Isaiah 24-27
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Devastation & Restoration audio (3MB)
The great temptation for Christians as well as for the Jews is the temptation to take God’s grace for granted; even worse, to feel a sense of superiority, of smugness, because we’re part of God’s chosen people. The way to overcome that temptation is to remember that with the privilege of being God’s people comes the responsibility to remain faithful; to allow God to be God in every part of our lives.
That was the thing that the people of Judah had forgotten. As we’ll see in a moment they’d ignored God’s laws and God was about to punish them by removing his protection from them.
As we come to ch 24-27 we find a global vision on a massive scale. It’s as though the camera pans out from Jerusalem to the whole earth. As we look on we see God’s judgment engulfing the earth.
You may have noticed that there are great similarities between Isaiah and the book of Revelation and here’s another. Here we find a tale of two cities similar to the message of Revelation. God is about to judge all those who rebel against him yet at the same time a remnant of the Lord’s people will be saved from destruction and brought to security in a future Zion, the city of God. But first let’s look at the beginning of Ch 24.
Judgement on the Oppressor
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- Written by: Adam Cetrangolo
audio (5MB)
Well let me begin by saying this is a difficult reading.It’s a difficult reading not only because we need to understand something of the complex history between Assyria and Judah and the covenant relationship between God and the people of Israel … but even more fundamentally it’s difficult because it deals with human pride, death and destruction and where God is in all of that.
And both individually and corporately these are issues that all of us have to deal with at some stage in our lives.
If we think about our own community here … we have seen the building at St Theodore’s DESTROYED … there’s just a plot of land there now … and … hopefully … in the next few months we are going to see part of this site redeveloped as well. As a community we’ve also experienced the passing of loved ones in the past couple of years … and at some point or another, we’ve probably all been prideful in some way … we’ve thought … well … ‘we’re OK … we’ve done pretty well for ourselves.’
When building permits get granted and sites get sold and local residents have no complaints about our plans … we can say ‘God’s in this!’ … ‘God is blessing our work!’ … ‘We’ve been faithful!’And don’t get me wrong … I’m not suggesting that this is not the case, what I am suggesting, following today’s reading, is that things are not always what they seem and that we have to keep coming before the Lord in prayer lest we neglect God in our planning.
The Prince of Peace
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- Written by: Heathere Cetrangolo
audio (6MB)
Israel was a divided nation during Isaiah’s life … and the two kingdoms were under threat of foreign invasion. That threat became a reality in Isaiah’s lifetime.
By 722 BCE the Assyrians had conquered the northern kingdom and ten tribes (of the 12) had been relocated and scattered throughout what is today Syria, Iraq and Turkey (predicted in chapter 7 of Isaiah)
In 586 BCE (as predicted by Isaiah) the southern kingdom was also conquered and the people exiled by the Babylonians.
The result of war and exile: mass cultural genocide. It meant that even after return from exile, only a remnant remained of what was once the Jewish nation … a people set apart by God to be a holy people. In a sense, it’s not unlike the remnants of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that remain in our nation today. The damage that was done was so significant that culture, language and story were lost forever:
- The people were murdered
- Raped
- Pillaged
- Used for slave labour
- Forced to scatter, in the hope that their culture would soon be bred out of them
Well, that’s the history behind today’s passage (in brief) … and it’s shocking for two reasons:
1. On a human level violence and war is always shocking and distressing;
2. But from a faith perspective there’s another level …. It’s shocking because God had promised peace to this people.
Seeing the King
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangelo
audio (7MB)
There are moments in life that make us quake. There are moments that make us tremble on the inside … and sometimes we tremble on the outside.
We tremble when we’re nervous, when we’re afraid, when we’re overwhelmed by emotion, and sometimes when we’re very sick, or in a lot of pain.
When I was 18 I went through an experience that made me think that there was something really wrong with my health. You see within the network of friends that I hung out with at that time, was a young man whose name was Adam. I’d known him for a number of years and he was a mutual friend. It was around June 2001, when I began to notice, that every time I was around Adam, my heart would beat a little faster than normal. On the inside I would tremble, in his presence. At first I thought maybe I just had an iron deficiency, but over time I noticed, that it was getting worse. It got to the point that every single time this young man came near me, my heart began to pound so hard, that I thought it was going to burst through my chest.
I remember crying out to the Lord one day, ‘What is wrong with me? I can’t calm down. My heart won’t slow down. I can’t breathe properly. I’m completely unsettled. What is wrong with me?’
A little sentence came into my mind … ‘Maybe you’re in love with Adam.’ I thought, ‘shut up shut up shut up! I don’t want to know that. If it’s an iron deficiency, I can fix that … but if I’ve fallen in love, well, then what am I gonna do?’
Isaiah 5
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
The Song of the Vineyard audio (5MB)
I grew up in the 60’s listening to the Beatles. If you know anything about their music you’ll know that most of it was love songs: ‘I want to hold your hand’, ‘She loves you’, ‘From me to you’. And it was a winner because everyone loves a love song and everyone can relate to them. Of course not every love song is a happy one. Sometimes they’re more like a lament. That boy took my love away but this boy, wants you back again. She’s ignoring him, he comes to her door and there’s No Reply. I can’t sleep at night since you’ve been gone, ... I call your name.
Well Isaiah gathers the people of Jerusalem together and sings them a love song which turns out to be a parable. It starts out very happy like a good love song
The Hope of a Harvest
You can imagine the people settling down to hear this song of love and devotion. “My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it.” If you’ve been out along the Yarra Valley lately you can imagine the scene. Rolling hills, green fields, rows of vines lining the road as you pass by. A stone farmhouse in the middle. It’s an idyllic description isn’t it? The watchtower indicates that he’s here for the long haul. And he’s dug a wine vat to store the wine so he must expect a great harvest. Everything that could be done for the vineyard has been done. The best position, the best soil, the choicest vines.
But then like every good parable we come to the sting in the tail.
