Devotions

vicious vintner

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 27:1-6

¹On that day, Yahveh will punish Leviathan with his cruel, large and strong sword, that fleeing serpent, and Leviathan, that twisting serpent, and he will kill the sea monster that lives in the sea. ² On that day: “A vineyard of beauty! Sing in praise of it! ³ I, Yahveh, am her keeper; I water it moment by moment; so no harm comes to it, I guard it night and day; ⁴ There is no wrath against me. Whatever brings me thorns and briers, I will fight against in battle. I will burn it up completely. ⁵ Or let it grasp at my protection; let it make peace with me; peace let it make with me.” ⁶ The ones who come, he will root in Jacob; Israel will blossom and send out shoots, and they will fill the world’s face with fruit.

vicious vintner

Israel is depicted as a vineyard, and Yahveh as a vicious protective vintner, determined to grow his vineyard and destroy all obstacles. The great sea monster, Leviathan, can not stop him. No one dares display wrath toward that vineyard keeper. He does not take prisoners. He waters the vineyard, but he burns up the thorns and briers. His goal is to fill the world’s face with fruit from his vineyard. The only way to avoid destruction from this vicious vintner? Make peace with him – become part of his vineyard. He can root you in Jacob. Have you made peace with him?

LORD, we surrender. Make us part of your eternal vineyard.

Posted in evangelism, sovereignty of God, submission | Tagged Isaiah 27 | Leave a comment

He brings life

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 26:16-21

¹⁶Yahveh, in distress they have approached you; they poured out an whispering prayer, feeling your discipline upon them. ¹⁷ Like a pregnant woman at the time of giving birth, she writhes; she cries in her labor pains. So we were because of your presence, Yahveh. ¹⁸ We became pregnant, we writhed; we produced wind. We cannot bring about deliverance to the land, and no residents of the world are born from our efforts. ¹⁹ Your dead will live; my corpse will rise. Wake up and sing for joy, dust dwellers, for your dew is dew of light and the land will resurrect its ghosts. ²⁰Go, my people, enter into your chambers and shut your door behind you; hide for a little, a little while, until wrath has passed over. ²¹ Because, watch! Yahveh –about to emerge from his place to punish the iniquity of the resident of the land against him, and the land will disclose her blood and will no longer cover her slain.

He brings life

Isaiah uses two figures of speech to describe his people’s inability to help themselves in the midst of their crisis. They face annihilation by a foreign enemy because of God’s judgment for their immorality. But they are not able to affect the means of their own deliverance.

When they weakly offered last-minute prayers, it was like coming to the point of delivering a child, only to produce wind.
When the land around them was full of ghosts, so there was no hope of a deliverer emerging from among the people, God steps in and says that he is going to raise the dead.

By means of both figures of speech, Isaiah reminds his people that no matter what their condition, God is not helpless. When he so chooses, he will fulfill his promises. We cannot force him to act. He is under no obligation to regard our feeble attempts at last-minute repentance in order to prevent his judgment. But neither can we prevent him when he wants to raise the dead. The LORD stands as a constant island in a sea of uncertainties. The wise thing to do is put our trust in him, even when our situation seems hopeless.

LORD, we are watching. We trust you to bring life into our barrenness and deadness.

Posted in deliverance, faith, resurrection, sovereignty of God, trust | Tagged Isaiah 26 | Leave a comment

the role of cultural heritage

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 26:12-15

¹²Yahveh, you will ensure peace for us, because even all of our works you have done for us. ¹³ Yahveh, our God, lords besides you have once ruled over us, but we remember your name alone. ¹⁴Those dead gods are not alive now; their dead spirits do not rise because you have punished and destroyed them, and you have destroyed all memory of them. ¹⁵ You have increased the nation, Yahveh. You have increased the nation; you are honored. You have extended all borders of our land.

the role of cultural heritage

The prophet reflects on the heritage of his people. The ancestors of the Israelites were pagans, and had worshipped other gods. Although Isaiah acknowledges that, he does not look back on that heritage with pride. Those were false gods, and Yahveh punished and destroyed them. They are dead in their graves, and will not rise again. Everything good that Israel as a nation had done is by the power and providence of Yahveh. Yahveh has increased the nation, and extended its borders. Yahveh alone is to be honored.

