      You never considered the One who planned this long ago.

That's the thing - throughout the early part of the Old Testament there is a very predictable, almost graphable up-and-down in the Israelites faith in God. They have faith, then they turn away, God brings destruction, they ask for relief from said destruction, they turn back to God and the cycle repeats. It appears that in the midst of this destruction that Isaiah is predicting, the people do not ask for help from their God. They forget they he made everything and is responsible for everything - or can at least control everything.

Galatians 2:17-3:9
Paul brings it back to his sweet spot of his teaching's: the relationship between faith and law. This is awesome stuff:

¹⁹ For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. ²⁰ My old self has been crucified with Christ.^[a] It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

There is this idea in the brand of Christianity I was taught, that focusing on ridding yourself of sin, or "keeping the law", will only lead you into sin because you continue to think about it and obsess over it and it just creeps back into your life very easily. Paul sums up this idea perfectly in verse 19: "For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me." The remedy for this is to avoid even thinking about sinning, but rather to focus on your relationship with God - and through your relationship with God, the sin will dissolve naturally. 

There is a careful balance though. We can't just ignore the law, because I believe that it is in place for our own benefit.  But neither we can't be a slave to following the law - this approach leads to self torment and a lot of mental anguish. What we need to do is three things:

1) Realize and accept that sin is a part of being human. We can not live a perfect existence.
2) Realize and accept that God paid the ultimate price to save us - in spite of our inability to follow his law.
3) Live in way that reflects the forgiveness bestowed upon us.

Psalm 60:1-12
This is interesting. A lot of the imagery in this group of verses was in the prediction against Israel that we read in Isaiah tonight:

¹ You have rejected us, O God, and broken our defenses.
      You have been angry with us; now restore us to your favor.
 ² You have shaken our land and split it open.
      Seal the cracks, for the land trembles.
 ³ You have been very hard on us,
      making us drink wine that sent us reeling.

Both the sealing of cracks and the bitter wine were mentioned specifically in the reading from Isaiah:

^22:9 You inspect the breaks in the walls of Jerusalem.
      You store up water in the lower pool. 
^24:9 Gone are the joys of wine and song;
      alcoholic drink turns bitter in the mouth.

Now this Psalm was written by David - who lived probably a good couple hundred years before Isaiah - so these psalms were probably readily available for Isaiah to read which would mean that he may have gotten these images for his prophecies from David's writings or if he didn't read them, then it shows consistency in the revelation that comes from God. 

Proverbs 23:15-16
 ¹⁵ My child,^[a] if your heart is wise,
      my own heart will rejoice!
 ¹⁶ Everything in me will celebrate
      when you speak what is right.

Awesome sauce. Word up. Doggy dog. Gin and Juice.