Standing in the Gap - Day 253 Through the Bible

The Carolina Mountains Literary Festival will be held this weekend (September 13 -14) in businesses, churches, and town buildings around our historic townsquare in Burnsville - near Mt. Celo Church.

My Lessons and Applications from Today's Reading

Ellipses are mine and are used for contemplation.

The Burden of the Prophecy of Doom - Isaiah 13 and 14 (What It Says-Summarized)  Isaiah is predicting the future 2nd Coming of Christ - "the day of the Lord in wrath and vengeance...cruel with both wrath and fierce anger...destruction...fear...sorrow...punishment...against the world for its evil...iniquity......arrogance...pride...and the haughtiness of the terrible", which will be followed by a time of "oppression ceased...the staff of the wicked broken...where the whole earth is...at rest...quiet...where the wicked are persecuted and no one hinders...where there is rejoicing...and singing."  He also predicts the more immediate fall of Babylon (likened to the fall of Lucifer), Assyria and Philistia.  "FOR...the LORD will have mercy on Jacob...and will still choose Israel and will give them...rest from their sorrow...and fear...and hard bondage."  The LORD says, "I have commanded My sanctified ones...I have called my mighty ones for My anger - those who rejoice in My exaltation...For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it?  His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?"

The Power of One to Stand in the Gap - Psalm 106:19-23 - (What It Says - Summarized) The Old Covenant has been profaned even before it is delivered to the people from Mt. Sinai.  Along with Aaron, the people have molded a golden calf to worship.  "They forgot God their Savior, Who had done great things...marvelous works...awesome things" for them in the Exodus.  Therefore...He said he would destroy them..."had not Moses, His Chosen one, stood in the breach to turn away His wrath, lest He destroy them."

The Glory and Liberty of the New Covenant - 2 Corinthians 3 (What It Says - Summarized) Paul is reminding the believers at the church of Corinth of the liberty we have in Christ - not liberty to sin, but liberty from the guilt and punishment of sin...in Christ...through Christ and His sacrificial work on the cross.  The Old Covenant (the law Moses was given on Mt. Sinai) was glorious...but it was a fading glory, which is why Moses wore the veil - so that the people would not see the fading glory.  The Law shows us our sin and guilt - much like a mirror - but it is ineffective to free us from sin and guilt, and actually can increase it.  "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter (law) but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life." This ministry of righteousness is ours through Christ.  His righteousness has been imputed to us through His sacrificial death and Resurrection.  We are righteous in our stand before God, not in our moral lives.  It is all of Him and through Him.  Christ has torn the veil that separated sinful man from holy God.  "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror...the glory of the Lord...are being transformed...into the same image from glory to glory...just as by the Spirit of the Lord."

My Lessons and Applications - In the OT reading, the prophet Isaiah gave the message of doom - both of the imminent destruction of the evil nations of his age, the saving of a remnant among God's chosen people, and the coming destruction of the wicked and evil with the Messiah's second coming.  God was as good as His promise in the destruction of Babylon, Philistia and Assyria as well as in always saving a remnant of believers both within His Chosen People Israel and Judah and within the believers brought to Him through Christ's sacrificial work on the Cross.  God also relented in the total and immediate destruction of the Jews of the Exodus because Moses stood in the gap to plead for them as did Ezekiel and Phineas later.  Christ paid the ultimate and final sacrifice, standing in the gap for us on the cross, enabling us to come even now to the throne of God as priests and kings (1 Peter 2:9, Revelation 1:6), to be enabled and empowered now to live a life we are otherwise insufficient for through the indwelling and leading of His Promised Holy Spirit within us, and looking forward to our great hope and promise - eternal life with Him.  Am I living a sacrificial life for others, drawing them to God through Christ within me?  Am I standing in the gap, pleading for God to bring our families, churches, communities, nations to Him, to open their eyes to His truth.  Am I living in the liberty of Christ - praising and rejoicing in Him, for Him, or am I entrapped and burdened with legalism?  Do others see Christ in me?  Do they see the transformation in me because of His glory reflected in me?

We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of he Lord, are changed into the same image.  
2 Corinthians 3:18  Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

The outstanding characteristic of a Christian is this unveiled frankness before God so that the life becomes a mirror for other lives...The golden rule for your life and mine is this concentrated keeping of the life open toward God.  Let everything else - work, clothes, food, everything on earth - go by the board, saving that one thing...We have to maintain ourselves in the place of beholding, keeping the life absolutely spiritual all through...Never be hurried out of the relationship of abiding in Him.  It is the one thing that is apt to fluctuate but it ought not to.  The severest discipline of a Christian's life is to learn how to keep "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord."