Isaiah
23:11
11 He stretched out [natah] his hand [yad] over the sea
[yam], he shook [ragaz] the kingdoms [mamlakah]:
the LORD [Yahovah] hath given a commandment [tsavah] against the merchant [Kana`an] city, to destroy [shamad]
the strong [ma`owz] holds [ma`owz] thereof. KJV-Interlinear
11 He has stretched out his hand over the
sea; he has shaken the kingdoms; the LORD has given command concerning Canaan to
destroy its strongholds. ESV
And so just when
you believe that you are safe, the news of this recent ebola outbreak reaches
here into the United Sates. Some man
travels here from Nigeria, to Dallas, Texas.
He is sick and goes to the hospital in Dallas and they send him
home. He just has a fever.
Then someone
realizes that he has the ebola virus and he is taken back into the hospital and
quarantined. But of course he has
already traveled here on a major airline, walked through a major airport, gone
home to his family. They have all been
to and from various places in the city, dinner, work, public bathrooms, grocery
store, and so forth.
The man has
since died, but now we learn that one of the care workers in the hospital got the
virus from him. But that care worker,
has been back and forth between home and work. It takes three weeks for the
symptoms to show themselves. And again
more public contact from work, to dinner, to family, to social activities and
so forth.
Over in Liberia
and Nigeria people are dying like flies from this disease. Any moisture contact, a sneeze, a cough, a
touch with sweat on a door knob, can spread this extremely aggressive disease.
And so it
goes. There is no safe place in this
world when the powers of this world are unleashed. And you thought that nothing like that could
happen here. What happens when
terrorists realize that they can infect their own fanatics and turn them loose
in public places with this kind of thing?
And, once the
symptoms are there, your life has but a week at best. Bleeding out of the nose, ears, mouth, eyes, diarrhea,
vomit, it is really a bad ending. And this
is just now appearing in the news headlines.
So, what does
that have to do with us and our study?
Well, everything
in life revolves around attitude toward Christ.
This is not limited to believing in Him for salvation, but also in
learning Him, which is the makeup of the spiritual life.
Christ is the
word, and to receive Christ, and to have Christ in you, means to learn bible
doctrine, meaning having Christ or the Word, in you. The only way this can happen is to pursue a
daily study and learn.
And that is something
that people seem to be oblivious too.
They just coast along in a fog of clichés and empty headed beliefs. And in so doing they violate many truths
without realizing it. In marriage wives
withhold themselves from their husbands, men abuse women, children are insolent,
society in general is indifferent toward truth, standards are lowered,
attitudes become careless, and the general direction of the world is away from
Christ.
Then along comes
a wake-up call. Sometimes it is simple
like a trip and a fall, and sometimes it is much more cruel like a plague. Could this be what is heading our way?
In our verse,
Canaan, is the land that stretches from modern day Syria southward to
Egypt. Both cities, that we have been
studying, were located in Canaan.
But Canaan was
the promised-land. It was settled by the
grandson by the name of Canaan, of Ham, son of Noah, but was promised to Shem,
the line of faith. Canaan tried to steal
away, the promise of God to another.
And so when the
end comes, this stolen land will be returned to its rightful owner, to whom the
promise was made, namely the line of faith.
To stretch out His
hand, means judgment. And when God
judges, there will be no turning back unless there is a huge awakening and repentance
back toward Christ.
But in the end
days, there will be no repentance, and the strongholds, the strong minds of
indifference, will be destroyed.
Most of us have
never lived in the extremely hard times of the dark ages, or of the plagues, or
even of the world wars of last century.
We have seen many examples of tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and such,
but they always seem to happen elsewhere.
But, that
elsewhere principle, just may be shattered.
One never knows.
When a society
becomes indifferent, it also can become lax in its spiritual responsibilities
and obligations, and very few want to examine themselves to see where they are
lacking in their failure toward spiritual responsibilities or obligations. Then the troubles begin.
Sometimes the
troubles can go along for a long time.
This is designed to get people back on track, not only with their
studies, but more so, with their obedience to their responsibilities in life.
With little or
no response, then the troubles increase, and the squeeze is on in order to get
the desired repentance from ones ways.
With little or
no response, then the fire is turned up more and more, until someone cries
uncle or they simply get tossed into the fires of heavy discipline or judgment.
It is far better
to see the truth and to examine yourself and get back into Gods good graces,
than it is to be exposed to the harder realities of life.
And to not take
life seriously, to not take Christ seriously, to not take the responsibilities
and obligations of your role in life seriously, to not take doctrine seriously,
then you leave yourself wide open to the possibility of the extremely harsh
realities that are out there. Is
stubbornness really worth that?