It is popular in many lands today to celebrate all the cultures for their distinctiveness. There is nothing wrong with that, but it can be taken too far. God has given us a reflection of himself in every culture and ethnic group on the planet. But sin has also infected every culture and ethnic group. We need to be careful that we do not elevate a culture’s sinfulness as we celebrate it. The role of cultural heritage is to reflect on the diversity of God’s gift of life, not to replace God.

LORD, we thank you for the wonderful diversity you have given humanity. May we celebrate that diversity, and see your hand in who we are. But may we be careful to worship you, not ourselves.

Posted in ethnic Israel, pride, providence, worship | Tagged Isaiah 26 | Leave a comment

what the wicked do not see

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 26:7-11

⁷ The road the righteous take is a straight path; a level path for the righteous that you make level. ⁸ Without doubt we wait for you on the path that you decided for us, Yahveh, because your name and renown are what the soul desires. ⁹ My soul looks for you during the night, my lungs within me seek you at dawn, because when your judgments come upon the earth, those who live in the world learn about justice. ¹⁰ Even if a wicked person is shown compassion, he does not learn righteousness; he acts unjustly in an upright land, and he does not see the majesty of Yahveh. ¹¹ Yahveh, your hand reaches high, but they do not see that. Let them see, and let them be ashamed of your strong desire for people. Indeed, let the fire of your enemies consume them.

what the wicked do not see

All around us today will be glimpses of the beauty and majesty of God. The poor and hurting will be helped by strangers. The hopeless will find hope – maybe just enough to get through a bad day, but enough. Angels will protect the innocent from possible harm. A sunset will inspire a poet or artist.

But millions will only see what they are prepared to see. They will decry the duplicity of a politician, or lambaste the latest criminal or foolish celebrity. They will not see any good things in life, and their predetermined cynicism will be affirmed.

No matter what your attitude, no matter how much of a prophet you think you are, don’t ignore the good in the world that you see. It may be as simple as a good meal, a nice smile, or a kind word. Appreciate it. The world around us is looking for people with the faith to see God at work every day. Be one of those people.

LORD, show us your love and kindness, and help us to enjoy it so much that the cynical world around us notices it too.

Posted in hope, insight, kingdom of God, vision | Tagged Isaiah 26 | Leave a comment

song of the coming city

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 26:1-6

¹ On that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “There a strong city for us. The Savior[1] will set up walls and a barricade! ² Open gates and a righteous nation who keeps his truths will enter! ³You will protect with complete well-being the one who is faithful because he trusts in you. ⁴ Trust in Yahveh for the future, because in Yah, Yahveh is a rock of ages. ⁵ Because he has thrown down those residing in the high place, he lays low the superior city. He lays it low to the ground; he throws her to dust. ⁶ A foot tramples it, poor feet, needy footsteps.”

song of the coming city

The epitome of strength, protection and security in Isaiah’s day was a walled-in fortified city. He encourages his readers to take their eyes off the high, formidable city of their conquering nation, and think about the city that God promises. He has told them truths, and he expects his readers to be faithful to those truths. The payoff for faithfulness is ultimate protection, complete well-being. The literal term is “shalom-shalom.” Many translations render this phrase “perfect peace.” But our minds are too used to thinking of peace as a merely mental attribute. In an age of warfare and conquest, perfect peace can only come with the complete destruction of all enemies, and the protection from harm. This is what Isaiah offers for the faithful. This is what our coming city offers us. While we wait for Jesus to fulfill that promise at his coming, we can know that peace by trusting in him, and being faithful to his words, regardless of what happens today.

LORD, give us the peace only known by those who are faithful to your truths.

[1] Hebrew: Yeshua (Jesus).

Posted in faithfulness, peace, perseverance, second coming | Tagged Isaiah 26 | Leave a comment

resting or flailing?

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 25:9-12

⁹ And one will say, on that day, “See! This God of ours! We have waited for him and he delivered us! This Yahveh; we waited for him! We should be glad, and rejoice in his deliverance.” ¹⁰ Because the hand of Yahveh will rest on this mountain, and Moab will be trampled down under him as the trampling down of a bale of straw in a manure pile. ¹¹And he[1] will spread out his hands in the midst of it, just as the swimmer spreads out to swim, and his pride will be brought low with the flailing of his hands. ¹² And he will throw down the fortification of the high point of your walls; he will bring it low; he will cause it to touch to the ground, to the dust.

resting or flailing?

A hermeneutical question presents itself in verse 11, when a pronoun “he” is left for the reader to interpret. Is it God or Moab who is spreading out his hands here? My take on the passage is that God’s hand is resting on Mt. Zion (in verse 10), so it is Moab’s hands which are spreading out, flailing about, because he is being crushed by the LORD in verse 11. The flailing is of no use, however, because Moab cannot keep the LORD from knocking down his walls.

Each generation, new walls go up, and societies pride themselves on the ways they have kept God out. But God is not worried. Those walls are no match to his mighty hand. Let today’s culture flail about, spreading its hands in a futile attempt to stop God from getting through. When the LORD decides to act, he will.

LORD, prove the overwhelming power of your mighty hand today. Destroy the walls that keep our friends and neighbors from you.

[1] Moab.

Posted in dependence upon God, providence, sovereignty of God | Tagged Isaiah 25 | Leave a comment

long distance advice

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 25:1-8

¹ Yahveh, my God, it is you; I will applaud you. I will praise your name, because you have done a wonderful thing, what you advise from a distance is firmly faithful. ² Because you have set up a heap of a city; that inaccessible city is now a ruin, a palace of foreigners from what used to be a city; it will not be rebuilt for an age. ³ For this reason, strong people will bring you glory; a city of ruthless Gentiles, they will fear you. ⁴ Because you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in his distress, a shelter from a rainstorm, a shade from heat. Because the breath of the ruthless ones was like a rainstorm against a wall, ⁵ the noise of foreigners like heat in a dry land. You restrained the heat with the shade of a cloud; the song of the ruthless ones was silenced. ⁶ And on this mountain Yahveh of armies will make for all people a fat feast, a feast of aged wines, fat filled with marrow, filtered aged wine. ⁷ And on this mountain he will swallow the face of the shroud, the shroud over all peoples, and the woven covering over all nations. ⁸ He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord Yahveh will wipe off tears from all faces, and he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the land, because Yahveh has spoken.

long distance advice

One of the jobs that Penny and I share involves advising those involved in missions and church work in various countries in Asia and the Pacific. We occasionally have face-to-face visits with the leaders of these ministries. But, most of the time we communicate via emails or Skype calls. Thanks to the miracle of modern electronic communication, we can have an impact on the lives and ministries of believers in many lands – via long distance advice.

Isaiah had given some long distance advise from the LORD to the exiles in Babylon. He told them to be patient, because the LORD was going to deliver them. At some time in the future, the refugees would return. The LORD would swallow up death, wipe away tears, and remove their disgrace.

Those same three promises are ours today. While we may not be exiles in Babylon, we are in bondage. But our king is returning, and he will completely rescue us from that bondage. He will remove from us the penalty of sin (death), the sorrow caused by the curse upon Adam, and the dishonor that has been with us since the fall in Eden.

While we are still here, waiting for Jesus to return and struggling with the consequences of sin and depravity, the LORD has some long distance advice for us. He wants us to trust that what he promises, he will deliver. He wants us to believe that what he promises from a distance is firmly faithful.

LORD, we will stay the course, and trust in your coming deliverance, because your promises are firmly faithful.

Posted in faithfulness, patience, second coming, trust | Tagged Isaiah 25 | 1 Comment

full protection?

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 24:17-23

¹⁷ Terror and a trench and a trap on you, resident of the land! ¹⁸ And this will happen: The one who flees from the sound of the terror will fall into the trench, and the one who goes up from the middle of the trench will be caught in the trap, because windows from heaven are opened, and land foundations tremble. ¹⁹ The land is utterly broken; the land is torn apart; the land is shaken violently. ²⁰ The land staggers here and there like the drunk, and it sways like a hut, and its transgression is heavy upon it, and it falls and does not rise again. ²¹ And this will happen on that day: Yahveh will punish the army of the sky in the sky, and the kings of the land on the land. ²² And they will be gathered as a gathering, like a prisoner at a pit. And they will be kept at a prison and be punished after many days. ²³ And the full moon will be ashamed and the sun will be ashamed, because Yahveh of armies will rule on the mountain of Zion and in Jerusalem, and gloriously before his elders.

full protection?

This morning, while doing the translation work for today’s text, I got a pop-up advertisement from my anti-virus program. Now, I use a very popular free program, which boasts that it protects 188 million users. I know that it works, because in those rare times when someone asks me to take a file from his USB drive, and it has a virus or malware on it, the program catches it and removes it. But this advertisement suggests that my sense of security is unfounded. If I want to be really protected, I will pay the fee to get the whole package. Then I will be safe.

