Season 3 Podcast 89 Ye That Follow After Righteousness
Ye That Follow After Righteousness
One thing that all Christians agree on is that we are living in the last days spoken of so eloquently by the prophets Isaiah and John the Revelator and, of course, other prophets such as Daniel and Ezekiel and the Savior himself as recorded in Matthew 24. I think that what most of us didn’t comprehend is that it is one thing to read about the future. It is another thing to live in it. There is a kind of insanity in the world today, an unanticipated madness that is full of surprises. Who, in their wildest imaginings could have anticipated a world where gender is denied, and the sex of a person can be decided by opinion rather than nature, where men can by word alone declare themselves to be women and compete in women’s sports or invade the privacy of their restrooms, a time where the sanctity of the family is being systematically destroyed as if it were some evil thing, where the existence of God is so universally denied, where kindergarten teachers are encouraged to corrupt the minds of five-year old’s, teaching gender confusion and sex change to infants, where common sense virtues are attacked, and where good is called evil and evil is called good, and where all the assumptions of decency we were taught as children are under attack.
Amos describes our day.
12 Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock: (Amos 6:12)
Isaiah also anticipated our day.
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)
However, even in the darkest of times, the prophets of doom offer enormous hope. Hope is the message of the scriptures and not doom and gloom. With condemnation comes the call to repentance and redemption, with horror comes hope. Let’s again turn to the words of Isaiah. In the last podcast we considered Isaiah Chapter 50. In this podcast, we shall turn to Isaiah Chapter 51. Notice the light that comes from the darkness.
1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
3 For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. (Isaiah 51:1-3)
Notice the phrase, “For the Lord shall comfort Zion.” Where then is Zion? Who lives there? What does it mean to be a Zion people? Zion, of course, is a place. Zion is also considered by Christians to be a future place.
1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
(Revelation 21:1-7)
Lord said to Isaiah, “Say unto Zion, Thou art my people.”
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