Thoughts on Isaiah 53, 1-3

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

We see here that in spite of these and other prophecies few recognized the Messiah when he appeared. This announcement was literally fulfilled with first coming by Jesus Christ. This also explains John in his gospel in verse 12, 38 we read: This was to fulfill the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

In the book "Isaiah - consolation for God's People" Betanien comment (http://www.betanien.de) I found the following quote: "John also said, Lord, who?; - whereby clearly is, that all messengers from God ask that question, also today's evangelists. But it is also the issue of the faithful remnant, the future Jewish missionaries before the dawn of the millennium, which bring the world the gospel once again and then confess themselves that they have at that time their Messiah ignored. Evangelists advised in the absence of success sometimes in doubt whether they are on the right path, and are then available in danger resort to human aids, to assist the gospel. However, this verse encouraged, to faithful proclamation! It is quite normal when natural people do not respond to the preaching of the Gospel. How can them, since they are dead in sin and cannot hear or understand spiritual words! A miracle of God's grace is necessary, and for anyone, who believes; God is to praise for this miracle." End quote!

The apostle Paul quotes Isaiah in this context in Romans 10, 16: "But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Paul teaches in this verse also, that to believe also means to obey!

Therefore I cannot understand why time and again verses of Paul, by opponents of obedience are used, to prove why Christians no longer must keep the commandments (especially Sabbath) and the Torah. Paul teaches in many of his writings, that true followers of Jesus Christ are the entire word of God obedient. He explained it very well that the will to obedience must not come from ourselves, because otherwise we are under the law; and that Jesus Christ was written to the true believers of this obedience into the heart, so that this not of their own will (by themselves provide for the redemption), but rather from the heart, fulfil through the help of the Holy Spirit.

I would like to quote because of obedience from the book "Isaiah - consolation for God's People"  (http://www.betanien.de): "He (Paul) puts even >believe< with >obey< same, and thus it is clear that this miracle of grace does not happen when someone says he believe, and only its formal consent to historical facts means. Personal obedience in faith is necessary: Subjection to the Lord Jesus as Saviour and Lord. To those is clearly >the arm of the Lord<, "that means that in their lives is the transformed, sanctifying power of God, as they had a personal encounter with God; they recognized him in the Lord Jesus and this knowledge them eternal, complete powerful, godly life has implanted!" end quote!

To my last post about Isaiah in German, I received the following comment: "love your neighbor as yourself", and your soul shall find intake in God! I do not need Isaiah, to obey this!

First I was surprised and then shocked, to be like someone, who claims to be Christian; can leave such a comment! First, for his teaching Jesus Christ also used quotes from Isaiah; and secondly, the question arises, how a Christian can be of the opinion, that it would be enough only love his neighbor. He who loves his neighbor, will no more pass by beggars, without giving them alms. He does not think and tell, that those anyway will only buy alcohol for this alms. He who loves his neighbor, will supported financially, each of his brothers and sisters who are in need. He who loves his neighbor, take the first look at the welfare of his fellow human beings and not to his bank account. Such a human does not ask whether it is possible that new car or finance the next trip when he helps his neighbor. Someone who practices this, will be obedient the entire word of God.

These were just some examples of what it means to love one's neighbor!

I think we all need not only Isaiah, but the whole Bible and this every day, to draw strength from it, to learn and to be close to our God and Lord.

O Lord, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence, let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help, like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah!  You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O Lord; I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you?  Selah!  Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness? But I, O Lord, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me. You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness. Amen (Psalm 88, 1-18)

Thoughts on Isaiah 56, 1-8 (Salvation for the Nations through Sabbath observance)

This is what the Lord says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, the man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.” Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.” For this is what the Lord says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant— to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The Sovereign Lord declares—he who gathers the exiles of Israel: “I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.”

Even more clearly than Isaiah wrote down in these verses, God can not disclose, that even the strangers that diligently seek him, must keep his covenant, and have his Sabbaths to hallow. In these verses God clearly says, that he will save all; who the Sabbath hallow and holds his covenant.

