Isa 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near:
There is a time that is called “while He may be found.” It is a mysterious thing, perhaps, “while it is yet day.” No matter, there is no doubt there is a time to seek the Lord while He may yet be found. In the broadest sense and for the most part it is life itself. Almost always while there is yet breath in our lungs, He may be found. Yet in the the very next sentence we are told “let the wicked forsake his way (note the singular nature of the word, it does not say his ways) The wicked are on a wrong path altogether and in order to turn to God they must reverse their course and go in the exact opposite direction. Yet it’s not just his way that has to change, it’s his thoughts too. It is not so much what we are saved out of, for the Lord can deliver us from the gates of hell, it is what we are saved into. The thoughts of a man make up the core of who he is. The true measure of the new man in the new birth is that his very mind has been transformed. And from the depths of who he is, God changes him from the inside out. And now we shall see, glory to God, that out of the abundance of a mans heart the mouth speaks. And it speaks of Jesus.
Now it is certainly true that God will not always strive with a man. A mans heart can be so hardened and his conscience so seared that his time has come and gone, this is a truly terrifying position. If you find yourself coming close to that place, turn and run to God with everything that is in you. He shall still be found. For He will have mercy upon that man and He will abundantly pardon. We as saints may be tempted to think we are living in a world that is beyond redemption, I have thought that thought many times. Yet here is the humility, God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways My ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.(Isa 55:8-9) And so just as the rain and the snow falls from the heavens and waters the earth and it brings forth seed for the sower and therefore bread for the hungry, so also does the Word of the God fall down upon the earth. It comes forth from His heart and it always accomplishes what He desires. To the thirsty, behold, water. To the hungry, behold, bread.
And so to those who are watered by the Lord, those who have sought Him out, their thirst is quenched to overflowing. And to those who have been fed by the Lord, they are filled to abundance. They shall stretch out the curtains of their spiritual dwellings for it shall be enlarged. They shall go forth with joy and be led out by peace and the mountains and the hills shall burst into singing before them. And the trees of the field shall clap their hands in delight to see such things. It can clearly be seen that goodness and mercy are following them all the days of their lives. And the thorns and the cares of life are replaced by fruitful trees and evergreens. And they shall always bring forth His fruit in season and they shall never wither for they are as the ones planted by the river, the river of God, the river of life and this river runs with them wherever they go.
Seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. That scripture is a lovers call not a burdensome command. It calls us and woos us. It beckons us to come like the lover in the night in the song of Solomon. It caresses our hearts and our spirits. Shall we respond? Shall we walk with Him in the cool of the day? Shall we give ourselves to Him? Shall our hearts meet with His heart and shall we feel it burn within us? There are many distractions in this world, so many. Yet we must rise above them all. And we can rise, for we have been given wings that can spread out and catch the updrafts of His presence. He bids us come and it is His very presence that carries upwards, that carries us to the throne room itself. It is there, before the beauty of His Holiness, that we are changed forevermore. There before His glorious majesty that we are transformed. There before His resplendent glory that we are sanctified. It is there where all things are possible. Right there where very soon millions upon millions of saints from every tribe and every tongue and every nation shall cry with all that is within them, Holy, Holy, Holy, is our Lord God Almighty who sits upon the throne, who was, and is and forever shall be. Like a endless wheat field as far as the eye can see, moving as one like the waves of a vast ocean as the wind of the Spirit moves them in unison.
The woman with the alabaster flask in Luke’s account is possibly a prostitute. Her alabaster, being very expensive, undoubtedly was paid for by her “work.” It may even have been her life savings, her security, her future, all inside this jar which she would have clutched tightly to herself. Yet, in her encounter with Jesus, she breaks this jar open and pours out everything she has. Now, all her security, her past works, are laid at the feet of Jesus. In laying herself bare before Jesus, she finds forgiveness and enters into true intimacy and actual love, something she”s have been searching her whole life for. Those who are forgiven much, love much. Those who love this much are willing to sacrifice everything they have.
Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,
This scripture speaks of Cyrus, who would conquer Babylon. Cyrus, it is said, was an outcast, left abandoned by his mother as a child and saved by a herdsman’s wife. From an outcast he would rise by the power of God and one day take Babylon. Consider Babylon. There are estimates that its walls were anywhere between one hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty five feet tall and between forty five and seventy five feet thick. Six chariots abreast could race along the tops of its walls. Its radius was estimated to be somewhere in the region of forty five mile which is the equivalent of modern day London. Imagine the whole of London ringed by such walls? And the Lord had raised up an outcast that would one day take this city and free the Jewish people. God would open before him gates that would not be shut. He would make the crooked places straight and break in pieces gates of bronze and bars of iron. He would give him the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places.
God is in the business of raising up outcasts and those who have been abandoned. To those who find Him He makes straight their paths. He gives us the power to overcome every obstacle. There are no doors that He cannot open. There are no mountains too high that He cannot help us climb. No waters to deep that we cannot navigate by the power of His strength. He gives us the treasures of darkness. The riches that are to be found in the depths of our calamities and in the presence of our enemies. He takes the ashes of our broken lives and the hidden places of our hearts and makes beauty from them. We who were poor and outcast and abandoned He has made rich and whole by His presence. He has transformed us and He uses us to share the glory of God to the captives that they may be set free. To the crushed and broken hearted that they may be made whole. Rain down you heavens from above and let the sky pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation. And let righteousness spring up together for I the Lord have created it. (Isa 45:8)
Isa 44:3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring:
The Lord our God has made so many promises to His people. He said He would never leave us not forsake us. He said He would endue us with power from on high. He said He would satisfy those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He promised that the meek would inherit the earth and that the pure in heart would see God. He promised the Kingdom of heaven to those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. He promised that the peacemakers shall be called the sons of God. He promised the over-comers, those who endure to the end, that they would eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God. To the same over-comers He promised that they shall not be hurt by the second death. To those who are faithful unto death He promised the crown of life. Hidden manna, a new name, the power over nations and the morning star. Finally, He promises to the faithful, that they shall sit down with Him on His throne and rule and reign with Him.
These, you will notice, are not unconditional promises. We have our part to play. Yet for the joy and the glory set before us, we shall gladly lay down our lives for the name and for the sake of Jesus. He will pour water on the thirsty and floods of water on the dry ground. And for those of His who ask He shall pour out His spirit upon them, He shall fill them and fill them and fill them again with power from on High. They shall stand where others fall. They shall love where others hate. They will be peace-makers in a land of division and strife. They will be pure of heart in a world that is horribly corrupt. His blessings shall pour forth on the offspring of His own and they shall spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses. They shall fly like summer larks in the golden hues of a setting sun. They will soar like eagles among the mountaintops. The sons and the daughters of God shall be a manifestation of His presence in the land and the world has yet some hope while they walk this earth.
(Isa 43:18-19) Do not remember the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
The past flows away like a mighty river that rushes onto the sea. Yet the river keeps on flowing. No matter where we go the river keeps on flowing. Even in the wilderness the river flows. Even in the desert the river flows. In the midst of all of your trials and difficult circumstances, still the river flows. It flows in one direction, it flows out from and back to the Father’s hearts. Follow the river brothers and sisters. We can think back about all the mighty things the Lord has done for us. We can remember our salvation, our deliverance from this world with great joy. We can think about how He changed us, how He molded us, how He led us and guided us and how marvelous are these memories. Yet God Almighty is the God of now and what is to come.
He did not just promise to deliver you from your past, He promised to deliver you home. We cannot camp out or put down roots in the past, we are a traveling people. We are pilgrims and sojourners traveling through this world. The mercies of our past only points us to a God who delivers everyday. The cloud that goes before us is still there and it is leading us home. It keeps us from the noonday sun and leads us. The fire by night burns bright still, and still it burns, and will continue to burn with ever greater intensity the closer we get to home. Look up you saints who have been on the road awhile and see the greater glory of your God. You now know just how faithful He is even when you were not. You know that all of His promises have been yes and amen. And as we journey home our spirits begin to catch glimpses of a place that no eye has seen. An eternal home so otherworldly that our hearts have not even contemplated such a place. Our spirits quicken as we approach, the outer-man may be perishing, but the spirit swells in anticipation of the ultimate new thing. Glory to God, draw us home.
