Pastor Tim Brown, Calvary Chapel Fremont, Wednesday May 5, 2010

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ISAIAH 59

I continues 58:1 – to show Israel their sin.   

1  the spiritual climate of the day

In v1, I states the truth to counter the confusion that is clouding the mind of Israel: God has a powerful hand and a hearing ear.  There were those who were saying that god has grown weak/indifferent.  God has changed!  He was strong in Moses’ day/a great listening ear in Joshua’s day, but He isn’t what He used 2b.  This is something you’d expect 2b said about grandpa, but not God.  This is what you’d expect from someone who is aging.  And this is what they’re saying, “God’s getting old!  In a few billion years you would expect something to wear out and not work as well as it once did.  God is getting old and isn’t as sharp as He once was!   

I went to doctor and nurse asked me how tall I was and I told her 5’ 10 ½ “.  She asked me when the last time I was measured - it’s been years.  She measured me – 5’ 9 ¾ “ – I’m shrinking!  Fran has a shrinking husband.  They had a shrinking God – doesn’t measure up to what He once was.

Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”   Judges 6:13   

They had a God who can’t do the things He once did – just like you and me.  If I have to climb onto a chair, where I once jumped off, I now step down.  Where I could once lift certain things by myself, I now ask for help.

    * God once parted the sea w/ wave of His hand, now He can just speak words of comfort to us as we plunge n2 our seas.
    * God once multiplied the loaves/fishes, now He just helps to get us jobs/feed ourselves.
    * God once busted empires in two, now He just watches as the Assyrian Empire gobbles us up.  

They had a shrinking God – they wondered why God didn’t do for them what He did for others.  There was a theological confusion in Israel that really shouldn’t exist.  There is a confusion in the church that shouldn’t exist.  “Is God able to help me?  Is He interested in helping me?”  There are times when you may not be experiencing satisfaction in your relationship w/ God – not sensing His hand/power.  You feel that your prayers aren’t being heard for you don’t have God’s ear.

Things aren’t as they once were – there’s no sense of blessing/ presence.  Husband: my wife doesn’t respond to me as she once did.  There’s a climate/a mood of despair – there’s confusion about God.

2  the reason for the spiritual climate of the day

The statement of v1 is made from the spiritual climate of v2.  Their conclusions about God were drawn from their experience (lack of experience) of Him.  If you were to go on vacation and visit family in another state and they attend a CC and they were to ask you what your pastor is like, the only description you could give them is one drawn from your experience.  If you have a good experience w/ me, I’m a good guy.  If you had a bad experience w/ me, I’m a bad guy.

Their conclusion about God – weak/indifferent – was drawn from their experience – and they were in rebellion against God.  Sin makes for bad theology.  (Don’t go to the store hungry and don’t make statements about God when you’re in rebellion against Him).  They had a theology of the absence of God.  When you don’t see His face/experience His power 2 things happen:

    * You live by memory/hearsay, not by revelation/experience
    * Your consciousness is more influenced by His absence than His presence as problems press in that you can’t solve.
          o Remember Gideon – the memory of the presence of God was not enough to defeat the experience of the absence of God.

Why does God seem so far away?  The answer to their question goes all the way back to Gen. 2.

“From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”  Genesis 2:16-17

Sin brings w/ it spiritual death.  I says, “You’ve been eating what you were told not to eat.  You’ve had your hand in the cookie jar.  I see cookie crumbs on your face.”   

I: It’s not that God isn’t 4u, but that ur not for God.  It’s not that God is far from you but that ur far from God.  If things aren’t as they once were it’s because you aren’t as you once were, not the Lord.  You don’t have a shrinking God, you have a shrunken soul.  A shrunken soul perceives a shrinking God.  When man remains in sin, the absence of God becomes the norm.  Theology done by a shrunken soul does not magnify God/will not glorify Jesus/cannot edify man.  Cf. mainline denominations.  Cf. 2P1:19-21 theology done from a heart on fire for God.

A shrunken soul doesn’t notice its own shrinkage, it notices a change in all else.  The nurse told me there was a man in the office the previous week who, when asked, said he was 6’2”.  The last time measured was induction n2 the army 50 years ago.  He measured 5’9”!

2 Chr. 14:11  King Asa prospered as he sought the Lord.  Cf. 14:4, 7, 15:2, 4, 12-15.  His soul shrunk – 2 Chr. 16:1-2, 7-10, 12.  Things of the Spirit became foreign to him/tolerated what he once hated.  When his shrunken soul was pointed out to him, he proved it had shrunk by jailing the prophet.   

Israel gave voice to the symptom, while I pinpointed the problem.  Both Israel/I agreed: Israel wasn’t experiencing God.  God wasn’t shrinking, their souls had shrunk.

ask yourself: Is your vision of God today as big as it was when you first walked w/ Him?  You believe the truth that He made the mountains, but do you have the expectation that He can move the mountains?  Has His hand grown short and His ear grown dull?  Abraham: what God has promised, He is also able to perform.