Since we all know, that the Bible does not refute itself, we would have to actually know, that we should hallow the Sabbath of the Lord. Not, to thereby obtain our salvation; but because we have received salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ. Everyone, who was actually accepted by Jesus, has the new covenant. The new covenant means, that we have been written in the heart, the commandments and ordinances of God. But anybody, who has the new covenant in his heart is led by the Holy Spirit and can hence fulfil the will of God, because his heart would like obeying.

I cannot understand, why still so many Christians despite knowledge of the Bible, hold on the humanly invented days. These days are invented 360 years after Christ by the Roman Established Church, due power politics considerations. But I can also not understand, then why the Protestant reformers have chosen the days of the Roman heretics and not the God-ordained Sabbath and the feasts of the Lord.

When I read in the Bible and think about it, I cannot even comprehend how people have so many interpretations; which twisting the word of God. The Bible but explains itself for itself. The Word of God is perfect and free of contradictions from the first to the last page. Everything you don’t know, explained you of God, if you serious ask him in prayer about getting. I was able on myself to experience this, on numerous occasions. Thereby I've found, that it usually are the words of Paul, which are not easily understood. To the present day, I was allowed to recognize again and again, that Paul exactly writes from that, which is to be read in the Torah and in the prophets. He explains it, just different.

The new Pharisees and scribes make it advantage of the fact that Paul's words are hard to understand and blinded the people, by their false teachings.

Personally, I have asked in prayer to God for forgiveness and apologized me, that I have let fooled me so long, from the new Pharisees and scribes.

It is God, who also warn the Gentiles through Isaiah, because he granting us a brief glimpse on the new earth. Thus we read in Isaiah 66, 22-24: “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendants endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the Lord. “And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

We see, then, that the new moon and Sabbath by God are valid for all eternity. How can people seriously claim that the Son of God, Jesus Christ has abolished this. Jesus himself told us that the son does not speak of Himself, but only what the Father gave him. Thus it is clear proof that nothing was overturned by the word of his Father through Jesus Christ. It would be completely absurd if God would contradict himself!

I am often asked whether I was actually aware of how complicated the Sabbath, the dietary laws, and the feasts of the Lord are to be observed. The people who make me this question look it as the Jews in Israel today to deal with these things. But They forget, that Jesus is not the Messiah for the Jews and therefore the Sabbath, the dietary laws, and the feasts of the Lord still celebrate with all of the requirements, which the Pharisees and scribes through misinterpretation of the Torah and the commandments have been added.

Jesus Christ has met and sanctified the Sabbath so as God has commanded. But he was sentenced by the Jews, because he had broken the Sabbath in their view. Thus, the dietary laws are simple and clear in the Torah by God declares and the Jews make a complicated process, because of they believe the interpretations of the Pharisees and scribes.

But Jesus said in Matthew 23, 13 - 15: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."

Wherefore, holy the Sabbath, as it did Jesus Christ sanctified and keep the dietary laws as God has prescribed in the Torah. Celebrates the feasts of the Lord, and believe not unchecked the words of the new Pharisees and scribes. Even today, this look only to their power, their glory and their immense wealth. Is it not a contradiction if a church has untold wealth and in this world children still die of hunger? Should this church not rather stop to want alleviate the plight, until she stands themselves in poverty?

“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’ All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations— a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; who say, ‘Keep away; don’t come near me, for I am too sacred for you!’ Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day. “See, it stands written before me: I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps— both your sins and the sins of your fathers,” says the Lord. “Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains and defied me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds.” This is what the Lord says: “As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and men say, ‘Don’t destroy it, there is yet some good in it, ‘so will I do in behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all.  I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah those who will possess my mountains; my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live. Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who seek me. “But as for you who forsake the Lord and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.” Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; my servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; my servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame. My servants will sing out of the joy of their hearts, but you will cry out from anguish of heart and wail in brokenness of spirit. You will leave your name to my chosen ones as a curse; the Sovereign Lord will put you to death, but to his servants he will give another name. Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the God of truth; he who takes an oath in the land will swear by the God of truth. For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes. New Heavens and a New Earth “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy." Amen (Isaiah 65, 1 – 18)