These hand of mine Father, so many times, in any number of situations, I’ve wanted to throw them up in the air in despair, or wash my hands of something completely, or use them to literally beat someone. Yet you Lord, have called me to raise my hands up, not in despair or anger but in surrender. For most of my life I never knew what that looked like, this “letting go.” Father, help my lack of surrender, show me always what that looks like in every situation that I may always walk in Your peace. Surrender, to the world, is defeat. Surrender to you Lord is victory. My hearts desire Lord is to always walk in the shadow of Your victory.
Isa 35:2………………they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.
All the world without Christ is but a fruitless wilderness. A barren soulless desert in which nothing blooms. A dead place, a place without living water, a place only of the dying. I would argue that the world we live in is a soulless barren place. A place given over to sin and death and destruction. A world that has “crossed the Rubicon,” and been given over to a reprobate mind. A world not unlike the times of Noah where “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”(Gen 6:5) And yet, within this dead and dying world there exists the Kingdom of God in the hearts of the saints.
Even when we are surrounded by such a barren desert of wickedness, God has strengthened the weak hands and made firm the feeble knees. He says to His people who may be fearful of heart at what they see “be strong, do not fear, behold your God will come with vengeance with the recompense of God, He will come and save you.” (Isa 35:4) Brothers and sisters, He has given us the strength to survive in this wicked desert world. He promised us that the waters shall burst forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water. A highway shall be there and a road and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. This is where you shall find the redeemed of the Lord as they make their way to Zion with everlasting joy.
Saints, we are traveling on this Highway of Holiness that traverses the desert places. We are as a pool of water to the thirsty. We are streams in the desert. Living waters flow through us from heaven above. We not only survive but live an abundant spiritual life where no life should be. We have joy where there should be no joy. We have peace when all around us have lost their minds. We are marching to Zion and there is a joy that dwells within us that is perpetually filled from the inexhaustible wells of salvation. The world shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God as we march along, in lockstep with one another, the Highway of Holiness, the narrow road that leads us home. Take strength brothers and sisters, the Lord is at the door, we are almost home. In His strength alone we shall endure and overcome.
Psa 27:13 I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Can I go a wee bit further brothers and sisters. I would have died unless I had seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I have seen His goodness. I have laid down in that goodness the way a child lays down in the arms of his mother. He has been so good to me. I am not hoping in some goodness in some future time, I am alive because of the goodness of God. He was good to me in the depths of the fire. When everything around me was falling to pieces, when I was hard pressed on every side, He was good to me. When I was lying wounded on the battle field of life, His goodness came charging in on a white Horse and picked me up. When I could see no way ahead and despair began rising like mighty floodwaters all around me, His goodness lifted me up to higher ground.
The Lord is my strength and my shield and my heart rejoices in Him. ‘When my mother and my father forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.” Many saints have been rejected by their loved ones for a myriad of reasons and the Lord is with them through it all. His goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. In the great dark dungeons of our lives, Gods goodness light up the way out. When we are faced with challenges that we simply cannot face, His goodness brings strength to our inner man. “In the time of my trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion.” Oh brothers and sisters, I know this pavilion, I have hidden there many many times. In the secret place of His tabernacle He hid me and set me high upon a rock.
