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"Come now, Let us reason together, saith the LORD." - Isaiah 1:18
God wants us to commune with Him: He says "Come - let us reason together." Reason there is "Yakah" in Hebrew which means more than just reason together, it's to prove, decide, judge, reprove, correct, to argue. God wants you to seek Him and to know Him, but to know Him you must read His Word, pray for understanding, and listen to good, sound sermons and teachings based on solid Bible doctrine. You can't do this half-hearted: There are no "partial Christians." You are or you aren't. The "almost Christian" is no Christian at all.
The following is by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), from "Night of Weeping, Morning of Joy"
Biblical Figures (and examples)
There are several figures that God employs for pointing out His designs in chastising us. Let us enumerate these:
1. It is a refining. The saints are chosen “in the furnace of affliction”(Isa 48:10), and “when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). The heat of the furnace burns out the dross and leaves the pure metal behind. It is in the furnace that the flesh is destroyed and the old man gets his deathstroke. It is in the furnace that self-confidence is uptorn, unbelief is broken, and faith is strengthened and purified. Were it not for the furnace, what would become of our dross and alloy? And then, when the silver is in the crucible, the Refiner Himself comes near. Hear how the Lord hath spoken concerning this: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?” (Jer 9:7). “I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin” (Isa 1:25). “When the Lord...shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning” (Isa 4:4).
2. It is a sifting. “Lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve" (Amos 9:9). We are God’s corn, grown in His fields and gathered in by His hand. Yet we are coarse and rough grain. Many a sifting process we must pass through in order to separate the coarser particles, that nothing but the finest may remain. Affliction sifts us. Persecution sifts us. God has many a sieve, some finer and some coarser, and He makes us to pass through them according as we require. He sifts the professing Church, and many fall off. He applies a finer sieve, and many more fall off. He takes each church by itself, each congregation by itself, and sifts them, and many false brethren are discovered (Mat 25:1-13). He takes each believer and sifts him individually, and his coarser particles pass off. This process is repeated. He is winnowed and sifted again and again till the grain is purified.
3. It is a pruning. “Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (Joh 15:2). We are the branches of the vine. Christ is the Father’s vine: the stem and root of all spiritual life. Over this precious vine the Father watches. His desire is that “the branch of the Lord [should] be beautiful and glorious” (Isa 4:2), that this vine should yield its fruit in its season. Hence, He not only waters it, but keeps it night and day. And He prunes it with the skill and care of a husbandman. He wishes to make each branch fruitful as well as comely; and He spares no pains, for herein is He glorified if we “bear much fruit” (Joh 15:8). How much we owe to this heavenly pruning! What rank, luxuriant branches does it cut away! What earthliness, what foolishness, what waywardness, what hastiness, what fleshly lusts, what selfish narrowness are all, one by one, skillfully pruned away by the vinedresser’s careful knife!
4. It is a polishing. We are “living” stones (1Pe 2:4), placed one by one upon the great foundation stone laid in Zion for the heavenly temple (Isa 28:16; Eph 2:20). These stones must first be quarried out of the mass. This the Holy Spirit does at conversion.
Then, when cut out, the hewing and squaring begin. God uses affliction as His hammer and chisel for accomplishing this. Many a stroke is needed; and after being thus hewn into shape, the polishing goes on. All roughness must be smoothed away. The stone must be turned around and around on every side that no part of it may be left unpolished.
The temple indeed is above, and we are below. But this is God’s design. As the stones of Solomon’s temple were all to be prepared at a distance and then brought to Jerusalem, there to be builded together, so the living stones of the heavenly temple are all made ready here to be fitted in, without the noise of an axe or hammer, into the glorious building not made with hands. Everyone then must be polished here; and while there are many ways of doing this, the most effectual is suffering. This is God’s design in chastisement. This is what the Holy Spirit effects, as like a workman He stands over each stone, touching and retouching it, turning it on every side, marking its blemishes and roughness, and then applying His tools to effect the desired shape and polish.
Some parts of the stone are so rugged and hard that nothing save heavy and repeated strokes and touches will smooth them down. They resist every milder treatment. And yet, in patient love, this heavenly Workman carries on the Father’s purpose concerning us. Keeping beside Him, if one may thus speak after the manner of men, the perfect Model according to which the stone is to be fashioned—even Jesus, the Father’s chosen One—He labors till every part is shaped according to His likeness, line after line. No pains are spared, no watchfulness relaxed, till we are made entirely like Him, being changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.
Thus affliction molds and purifies. Thus it effaces the resemblance of the first Adam and traces in us each lineament of the second, that “as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1Co 15:49). “Oh,” said a saint of other days, “what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus!”
