July 8, 2010
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Isaiah 29 by Pastor Don Moore
Notes from 4-2-10 Bible Study.
Isaiah 29:16 Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; for shall the thing made say of him who made it, “He did not make me”? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
Things are turned around. The teachings of men and the carnal mind are being taught as truth, but they conflict with the teachings and the person of God.
We are always in transformation but GOD IS FOUNDATIONAL. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Sin is sin and it has been bad from the beginning. Nothing has changed. God will not change His position based on current trends. We go back to God and try to get Him to change what He said, but God does not change His Word.
Our culture tells us we are not thin enough, tall enough, short enough. If we listen to culture we will think that we are deficient and incomplete, not seeing who we really are in Christ. The end of it, if we listen to cultural norms, is that we blame God for who we are not. We become so dissatisfied with ourselves. We criticize our life and what we are really criticizing is God. Did God mess this up or was it our nature? What is the difference between a weed and a flower? Are we criticizing God’s creation? Should we go to a place where we are esteeming ourselves as more than God? NO! Each of us receives a measure of faith. What do you do with it? Do you use it to improve or grow? What we do with the faith God has given us will determine if we get stronger or weaker. When we question God it is astonishing arrogance. Who made who?
Isaiah 30:1 Woe to the rebellious children,” says the LORD, “Who take counsel, but not of Me, and who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin;…”
If we are doing our plan, not God’s plan, we are adding sin to sin. Left to ourselves we leave right for a position of weakness, we tend to allow and permit ourselves to sin. When we devise our plan we devise it to leave room for our sin. When God says, “Don’t,” DON’T! We want to provide ourselves a fudge factor. We struggle, but God’s plan is, “Be holy because I am holy.” Our own plans that we devise to permit our sins are opposite of what God has planned for us.
Step into the truth – call sin what it is – SIN. Believe you are freed from it, no matter how hard it takes.
Isaiah 29:20-21 …or the terrible one is brought to nothing, the scornful one is consumed, and all who watch for iniquity are cut off—who make a man an offender by a word, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and turn aside the just by empty words.
We will be judged according to how we judge others, that does not mean that we don’t judge, but it is how we judge. We are to realize that everyone has stuff that does not line up with the Word of God.
Isaiah 30:1-2 “Woe to the rebellious children,” says the LORD, “Who take counsel, but not of Me, and who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who walk to go down to Egypt, and have not asked My advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!”
They are doing this without consulting God. That is a problem. The Church has not taught people how to hear so even if they ask about their concern, they don’t know how to listen for the response from God. We all have our system and it is flawed unless we learn to get beyond our cultural system and put God’s label on it. We do what gratifies us and think it is from God. Some prophesy over us and we like what they say for it feeds our flesh. We must TEST what is prophesied over us. Ask ourselves, how did God tell you this? Is it from God or is it from our desires? Did the prophet confirm what God has already told us or is it a word out of the blue?
If you hang out a fleece you will get fleeced. Nothing we hear from God will be based on circumstantial changes or by chance. God wants to be in our every day decisions that we make, and He wants us to conform to what our Spirit man is telling us. If we don’t know how to get in touch with our spirit man there is no way to know if God is pleased if we don’t listen. Put up the right antenna and practice hearing from God.
As we walk and talk with Jesus, we have a little closed off place. We are not going to go to Him for advice if our hearts if we are hiding secret sins.
Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Put air to your desires, speak it out and God will respond, giving you advice and showing you how to get your desires. He wants so bad for you to do this. He needs to know our plans so He can let us know if they line up with His Word, or if it is not part of His plan for our lives. God’s plan will take care of your needs if you are doing HIS PLANS. His plan includes your plan. You are never too old to be led by God.
Isaiah 30:6 The burden against the beasts of the South. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from which came the lioness and lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who shall not profit;
They should not go back to Egypt-land, that was not God’s plan for them.
Isaiah 30:7 For the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose. Therefore I have called her Rahab-Hem-Shebeth.
Rahab-Hem-Shebeth means Rahab sits idle, or Rahab the do nothing.
We recalled the story of Rahab the prostitute in the book of Joshua. Rahab identifies the spies as Israelites and hides them from the enemy. She is given protection and ultimately ends up marrying an Israelite, and is listed in the lineage of Jesus Christ.
