LifeLink Devotional

Monday, November 25, 2019

Isaiah 36:7   And if you say to me, “We are depending on the LORD our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”?

When Isaiah wrote the thirty-sixth chapter of his book, King Hezekiah was reigning in Judah. The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, had invaded the land and was attacking all the fortified cities. Sennacherib sent his commander with a large army over to Jerusalem. Hezekiah sent a delegation to meet them. The Assyrian commander made these statements:

• Why are you so confident?
• You claim to have strength but we see no evidence of it.
• You say you have allies but they are weak and powerless against us.
• You claim to trust in your God, but you have stopped worshiping Him and have adopted other gods.

It’s this last statement that hit me hard. The enemy of God, with no faith in the One True God, was attacking God’s chosen people. This ungodly king recognized that God’s covenant people have rejected their faith in God alone. He saw that God’s people were more concerned with pleasing people than they were with loving Jehovah. They saw worship of God as an obstacle to survival in the world. They believed fitting into their culture would be better served by not serving God.

I received a Facebook post from a young man who has been called into ministry. He asked me to watch a video that challenged him. It was from the later years of David Wilkerson’s life as he preached on the subject of anguish. Not a popular word, is it? The video touched my heart, especially at one point when this statement was made – What anguish it must bring to the heart of God when He sees that the Bride He was preparing for marriage to His Son has instead been married to the world.

My friends, as followers of Christ, why are we so easily persuaded to make friends with the world and adopt its standards? Why do we continue to see our faith in Jesus Christ as an obstacle to acceptance with the world rather than a means of bringing true life to the world? Why have we chosen to become adulterous in our spiritual lives and have a fling with the world? It is time for us to be recognized by our faith. It is time for us to find pleasure in doing the Lord’s work rather than finding more ways to find pleasure from the world.

Pastor John

P.S.  Happy Birthday to my brother Steve.