These sharing are excerpted from the sharing meeting on 3/26/06 after reading Isaiah Ch. 1-6
Sister: God has feeling!
Brother: These words were spoken to the children of Israel in the Old Testament. Since we are in the New Testament age, we are redeemed by God thru the cross, it can seem hard to relate these chapters to our life. Without the New Testament perspective of our security in the Lord, it can be hard to look at these verses and see anything but wrath and judgment.
Another Brother: To understand this book, we have to know the background of Isaiah. This book was written at the end of Israelite’s time in the holy land before they were conquered/captured/led away to Assyria and Babylon. From the Bible we can see, the history of the children of Israel in the holy land was just a failure to God; only a few were good in the eyes of God. The rest just turned away from Him. However, whenever they had trouble and they would turn to God, God was right there to help them. When the trouble was gone, they just went back to their old life and still rejected God. This happened again and again in their history, from Judges to kings, until Isaiah's time, when God could bear no more; as said in Isaiah, "... I have brought up Children, and I have raised them; and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner, and the donkey, his master's manger; but Israel does not know, my people do not much consider. " (1:2-3) God's heart was aching. Here He even use extreme examples to show how He wanted the people to come back to Him. But they kept failing God. Even though they were still fulfilling the rituals God had set up, what God wanted was just the hearts of the children of Israel. God even said in 1:13-15 "Bring no more van offerings; incense is an abomination to Me. ….your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am wear of bearing them. Thus when you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you multiply your prayers, I will not hear… " God is seemingly begging: "please, please don't do these things anymore; they are just outward activities. Your hearts are still not on Me. Please don't do it; the more you do it, the more ache I will have. My heart is broken. I can bear no more." In chapter 5 God said again that He had prepared everything, the best things, that He had made the children of Israel into a vineyard for enjoyment and the producing of grapes, but He could only find "wild grapes." At the end, God could only say: "…what more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not already done for it…."(5:4) In another words: "what's wrong with you. Israel? You can’t even take the minimum steps. What else can I do to you?" God was crying. How desperate God was!
But while God was "complaining", He still prepared the ways and show the people how to come to Him. Isaiah 1:19 "If you are willing and listen, you will eat the goods of the land…" 2:10 (although this verse was for the nations.) "enter into the rock… from the dread of Jehovah, and from the splendor of His majesty" 2:19 "men will go into caves in the rocks…" 2:21 " so that they may go into the crevices of the rocks and into the clefts of the cliffs…." These rocks are the same word as smitten rock in Exo. 17:6. It could typify the crucified Christ (the rock), the buried Christ (the caves in the rocks), and the resurrected ascended Christ (the crevices of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs). God loved the people so much that He was always there waiting for their turning back. Not only did He Himself become the way to save them and flee from His wrath, He would even use every means, nations for example (5:25-30), to strike against Israel in order to "wake them up” to turn back to Him. God is very merciful.
All of this can also apply to our daily living: Although we are redeemed by Chris through His blood and we are righteous in the eyes of God, we still cannot deny that our body is not fully redeemed yet; we are still living in our flesh. Most of times we are like those "bad" kings turning away from God in our hearts. We either just wants God to solve our problems, or our hearts have many other pursuits but God, even spiritual things. We can read the Bible, watch in the morning, serve the saints, pray to God, etc. But as long as our hearts are not on God alone, everything is outward activities and useless in the eyes of God. Even He may say to us" please don't; please don't do it, I can bear no more because your heart is still not on me.”
Another Brother: The principle of God is always the same both in Old and New Testaments. He just loves his people. He really cares us. As we can see Paul as an example in Colossians, which we just finished reading, he simply loved and cared for the saints there. Since he was one with the Lord, even though the religious and cultural environment was so bad then, he was concerned with nothing else but the saints. In Isaiah, we can see because God so loved us, he had a lot of feeling. If there were no love, there would have no feeling at all. He expressed His feeling only to say: come back, come back to me, my people. God really loved His people. He was even willing to say in 1:18 " let us reason together…" just for the opportunity for them to come to Him. But while they were debating, they would be washed and cleansed. Isn't our God good?
Sister: I am a new believer and do not know much about the Old Testament stories. This book is very different from the Gospel books in the New Testament. If without everyone's sharing today, these chapters will be horrible words to me. I enjoyed very mush today.
Another Sister: The Lord knows the real condition of our heart. We can never hide from Him. We just have to be genuine to Him.
Another Sister: From these chapters, I see that we have to take the whole God, not just part of Him. I see God is not only love, peace, comfort, "the good part", but He is also righteous to deal with us, for us to turn back to Him.
Another Sister: I really enjoyed this book while read aloud. I was always looking forward to the "good verses" and dwelt in them. And these chapters show the Lord really pays attention to every detail. We can simply trust the Lord because he will take care of every detail on us. Sometimes we feel bad because we are complicated and have a lot of thoughts but I think the Lord can relate to us because look at how full of thought and feeling He is!