Isaiah spoke to a people who thought that they were covered when it came to protection from harm. After all, they were in God’s land, and protected by God’s rulers, and God’s angels – the army of the sky. But Isaiah’s words pop up on their laptop screens and warn them that their security has all sorts of holes in it. The land is going to be shaken, the rulers imprisoned in shame, and only the LORD will rule gloriously. Every step that the people take to protect themselves from this threat will prove to be in vain.

What is God saying to us today from this prophet? Perhaps he is speaking into the heart of our obsession with protection, insurance, fail-safes, etc. God does not want us to be foolish. There is wisdom in making sure an accident or incident does not destroy or ruin us. But, Isaiah warned his people that the top wrung of the protection ladder is the LORD himself. Without a real relationship with God, they are not fully protected.

LORD, may we have the wisdom to seek shelter in you before disaster proves that all our other means of protection are inadequate.

Posted in judgment, protection, relationship with God | Tagged Isaiah 24 | Leave a comment

no joy in Mudville

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 24:10-16

¹⁰An empty city is broken; every house is shut from entering. ¹¹ I hear an outcry over the wine in the streets. All joy turns into nightfall; the joy of the land disappears. ¹² The city is left a desolation; its gate is crushed –in a state of ruin. ¹³Because it will be like this in the midst of the land, among the nations, like beating an olive tree, like what is left over when a grape harvest is at an end. ¹⁴ They lift up their voice, they sing for joy; they shout out westward over the majesty of Yahveh. ¹⁵ For this reason you should glorify Yahveh in the east, the name of Yahveh the God of Israel in the coastlands of the sea. ¹⁶ We hear songs from the wing of the land: “Glory to the righteous one!” But I say, “Ruin to me! Ruin to me! Woe to me! Treacherous ones are dealing treacherously, and treacherous ones are dealing treacherously — such treachery!”

no joy in Mudville

Today’s text reminded me of the final lines of Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s poem: “Casey at the bat.”

“Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”

Isaiah sees into the near future, and sees the distant nations offering songs of joy to Yahveh, but Jerusalem itself will be broken and in ruins. His readers and hearers could not imagine such a thing. It would be unthinkable that the very city of David would be destroyed, and people elsewhere would continue expressing worship and praise for the LORD.

A mature faith begins to develop in me when I can face times of boredom or despair or loss but still keep my connection with the God I serve. I can face the reality of life as it is, and accept it without putting on a show of false exuberance. I can trust God to be God without pretending that he has fixed (or even will fix) all my problems today. I can look unfulfilled promises and expectations in the face without becoming bitter or losing my faith. I can do this because I realize that my journey is not at its end. The fruit of the Spirit is joy, but the Spirit is also my Comforter in times of sorrow.

LORD, what ever we face today, we determine to face it honestly, and be content to stay with you through the whole journey.

Posted in honesty, joy, sorrow, trust | Tagged Isaiah 24 | Leave a comment

party’s over

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Jefferson Vann

Isaiah 24:4-9

⁴ The land dries up, it withers; the world languishes, it withers. The elevated of the people of the land languish, ⁵and the land is corrupted beneath its residents. Because they have transgressed laws; they have passed by a statute; they have broken a permanent covenant. ⁶Therefore a curse devours the land, and the residents in it suffer for their guilt. Therefore residents of the land burn, and a man of smallness is left. ⁷ New wine dries up; a vine languishes. All who were merry of heart sigh; ⁸ joy of tambourine has stopped. The noise of a jubilant one has ceased; joy of lyre has stopped. ⁹ They do not drink wine with song; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

party’s over

Isaiah speaks from God’s heart, warning his people that they are living to party, and soon the party will be over. While God’s people were busy living for themselves, transgressing laws, ignoring statutes, and breaking his permanent covenant, the LORD pleaded with them through the prophets. But there came a day when the prophets’ words were fulfilled. The party was over. Time to pay the bill. Those who had lived to party found that they could not party any more.

God wants us to enjoy life. But he wants us to be careful not to make our enjoyment the sole purpose of our lives. Judgment day is coming, and we will be held accountable for everything that we say and do. Jesus gives us a reason for living that will stand up in the scrutiny of judgment. He calls us to follow him. When we do so, we find that there is reason to rejoice even when the party is over.

LORD, position us in Christ. Give us his commands as our reason for living. Keep us from wasting our lives on the satisfaction of self.

Posted in commitment, future, joy, judgment | Tagged Isaiah 24 | Leave a comment