Doing It God’s Way

03 Apr

Doing It God’s Way

Isaiah 55:6-9 records a prophetic call to repentance and return to God: “Seek ye the LORD while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man His thoughts. And let him return unto the LORD and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

This passage previews New Testament salvation and post-crucifixion pardon generally not available to the people of the Old Testament. Although the prophet Isaiah preached and wrote for and about Israel, a people who were still bound to the animal sacrifice-centered system for forgiveness of sins, his words present a declaration of salvation by faith through repentance that is only the result of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. This New Testament prophesying in the Old Testament is confirmed in 1 Peter 1:10-12, “Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into.”

Three key concepts in Isaiah 55:6-9 foreshadow salvation by faith that is confirmed in the New Testament, give a better understanding of God, and imply our expected response to Him as New Testament Christians.

First, our window of opportunity to repent and seek Him is limited (vs. 6). 2 Corinthians 6:2b reminds us “…behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” We are living in the day of salvation still, that time since Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. However, none of us knows how long we will live.

The psalmist cited our length of life in terms of averages: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away” (Ps. 90:10). But we all know families who have lost wee ones to illness and accident. On the other hand, these days we hear of numerous people who are living more than a century. What amazing scientific advances those people have observed in their lifetimes.

And yet the one absolute of every human life is to die. Once we die our day of salvation is gone. Our ability to accept the salvation so freely given by our Savior Jesus Christ ceases upon our final breath and we enter eternity having already chosen either eternal life with Christ or eternal death without Him.

Second, God will have mercy on anyone who repents and seeks Him (vs. 7). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives, and he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks, it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we have but to repent and seek Him in order to have God’s mercy and full pardon, once and for all, for sin. 1 Peter 1:3-5 expresses the basis in mercy and the permanence of our salvation: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which, according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Third, God’s ways and thoughts are completely different from and beyond the thoughts and ways of human beings (vss. 8-9). As human beings we each have our own personality, philosophy, culture, and traditions. It is incomprehensible to us that we are so completely different from one another, and yet each belonging to God. And those differences are used by God to accomplish His will on earth. In Colossians 3:10-11 we see the unifying effect of God’s ways and thoughts towards us: “[You] have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.”

The metaphor of each of us as parts of the body of Christ comes to mind; we each occupy a different place with completely different functions, but without any one of us, the body would be compromised and run less efficiently (1 Cor. 12). Romans 5:1-5 describes another incomprehensible facet of God’s work in us, the progression from tribulation to hope in terms of “…tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope. And hope makes not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

We are human and, therefore, we are bound by human limitations in time and space. Our inability to entirely understand God’s ways and thoughts does not preclude us from believing in Him. It is this gap, in fact, that allows faith to grow and mature.

Our response should be to adjust to God’s plans. We are called to serve Him and we cannot do that unless we are living according to His Word, living in ways that demonstrate His Lordship in our lives. In Luke 18:19-23 a rich young man walked away from the opportunity to follow Jesus because he was not willing to give up his riches or to modify his life to accomplish God’s plans for him.

Noah, on the other hand adapted to God’s vision for him, apparently without blinking. In Genesis 6:8 tells us that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” He was already walking with God, striving to be what God intended him to be. He accepted God’s commission to build the ark with faith. And his name appears in the New Testament as an example of faith for all of us:

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith” (Heb. 11:6-8).