AP

Isaiah 58:1  “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.  Raise your voice like a trumpet.  Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.”

As I began to read this chapter: “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.  Raise your voice like a trumpet …”, I must admit I was expecting this to be followed by a message of hope!  But no!  The faithful Prophet’s task was to reveal the Covenant People’s sin to them, no holds barred.

He probably knew that his efforts were going to be fairly fruitless because of what he had been told at the inauguration of his ministry, “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’  Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isaiah 6:9-10).  Nevertheless, his task was to be faithful, even if not successful.

Our situation is no different from theirs.  Our ‘you-do-you’ culture has no place for the biblical concept of ‘sin’ because we have redefined ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in terms of our own needs and feelings at any particular time.  Sadly the Church, God’s Covenant People today, has allowed itself to be so infected by this culture as to lead to the same outcome that Isaiah experienced.  And sadder still, if the public media get hold of the message with which we are to ‘raise our voice and shout’, they could label it as ‘hate speech’, and we could end up in prison for daring to break the ‘law’.

God gave Isaiah this task because he loved his people, and longed to pour out his amazing grace on them if they turned to him in repentance-and-faith.  Unsurprisingly, repentance-and-faith can only flow from first recognising sin for what it is, and this can only come from God’s revealed truth.  “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will FORGIVE us our sins and PURIFY us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us”  (1 John 1:8-10).  “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, Rrebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Let us be much in prayer for God’s Church, the Bride of Christ, that the Holy Spirit would work powerfully among us and within us, that with us first the Word of God might be “alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it [might] penetrate[s] even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow [and] it [might] judge[s] the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”  (Hebrews 4:12).  Perhaps then we might become more effective (even from prison?) in reaching our world with the glorious Gospel of hope, ‘shouting it aloud, not holding back, raising our voice like a trumpet’ and and thus sow the seed for a good old-fashioned evangelical revival!  

 – Bruce Christian