ken@gitpyr.UUCP (Ken Hall) (11/04/85)
Isaiah reads: "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God besides me: I girded thee, though thou has not known me". Here is sin--God has made us yet we know it not. God gives us breath and life each day yet we give Him no credit. And even though we refuse to acknowledge Him, He still supports and acknowledges us. "That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is none else." God desires that we should know Him as God. He is making this very plain. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things". This is very clear. God is accepting His responsibility for the state of this world. He is no fool. He is the one who created man and the earth and all the universe, and He is the one who gave man the choice to choose or refuse His good will, yet men continue to refuse. Men continue to not acknowledge Him. Thus, because man fell into such a state and continues therein, since He refuses the God who made Him, instead of destroying it all and starting over, He wished to salvage mankind and therewith show us a bit of His character. He entered creation itself in the person of Jesus Christ and told men what had happened and what He was going to do to help them. "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. John 1:10-11" God knew mankind would kill Him. What else is sin but the killing of God in our hearts? Therefore, He decided to use His own death as a means of salvation. He knew He could kill sin by being killed and destroying sin in His death. Think of it, if God should die, which He did willingly in Jesus Christ, what would His death accomplish? It showed man his evil heart and manifested sin as sin. It showed man God's goodness, that God would enter this world to die and banish sin and death forever. It showed man that God cares. Remember, God died but death could not hold Him. He and He alone came back from the grave to show us that He had destroyed the power of the grave. Read further in Isaiah, "Drop down, yet heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it." You see, God came down from heaven, "dropped down from above", and brought with Him righteousness. And when He came He brought fourth salvation. We can question God and His Bible all we want. But listen to the next verse. "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker." Ken Hall ps. All verses from Isaiah came from the 45th chapter.
homeier@aero.ARPA (Peter Homeier) (11/06/85)
Thank you Ken, for a truly revealing look at the fullness of God. I think that we often forget the vastness and the importance of God. Sometimes we can almost become to "chummy" with Him, and forget that He is the Almighty Lord, the Creator of the Universe, who calls all men to repent before the great and terrible Day of the Lord, when every man's work will be tested by fire. -- Peter Homeier ______ Arpanet: homeier@aerospace / o \_/ UUCP: ..!ihnp4!trwrb!aero!homeier \___)__/ \ The Aerospace Corporation, M1-108 El Segundo, CA 90245