Don’t sit down in the desert for you will be destroyed. We can’t go back to the old thing and trade in it, we need to keep moving in the direction God is sending us. If our usual response to stress is drugs or alcohol, we can’t go back and do those things for that is like returning to Egypt. Egypt was the place to go before, but now it is not what God wants for us.
Philippians 4:4-9 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.
The prophet who is speaking into our lives should be doing the right thing. The prophet and pastor should be on the same page.
Jeremiah 31:27-30 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.” And it shall come to pass, that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to throw down, to destroy, and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD. In those days they shall say no more: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.
He can pluck up and beak down, throw down destroy and afflict, uprooting what is evil, breaking it down. If you pull up a plant by the roots there is still dirt stuck in the roots, you need to hit the plant on the ground to knock the good dirt from among the roots. You don’t want to get rid of the good stuff with the bad stuff. God will destroy the bad stuff in the soil and leave the soil prepared for good seed. We can make this process easier for us if we would only come to God sooner instead of later. Usually we wait until we are in affliction before we come to God. Affliction doesn’t have to be a way of life for us, if we only sought to get to the end of ourselves. We either cry out to God or die in our affliction.
If we look at the landscape, it could look afflicted, after the bad is uprooted, but it is now ready for the new. If you break up fallow ground it looks worse. Stop doing the past way of thinking, of traditions. Don’t trust in traditions, trust in the new that God is doing in your life. Be ready to receive. It took Job 32 chapters to get ready, to get to the point where He says, Job 19:25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth. Job chose to trust God in spite of the circumstances of His life. Job 13:15a Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Psalm 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.
We don’t want to pay the price when the prophetic comes crashing into your life.
A pastor loves on the sheep. An evangelist is looking for fresh meat, uses signs and wonders, which is biblical. But the evangelist can be in serious trouble if he loses God’s focus. He can cast out demons, heal the sick and lead people to salvation, but there needs to be a pastor to pick up pieces and help mend and grow the sheep.
We can have a mental conviction that what the Bible says about signs and wonders is true, but without demonstration, it is preaching. Evangelism uses signs and wonders.
The evangelist may have prophetic words and be operating in the gifts of the spirit, he may prophesy and have words of knowledge, and operate in the 12 operational gifts, but we need to remember that the greatest gift is spiritual revelation of the heart.
A Biblical teacher must operate and live everything that he teaches. He can prepare people for the gifts of the spirit and teach them out of carnality. Bu the Biblical teacher should be operating out of the anointing to perform all that he teaches.
Jesus taught 5000+. He taught them for three days and realized they needed food. He told the people that He was the Son of Man (Son of God). He was able to feed the 5000 . Later, after speaking to a crowd of 4000, Jesus asked the disciples to provide for the people and they were unable to do it. The disciples were talking to Jesus about the money and how hard it was to get to a village to get food for the people Jesus sat the people down and taught the disciples by demonstration.
Your character has to be what sustains you in the pulpit when you have to deal with stuff. Jesus showed the disciples that whatever you have, if you bring it to God, He can multiply it, that it’s MORE THAN ENOUGH. To further illustrate the point to the disciples the few loaves and fishes left 12 baskets of leftovers, which the disciples had to pick up – one basket per disciple.
God takes what you have and multiplies it, and you will have excess.
El Shaddai – the God of More than Enough. The little boy did not complain, he gave God what he had without reservation and let God do the work. GOd will do more with our portion than we can imagine.
Jeremiah 31:28 And it shall come to pass, that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to throw down, to destroy, and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD.
The prophet is letting us know that God will not let us build what God is going to bless us with on top of the old foundation. We need to identify and ask God to help us remove our sacred cows. God will watch over them and build and plant a new seed that only God can grow.
The prophet is not to be the church but to put the church into the position to be the Church God wants. Every church needs people with prophetic giftings. There are different levels of prophetic gifting. Some pluck up and tear down, some breathe fire into the congregation, some name and label sins, some bring affliction and sorrow of heart , digging out the pain and drawing it into the open so it can be dealt with by God. Some bring conviction and church growth. Some build up and plant new churches. Some explain what is happening in current events, the causes and solutions.
I pray this blesses you.
Heather
