THE LORD SPOKE (October 10)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Isaiah 62-64

It looks like the church bulletin or a missionary prayer letter. “Praise and Prayer” is at the top (the NIV heading before Is. 63:7). The requests section might sound a little different. After all, our city doesn’t lie in ruins (yet) and our temples (churches) are still standing. We’ve all been moved at some point to say, “I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us....”

But then, haven’t we also pled with God that He would “rend the heavens and come down” (64:1)? Aren’t there times when we wonder “where is He” who kept us going in the past? And then we’re reminded that it is our own sin that has broken that relationship. Even “our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (64:6) because we do them with the wrong motivation - for our own selfish ends rather than to His praise. And so we “shrivel up...and waste away” (64:6-7).

Why didn’t Israel turn back to Him? Just take a look at the verbs in this section that describe God’s care of Israel. He sustained them, supported them, redeemed them, carried them, shepherded them, guided them. He treated them with compassion, kindness, love, mercy, tenderness. Why didn’t Israel turn back to Him?

Why don’t we turn back to Him? Why do we, like Israel, rebel against Him, grieve Him, harden our hearts against Him, continue to sin, and fail to call upon Him? Let us instead, remember Him, call upon Him, strive to lay hold of Him.

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
You come to help those who gladly do right,
who remember your ways.
Isaiah 64:4-5

Psalms 47-48

Why do people spend thousands of dollars every year to go visit Jerusalem? Mark Twain put into words the feeling of many after such an ordeal:

Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand, and they know but one word of but one language apparently - the eternal "bucksheesh." To see the numbers of maimed, malformed and diseased humanity that throng the holy places and obstruct the gates, one might suppose that the ancient days had come again, and that the angel of the Lord was expected to descend at any moment to stir the waters of Bethesda. Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to live here. (Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad, from chapter 53 [1867])

If you can get past the street urchins and pick-pockets, the Arab shop keepers will eat you for lunch. The cacophony and strange smells that assault the senses are innumerable. Even after you’ve bartered the price down to 30% of the original tag you still walk away knowing that you paid twice as much as that silly piece of olive wood is really worth.

But Psalm 48 reminds us that “God is in her citadels” (Ps. 48:3). Though He is omnipresent, there is a sense in which He has chosen to dwell forever in Jerusalem (see Ps. 68:16; 76:2; 132:13-14). He is what sets this city high above any other city on earth, to this very day.

While many world capitols and famous cities have a Round-About Line of city buses for tourists to see all the main sites on a 2-3 hour circuit, only Jerusalem has a biblical basis for such a tour:

Walk about Zion, go around her...view her.... (Ps. 48:12-13)

The passage gives several other valuable touring suggestions: “count her towers”, “consider her ramparts”, “view her citadels”. Five thousand years of continual history will keep you well-occupied for some time! You won’t soon run out of what to do. But, in your doing, do the rest of what it says: “tell of them to the next generation. For this God is our God for ever and ever” (Ps. 48:13-14). Touring Jerusalem has a purpose and it’s more than olive wood camels.

Sacred history was enacted in Jerusalem on more than one occasion. It’s where:

• Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek
• David established the kingdom and Solomon built the Temple
• Hezekiah saw Sennacherib’s whole army decimated as God protected the city
• Isaiah and the other prophets proclaimed God’s truth
• Jesus bled and died to secure our salvation

And God will part the heavens and break through again in Jerusalem. It’s where the Messiah will reign over the whole earth for the first thousand years of His eternal kingdom. Will you be there?