Am I every day becoming more and more unlike the children of earth, more and more fashioned after the likeness, and bearing the special lineaments, of my Elder Brother, of Whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named? Do I realize this earth as neither my portion nor my rest, and, knowing that one chain may bind me as fast to the world as a thousand, am I careful to shake off every fetter that may bind me to the vanities of a world like this? Is chastisement really purifying me? Am I conscious of its blessed effects upon my soul? Can I look back upon such and such scenes of trial and say, “There and then I learned most precious lessons; there and then I got rid of some of the body of this death; there and then I got up to a higher level from which I am striving to ascend to one higher still?” Have I learned much of the sympathy of Jesus, and known the blessedness of having such an One as He to weep along with me in my day of sorrow? Have I wiped off my rebellious tears and been taught to shed only those of love and submissive fondness, tears of brotherhood and sympathy, tears of longing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord?
A goodly prize this—one for the obtaining of which we may well count all things but loss! It is well for us when we come to see it in all its value and excellency, and to set our hearts upon it. Until we do so, there will be strife between us and God, for this is the blessing that, above all others, He desires for us and that He is bent on conferring upon us. When, however, we come to be perfectly at one with Him as to this, then the struggle ceases. He gets His own way—and this is best for us. How blessed when His desire to deliver us from sin, and ours to be delivered from it, meet together; when His purpose to make us holy is cordially responded to by our fervent longings to be so! Then it is that the divine fullness flows into the soul without a check, and, notwithstanding the bitterness of the outward process by which this is effected, “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” possesses the consecrated soul (1Pe 1:8).
“Wherefore…let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb 12:1-2). And there is nothing like affliction for teaching us this. It acts like the wind upon the trees, making them take deeper root. It is the mowing of the grass that it may shoot up thicker and greener. It is the shaking of the torch that it may blaze the brighter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Isaiah 1:16-20, "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
God wants us to commune with Him: He says "Come - let us reason together." Reason there is "Yakah" in Hebrew which means more than just reason together, it's to prove, decide, judge, reprove, correct, to argue. God wants you to seek Him and to know Him, but to know Him you must read His Word, pray for understanding, and listen to good, sound sermons and teachings based on solid Bible doctrine. You can't do this half-hearted: There are no "partial Christians." You are or you aren't. The "almost Christian" is no Christian at all.
The following is by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), from "Night of Weeping, Morning of Joy"
Biblical Figures (and examples)
There are several figures that God employs for pointing out His designs in chastising us. Let us enumerate these:
1. It is a refining. The saints are chosen “in the furnace of affliction”(Isa 48:10), and “when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). The heat of the furnace burns out the dross and leaves the pure metal behind. It is in the furnace that the flesh is destroyed and the old man gets his deathstroke. It is in the furnace that self-confidence is uptorn, unbelief is broken, and faith is strengthened and purified. Were it not for the furnace, what would become of our dross and alloy? And then, when the silver is in the crucible, the Refiner Himself comes near. Hear how the Lord hath spoken concerning this: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?” (Jer 9:7). “I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin” (Isa 1:25). “When the Lord...shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning” (Isa 4:4).
2. It is a sifting. “Lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve" (Amos 9:9). We are God’s corn, grown in His fields and gathered in by His hand. Yet we are coarse and rough grain. Many a sifting process we must pass through in order to separate the coarser particles, that nothing but the finest may remain. Affliction sifts us. Persecution sifts us. God has many a sieve, some finer and some coarser, and He makes us to pass through them according as we require. He sifts the professing Church, and many fall off. He applies a finer sieve, and many more fall off. He takes each church by itself, each congregation by itself, and sifts them, and many false brethren are discovered (Mat 25:1-13). He takes each believer and sifts him individually, and his coarser particles pass off. This process is repeated. He is winnowed and sifted again and again till the grain is purified.
3. It is a pruning. “Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (Joh 15:2). We are the branches of the vine. Christ is the Father’s vine: the stem and root of all spiritual life. Over this precious vine the Father watches. His desire is that “the branch of the Lord [should] be beautiful and glorious” (Isa 4:2), that this vine should yield its fruit in its season. Hence, He not only waters it, but keeps it night and day. And He prunes it with the skill and care of a husbandman. He wishes to make each branch fruitful as well as comely; and He spares no pains, for herein is He glorified if we “bear much fruit” (Joh 15:8). How much we owe to this heavenly pruning! What rank, luxuriant branches does it cut away! What earthliness, what foolishness, what waywardness, what hastiness, what fleshly lusts, what selfish narrowness are all, one by one, skillfully pruned away by the vinedresser’s careful knife!
4. It is a polishing. We are “living” stones (1Pe 2:4), placed one by one upon the great foundation stone laid in Zion for the heavenly temple (Isa 28:16; Eph 2:20). These stones must first be quarried out of the mass. This the Holy Spirit does at conversion.
Then, when cut out, the hewing and squaring begin. God uses affliction as His hammer and chisel for accomplishing this. Many a stroke is needed; and after being thus hewn into shape, the polishing goes on. All roughness must be smoothed away. The stone must be turned around and around on every side that no part of it may be left unpolished.
