Our Choice: Faith or Desolation

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Devotions: Ps 78; Jer 7:21-34; Rom 4:13-25; Jn 7:37-52

Asaph recounts the history of YHWH with Israel: Listen to my teaching, and pass it along to coming generations—consider the glorious deeds of YHWH our God. He established His testimony and His law among Israel. But like our forefathers, each generation tends to fall away, unfaithful to God. The Ephraimites turned back in a day of battle and violated God’s covenant. YHWH had delivered the people from Egypt and led them through the wilderness, providing everything the people needed for forty years. Time and again, the people grumbled and rebelled; time and again, God allowed them to suffer the consequences of their unbelief. In recurring crises, the people would repent, and God would relent. He brought the people into the Land of promise and drove out nations before them; He settled the tribes of Israel in homelands of their own—and again, they acted in apostasy and worshiped idols. God forsook His shrine at Shiloh; He rejected the tribes of Joseph, and chose instead the tribe of Judah, establishing His temple on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. He chose David from among the flocks to shepherd His people, and David was a faithful king, tending the people of God with an upright heart and a skillful hand.

Through His prophet Jeremiah, YHWH addressed the people of Judah and Jerusalem: ‘Go ahead and eat the flesh you sacrifice to Me—what I want is obedience and faith, not burned meat. But you people keep turning the other way—into unfaithfulness. I’ve sent you prophet after prophet; and now I send Jeremiah—but these hard-hearted people will not listen or obey. Truth has perished among them. So lament the coming wrath and destruction God will bring. Judah has polluted God’s own house; they have built high places and shrines to pagan deities; they sacrifice their own children in fire. I despise these ugly abominations, and I will bring death and destruction upon these apostates. There will be no joy, no gladness, no celebration here, for the Land will become a waste.’

Blessings from God come from the righteousness of faith, not by legal piety. The law brings wrath; faith brings salvation. This blessing is available to all people, not just the Jews: Abraham is the patriarch of all people of faith, from many nations. Abraham’s faith persevered against the evidence of his and his wife’s aging, barren bodies. He grew strong in faith, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised—to give them a son, thereby to make them the parents of many nations, and to bless people of all nations through them. This faith, God reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. The same applies to us, who invest our faith for deliverance in Jesus the Messiah, Who was put to death for our trespasses and was raised to eternal life for our justification.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast of Succoth, Jesus rose and proclaimed to all: ‘Let anyone who thirsts come to Me and drink. For those who believe in Me, the scripture will be fulfilled that says, “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.”’ This referred to the filling of believers by the Holy Spirit, Who would come to them after Jesus was glorified. The people continued to divide in debate over Jesus: some believed Him to be Messiah, but others stumbled over their false assumptions about His origin. The Jewish authorities wanted to arrest Him—but His time had not yet come, and no one laid hands on Jesus. The Jewish authorities believed Jesus was a troubler of Israel and hated Him; but Nicodemus pointed out that their judgment of Jesus without a fair trial was illegal. The accusers showed their ignorance by retorting that no prophet would arise from Galilee—and therefore Jesus must be an imposter.