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Showing posts from July, 2016

The Day Truth is Taken Captive Pt. 2

This is a wake-up message.   In pre-exilic Judah, there was a spiritual famine in the land. In Pt. 1 , we looked at how their worship had become mechanical and self-centered. It was a pitiful sight. Worship and personal devotion had become drudgery and they were not living out what their lips said they believed. The death knell was sounding and on the wind its peal echoed with the distant vibration of approaching enemy hoof beats. Truth was inflight and its surrogate had settled in. God was not pleased.  If Isaiah 58 warns of the impending consequence in forgetting God, Isaiah 59 exposes the impossibility of a return. How did Jesus see mechanical and non-committal worship? In repudiation of the rigid, merciless, and unloving way the religious leaders carried out their practice of worship and consecrated living, Jesus stated twice in the Gospels, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (Matt. 9:13, 12:7). Here is why. In Matt. 9 , Jesus was condemned for eating