The temple indeed is above, and we are below. But this is God’s design. As the stones of Solomon’s temple were all to be prepared at a distance and then brought to Jerusalem, there to be builded together, so the living stones of the heavenly temple are all made ready here to be fitted in, without the noise of an axe or hammer, into the glorious building not made with hands. Everyone then must be polished here; and while there are many ways of doing this, the most effectual is suffering. This is God’s design in chastisement. This is what the Holy Spirit effects, as like a workman He stands over each stone, touching and retouching it, turning it on every side, marking its blemishes and roughness, and then applying His tools to effect the desired shape and polish.
Some parts of the stone are so rugged and hard that nothing save heavy and repeated strokes and touches will smooth them down. They resist every milder treatment. And yet, in patient love, this heavenly Workman carries on the Father’s purpose concerning us. Keeping beside Him, if one may thus speak after the manner of men, the perfect Model according to which the stone is to be fashioned—even Jesus, the Father’s chosen One—He labors till every part is shaped according to His likeness, line after line. No pains are spared, no watchfulness relaxed, till we are made entirely like Him, being changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.
Thus affliction molds and purifies. Thus it effaces the resemblance of the first Adam and traces in us each lineament of the second, that “as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1Co 15:49). “Oh,” said a saint of other days, “what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus!”
C. Our Response
Come, then, let us question ourselves and endeavor to ascertain what affliction has been doing for us, and what progress we are making in putting off the old man and in putting on the new (Eph 4:22-24; 2 Co 5:17). Am I loving my worldliness of spirit and becoming heavenly minded? Am I getting rid of my pride, my passion, my stubbornness, and becoming humble, mild, and teachable? Are all my idols displaced and broken, and my creature comforts do I use as though I used them not? Am I caring less for the honors of time, for man’s love, man’s smile, man’s applause? Am I crucified to the world and is the world crucified to me by the cross of Christ; or am I still ashamed of His reproach, and am I half-reluctant to follow Him through bad report and through good, through honor and through shame? Do I count it my glory and my joy to walk where He has led the way, to suffer wherein He suffered, to drink of the cup of which He drank, and to be baptized with the baptism wherewith He was baptized? Or, while professing to seek the kingdom hereafter, do I refuse to undergo that tribulation through which I must enter; while willing to secure the crown of glory, do I shrink back from the crown of thorns?Am I every day becoming more and more unlike the children of earth, more and more fashioned after the likeness, and bearing the special lineaments, of my Elder Brother, of Whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named? Do I realize this earth as neither my portion nor my rest, and, knowing that one chain may bind me as fast to the world as a thousand, am I careful to shake off every fetter that may bind me to the vanities of a world like this? Is chastisement really purifying me? Am I conscious of its blessed effects upon my soul? Can I look back upon such and such scenes of trial and say, “There and then I learned most precious lessons; there and then I got rid of some of the body of this death; there and then I got up to a higher level from which I am striving to ascend to one higher still?” Have I learned much of the sympathy of Jesus, and known the blessedness of having such an One as He to weep along with me in my day of sorrow? Have I wiped off my rebellious tears and been taught to shed only those of love and submissive fondness, tears of brotherhood and sympathy, tears of longing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord?
D. God’s Design
To make us “partakers of his holiness” is God’s great design as stated by the apostle (Heb 12:10). And there is something very remarkable about the expression. It corresponds to a similar one in the Second Epistle of Peter, “partakers of the divine nature” (2Pe 1:4). It implies something very exalted and very blessed; much more so than if it had merely been told us that God’s aim was to “make us holy.” Partakers of His own very holiness, His very nature!—this is more than angels can glory in. It is something peculiar to “the redeemed from among men”—the members of the Body of Christ (Rev 14:4). And it is in this way that Jesus speaks to us. It is not merely “peace” that He promises to us, but His own peace—”my peace” (Joh 14:27). It is not merely joy He bestows; but His own joy—”my joy” (Joh 15:11). So here it is not merely holiness He is conferring upon us, but His own holiness. His wish is to make us partakers of that. And oh, how much does that imply!A goodly prize this—one for the obtaining of which we may well count all things but loss! It is well for us when we come to see it in all its value and excellency, and to set our hearts upon it. Until we do so, there will be strife between us and God, for this is the blessing that, above all others, He desires for us and that He is bent on conferring upon us. When, however, we come to be perfectly at one with Him as to this, then the struggle ceases. He gets His own way—and this is best for us. How blessed when His desire to deliver us from sin, and ours to be delivered from it, meet together; when His purpose to make us holy is cordially responded to by our fervent longings to be so! Then it is that the divine fullness flows into the soul without a check, and, notwithstanding the bitterness of the outward process by which this is effected, “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” possesses the consecrated soul (1Pe 1:8).
“Wherefore…let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb 12:1-2). And there is nothing like affliction for teaching us this. It acts like the wind upon the trees, making them take deeper root. It is the mowing of the grass that it may shoot up thicker and greener. It is the shaking of the torch that it may blaze the brighter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Isaiah 1:16-20, "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