The greatest desire of my life has been to dwell in the house of the Lord. His pavilion, His tabernacle. I want to dwell there all the days of my life to behold the beauty and the holiness of my God. Yes indeed, I would have died if I had not seen these places, not hidden in these places, not run into that High Tower. The Lord is my light and my salvation and my goodness and He is the strength of my life. My own strength has failed me so many times, and I am glad, for in my weakness, I experienced the goodness of God. In my weaknesses I boast. I can do no other. And in that boast the power of Christ rests upon me. For surely, when I am weak, He is strong in me. When I am dying, His goodness is displayed in me. When I come to the end of myself the Lord Jesus is there for all the world to see. Lord Jesus, be glorified in your servants
Isa 12:3 Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
William Cowper, in his famous hymn “God moves in a mysterious way,” writes “Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.” Even when God is angry with His people, His plan is moving forward. We can trust Him in all things. His ways are higher than our ways, He sees it all, we see a snapshot. And in that snapshot we often only see the dire circumstances that surround us, but of course there is an unfolding plan that will not change. “His purposes will ripen fast,unfolding every hour.The bud may have a bitter taste,but sweet will be the flow’r.” There is a bitter taste in the world today brothers and sisters, no doubt, but the sweet smelling aroma of His presence is with us still, in the hearts of His saints. No matter how bitter the hour, how pleasant is our Lord and God who holds us and sustains us in the midst of it all.
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.(Rom 5:1-2) We rejoice in the hope and the glory of God. God is our salvation, God alone is our strength. His strength and power and and glory are without beginning and they have no end. They are inexhaustible. Therefore, brothers and sisters, because of this great truth we shall draw near to Him with great Joy and draw waters from these inexhaustible wells, the glorious wells of our salvation. As the land is ravaged by drought, we who are found in Him shall never thirst as we draw near to Him. “Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill He treasures up His bright designs and works His sov’reign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head.” Thank you for the rain Lord, thank you for your refreshing waters that water the very depths of our souls.
Isa 8:6 Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly………….Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many.
The still small voice of God that leads His people, whether through quiet times or tumultuous times, it leads them on. His people rejoice in it. They are comforted by it. Every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God, whether written or softly spoken to the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, is manna to the souls of His very own. Yet to those who claim to be His, this is not sufficient for them. They are discontented. They see the things of the world and they want them them and are jealous for them. They admire cultures and other countries and they despise their own, Whether in the natural or in the spiritual, the same disaster falls upon them in the end, they get what they want. And the tumultuous waters of their own desires rises up and shatters them.
The malcontent is left broken. The mighty waters of their own greed and lack of thankfulness has swept away everything. If any structure is left it is full of stinking mud and the stench is awful. This applies to individuals and nations. There is a mighty flood coming and it is coming because the people have rejected the still waters of Shiloah. It will reach up to the neck, bringing terror to those caught in its swift flowing power. Yet, there is a remnant who love to hear the still small voice of the Lord. Who love to dwell beside the still waters. The Lord Himself has led us there. He has planted us beside the waters and we are like evergreen trees which gives its fruit in season and whose leaves do not wither. Rejoice and be thankful brothers and sisters in the still small voice of the Lord that flows gently through the depths of who we are. It is the waters of life, the river of life, that flows from the throne of God.
1Pe 1:8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
This unspeakable joy that is full of glory belongs to those who truly know Him and to those alone. The glory of God and His manifest presence in your life causes immeasurable joy even in the context of 1st Peter where Peter is addressing grevious trials and fires of afflictions. The mark of the saint is that his mind is set on things above. His spirit is led by the Spirit. The Spirit of God magnifies the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts and all the more so when we wade through troubled waters. Imagine, rejoicing in the midst of troubled waters! Imagine having a vision in the midst of being stoned to death and crying out to God to forgive those who cast the stones. We can rejoice in everything brothers and sisters.
Have you experienced unspeakable joy? Do you know what it is to rejoice and give thanks in the midst of various trials? This, we are told, is for the testing of our faith, the genuineness of our faith. The joy of the Lord we are here told is “unspeakable.’ There are no sufficient words to describe what it means to experience His presence. Even although we do not see Him, we sense Him in the deepest parts of who we are, in the bear essence of our existence. He comes to His own. We draw near to Him, He draws near to us. And His very nearness cause our hearts to burn within us. The joy of the Lord begins to fill us and as it does it begins to strengthen us in our inner man. We change in His presence. People can see it in our faces. They do not know how to describe it but they can see it on our “countenance.” The Love of God , His love for us, our Love for Him is the foundation of it all. Rejoice today brothers and sisters.
