Isaiah 60-61
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Arise, Shine for Your Light is Come audio (3MB)
We come today to the end of our series on Isaiah and to the climax of the book. Here we find God’s salvation brought to its culmination. God has come to dwell with his people; and the whole world is drawn to him to receive the salvation he offers.
It’s as though Isaiah sees a vision that slowly unfolds, first of God’s saving work and its implication for the world, then of the task that’s given to God’s people as a result of this salvation.
Isaiah 55
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangolo
The Beautiful People audio (5MB)
Jesus was standing in the synagogue, in Nazareth, and he read from Isaiah 61 …
After he read the passage, he rolled up the scroll, he gave it to the attendant, everyone was staring at him and he said, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
I love that moment … I think because, I imagine, that the scene at the synagogue wouldn’t have been that different to our church gathering here this morning … except that the men and women would have sat separately and the music wouldn’t have been as good and they didn’t have powerpoint, but apart from that …
I can see women gathering at the back with their friends, and catching up on news (which happens here every week) … I can see kids running around outside, thinking “when do we get to eat?” I can see younger men sitting in the front row learning the scripture. I can see the majority of the congregation kind of glazing over as the scripture reading starts, kind of half listening, or hearing the first verse and thinking, ‘oh yeah, I know that one’ … and then young Jesus, who is just like Jamin or Nic or Abel-John … just a young man who everyone knows and people have watched him grow up and do his apprenticeship and make his Bar-Mitzvah …
… he gets up and says, ‘the prophecy has been fulfilled today’ … and people are thinking, ah, ‘Jesus, you’re not supposed to preach, just read the reading and sit down’ … or his brothers and sisters are thinking, ‘what is our embarrassing brother doing now?’ … and some people are thinking, ‘yeah he’s always been a bit strange this one, thinks he’s got a gift of prophecy or something …’
And yet, in that ordinary place, amongst those ordinary people … because of a seemingly ordinary man … the prophecy was indeed fulfilled, in their hearing.
Is 46
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
False God or True audio (3MB)
Do you ever struggle with whether your understanding of God is correct? Do you ever wonder whether we might have got it wrong? After all, there are lots of voices in the world today that are questioning the orthodox view of God, of Christianity. There are lots of people out there offering an alternative view, an alternative way of coming to God. And there are probably even more who think that it doesn’t matter; any god will do as long as you’re sincere in your belief.
The reality is that we’re in the minority, as people who believe that the God of the Bible is the only true and living God. It’d be easy enough to be swayed by the majority view wouldn’t it? The arguments sometimes seem so reasonable.
Is 43
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Fear Not for I have Redeemed You audio (3MB)
The people are in a desperate situation. They’re described in ch42 as being blind and deaf, imprisoned in darkness. God’s patience has worn out and he’s on the warpath. Listen to what he says to them: “42:13The LORD goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. 14For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant. 15I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbage; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.” It sounds like there’s no hope for them. Disaster has fallen on them.
But then comes a dramatic change of tone. The message turns from one of danger from the fire of God’s wrath to a promise of salvation, rescue from the flames.
God is punishing them but that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned them. In fact he’s like a loving father who knows his child has to be punished but only to bring them back to him.
Isaiah 40
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
See Your King is Coming audio (3MB)
“Comfort, Comfort, my People, says your God.” Do you sometimes feel the need for comfort. Cadbury’s and Lindt make a lot of money out of that feeling don’t they? But when you hear a passage like this does it speak to an inner longing? That sense that you need someone else to support and care for you? It’s a word that’s addressed to the people of Israel who were in great need of comfort. The prophet Isaiah speaks to them and says: “Here is what God says to you: ‘Be comforted.’” The repetition of the verb is meant to add emotional intensity to the call. It’s as though God is pleading with his people to take comfort in his words. He says “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” Literally, “speak to her heart.” The way lovers woo each other, speaking sweet nothings to one another, wooing, persuading, inviting a response of love. But then “cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.”
Sometimes we have trouble hearing when God speaks to us, but here the prophet is told to speak with quiet words of love and a loud shout of proclamation. Whatever it takes they’re to hear this message: ‘Comfort, Comfort!’ and believe that it’s true.
Recognising the Voice of Evil
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangolo
audio (4MB)
How big is too big?
A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand?
What’s your general feeling about mega-churches?
We don’t really trust them, do we? We don’t really like it when people visit our church and later decide to join, GWAC, or Crossways, or City Life, or Planet Shakers.
It all seems a bit unfair when larger churches refuse to share their wealth or their people. So we are inclined to accuse them:
We might accuse them of being empires built around the ego of the Senior Pastor ..
Or Of being soul-less, money-grabbing, miracle-selling, prosperity doctrine businesses
And we ask ourselves, are these churches really advancing the kingdom of God, or are they building up a kingdom that is of this world?
But you know, size is relative. There are some, who go to much smaller churches than this, who would say that the property development we are planning here is empire building, and not kingdom building.
How do we know, if we have fallen into the trap of building our own empire? Well, we know when we see the fruit of it – the fruit of distrusting God (and the fruit has nothing to do with the size of a church).
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.
