Two Weeks of Judgment

Unfortunately, schedules were too conflicting last week and we weren't able to meet.  However, anybody who's been following along in Isaiah knows that the last two weeks of chapters were pretty much judgment after judgment on regions all around (and including) Judah.  Conveniently, this Tuesday's reading (Isaiah 24) was somewhat of a finale to this theme, as it talked about God's final judgment on the entire planet.

One piece of scripture that gave all of us quite a bit of trouble, and even sent people in search of concordances, was verse 21.  It describes God punishing powers both in heaven and on earth.  So what are these powers in heaven?  Satan and his angels?  And what does the word heaven mean?  Will Satan still be in heaven in the end times?  Or does 'heaven' just refer to a spiritual world?  It may be kind of fun to ponder, but I'm sure the writer of Ecclesiastes would call it meaningless.  From other scripture, we do have confidence in God's victory over Satan regardless of when or where he is before his final judgment.

Something I liked about the last two weeks of chapters in Isaiah is that pretty much all the nations that are decimated or whittled down are described as revering and worshiping God afterward.  Even in the end times prophecy there is a remnant who shout the name of the Lord and glorify Him.  I hope God doesn't have to destroy our nation to make us glorify Him, but I can see how it would be easier to worship Him without all the distractions that our culture imposes on us.  I would challenge us to set time aside every day for glorifying God and ignoring everything else.

Next week is our 'fun' meeting, but we will be working on preparing a package for the Fords.  More details to come on this in the calendar.

God Bless!

The Time Smoothie

First of all, I have to praise God for all the food everyone brought last night.  In fact, Jason had food there and he wasn't even able to attend!  We had some delicious BLT's, green beans, cherries, fruit salad, and more.  In other news, our new Norwalk residents, Ben & Olivia, were able to come last night.  We are very happy to have them so much closer now (Oh, and thanks for the blender!).

After dinner, we went into a bit of discussion on what we've read in Isaiah so far and then started reading chapter 10.  One thing we could all agree on is that it's rather difficult to determine, at any point in the book, what time Isaiah is writing and/or what time he's writing about.  Some scripture seems to concern his current situation, others appear to be prophecy that will soon be fulfilled in Judah, still other verses sound like they are Messianic prophecy, and then some scripture could be interpreted as 'end times' prophecy.  And this stuff is all mixed together into what I would call a time smoothie.  I'm challenging anybody to come up with a flowchart for Isaiah that could help us visually straighten out the history and prophecy.

Nevertheless, we were still able to glean some good messages from the chapter.  First of all, we need to fear God.  It's evident in just the chapters of Isaiah we've read so far, that God desires us to rely on Him alone.  If we truly fear Him more than anything else, then we will not rely on idols or sorcery or foreign nations or addictions or ourselves (etc.) to deal with circumstances and situations that make us uncomfortable or frighten us.  Thanks to the forgiveness we have through Jesus, God will no longer destroy us for not fearing Him.  However, we know from the last verse of Ecclesiastes that "...God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

An encouraging part of chapter 10 is just to realize how far God is willing to go to purify His chosen people of Israel, no matter what they've done to anger and insult Him.  What a comfort it is that we can ask God to purify us, even if we have neglected or completely ignored our relationship with Him, and He will go to great lengths to increase our righteousness.  I pray that we would all continue to ask God to change us and give Him all the praise and glory when He does.

Next week we will be discussing Isaiah 17.  As always, there is an open invitation to anybody to host our group, cook some food, bring a lesson/topic, or offer a service/ministry/outreach opportunity.  Thanks for reading.

God Bless!

July's Fellowship Night

We had some well-toasted chicken alfredo sandwiches from Julie and some regular 'ol corn from Bud (I kid, but seriously.)  Aside from the food, there was much merrymaking and then we started on some games.  The kitchen group tried their hand at the deceptively complex Blokus, while the living room group made a run at the previously unplayed Master & Commander.  I can't speak to the Blokus experience, as I was too busy mastering and commanding the faces off of my opponents.  I'll just say I finished the second game we played with more ships than I had at the beginning.

Next week we discuss Isaiah chapter 10.

God Bless!