Heb 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
The Lord Jesus Christ “learned obedience,” by the things He suffered. Though the Lord was never disobedient , He had never before wore the outer garments of flesh and walked the world as a man. And in that capacity, He learned in the Garden the full weight of His calling which was to bear the cross for all mankind. We must learn from this brothers and sisters. We must understand the nature of suffering and its value to us as eternal beings. It is easy enough to say that we would never deny our Lord, it is quite another to not deny our Lord in the flames of trial and tribulation and suffering.
Just as the Lord Jesus put on flesh to come to earth, so we must put off flesh to go to heaven. We know the instructions from the Lord, take up your cross, daily. If any man or woman would follow Him, they must also follow Him by learning obedience in the midst of suffering. It is, to coin a phrase, a required class. Those who suffer with Christ will reign with Him, It is a door we must pass through, it is for the testing and refining of our faith. Blessed are those who suffer for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. The valley of Achor is the valley of tears and it is a door of hope brothers and sisters. In the wilderness and in the midst of suffering He will come to us, He will visit the very depths of our souls.
In that place you will learn intimacy in ways you could never truly understand. And in the depths of this intimate relationship you will learn to stand. You will take on Christ and the armor of God as He meets you there. You will set your face like flint for the joy set before you, for as He endured then so shall you. He endured the cross and the shame and He sat down at the right hand of His Father. By the strength that comes through suffering and by the obedience that we learn in the midst of it, we shall be empowered to radical obedience. An obedience not born of passivity but rather an active obedience. The former is good, the latter is great. Let us learn together brothers and sisters so that we can say along with brother Job, even if He kills us yet shall we trust Him.
In our childhood many of us roamed through the native woods and seen some old fallen forest tree rotting where it lay. Through the decaying wood, the earthworms and insects burrow, and perhaps the adder has built its nest and raised its poisonous brood, so that we have feared to sit down on the old, putrefying mass, and have thought of it as a type of corruption and decay. That mass of putrefaction may well represent the ruin of our sinful nature. But have we not sometimes seen a little shoot of unsullied whiteness in the early spring growing up through the rotten wood, and rising out of the mass of corruption as undefiled as the sunny wing of a dove, or the gentle hand of a babe, beautiful and pure, and unstained even by the touch of corrupting elements around it, until it has grown into a tree and covered itself with luxurious green , and our hands have plucked from its branches the luscious berries of the summer woods? It was life in the midst of death, purity amid corruption, having no connection whatever with the soil in which it grew and incapable of mixture with its defilement. Precisely so is the life of holiness in the soul (A.B.Simpson)
Can you glimpse into the words of this dear old saint? He is talking about your sanctification. How out of death and corruption rises the holiness of God. The old man is decaying and dying and rotting where it lies as unattended death does. The dying and the death. The dying of the cross was a long business, it was designed to be so by those cruel Romans. They had perfected the art of having nailed a man to a tree but keeping him alive as long as they possibly can. This is the death of the cross. The flesh does not go quietly. It shouts and it screams its protests and we we hear it, dont we saints? We hear our flesh as it wars against our spirit. We long for its death to be done and even then for its body to be laid in the grave. Our spirit is willing and will live forever, but our flesh is weak and knows it already defeated but still it shall not go quietly, but go it shall.
In the natural the sicker someone becomes, the closer to death they get, the less that they can do. They can no longer climb a flight of stairs, no longer walk around the block, can barely bend over and if they sit down they have great difficulty getting back up. Old age and sickness robs the flesh of the strength that it once had. Yet, are you not glad that the Scripture tells us that the outer man may be perishing yet his spirit is being renewed each day. The dying of the flesh has no bearing on the life of the spirit, quite the opposite. Your spiritual tree should be covered with luxurious green. Fruit should hang from every branch. You roots should be fed directly because you abide beside the river. In season, out of season, you are a tree planted by the waters. A tree that grew out of corruption which you threw of daily by means of the cross until you rendered it all but harmless. The old corrupt tree lies formless on the ground. You, dear saint, no matter how old you are, stand tall and strong in the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom you can run and not grew weary, you can walk and not faint and you can rise up with wings as eagles. Rise up today saints, you who have waited upon the Lord.
A Call To The Remnant 