A Kingdom Vision Week 2 Notes

Meeting Notes

Is this an opportunity to hit the reset button on our idolatry?

We don’t control our idols they control us.

Two Streams:

A revelatory stream — idolatry — Romans 1, God has clearly revealed himself, but you liked idols more.

Get down into “why we don’t hear God?”

CS Lewis — till we have faces — idea that God is broadcasting, but b/c of the fall we don’t have the receivers

Wifi — what a great invention — we can receive data

Soteriological — God hardens the clay and melts ice.

John says maybe stay away from that.

How I am going live day by day without receiving the stream?

Rick’s comment: God is forcing me to let go of my plans with Covid-19 in 2020, so I need to get on my knees.

He’s tired of saying “What a crazy year?” blah blah

Maybe Christians should have a different response: “God almighty, I’m going to pray and fast and ask you to tell me what you want me to do in this!”

It’s been crazy year, but I think God wants me to do this.

Illustration:

Ellie turning my face back towards her.

Notes

“ears to hear”

Matt 13 quotes Isaiah 6

Matthew 13:16 CSB

16 “Blessed are your eyes because they do see, and your ears because they do hear.

Matthew 13:43 CSB

43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. Let anyone who has ears listen.

Matthew 16:17 CSB

17 Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven.

Each of the 7 churches in Rev 1-3 ends with:

Revelation 2:7 CSB

7 “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Important:

We are all idolaters and without God’s grace we are hopeless to have ears to hear and eyes to see.

This is a form of judgment

but there is hope.

Suffering comes at times to reveal our idolatry

Suffering cannot take your joy from you, only your idols can do that

The Basic Message

Go and preach to reveal the hardness of hearts

Do this until the land is devastated

Why?

to reveal God’s Judgement

to reveal hardness of heart (Idolatry)

things like pandemics

To show the only way to Salvation — God’s Mercy and Grace

to point to the future judgement

Why?

Reveal God’s Glory

God’s love — the holy seed

Point us to our need for him

God’s patience and kindness leads us to repentance

but there will be a day where time runs out.

2 Peter 3:9 CSB

9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

Text

Last week we looked at Isaiah’s incredible call to Ministry.

He saw the Glory of the Lord in his Righteousness and Holiness

Then he experienced the Glory of the Lord in the grace extended to him.

We pick it up today with Isaiah’s response:

Isaiah 6:8 CSB

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who will I send? Who will go for us? I said: Here I am. Send me.

Isaiah’s response is the only legitimate response to God’s grace.

My life has been saved, therefore my life is yours.

This is done out of not just gratitude, but Worship.

What was God’s assignment for Isaiah?

God’s Assignment for Isaiah

Isaiah 6:9–10 CSB

9 And he replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive. 10 Make the minds of these people dull; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.

9 And he replied: Go! Say to these people:

Go and preach and teach these people.

Tell them the truth

Keep listening, but do not understand;

Listen but do not understand.

It will not make sense.

ILL: My conversion. I read the bible in this way, without eyes to see and without ears to hear.

keep looking, but do not perceive.

Keep looking and seeing, but do not perceive

again the idea of knowing what you are looking at.

10 Make the minds of these people dull;

make their minds (hearts) dull by saying the truth

Hifil — idea of ‘cause’

deafen their ears and

agains the causative force here

blind their eyes;

causitive?

otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds,

This is a very difficult text.

I think it points to the fact that their hearts are already hard and in that state (the state of idolatry) preaching of repentance and grace only further hardens the eyes and ears.

“the same sun that melts the ice, hardens the clay”

turn back, and be healed.

If their hards were not already hard, the would turn back.

This points to the need for something radical to happen

something outside of ourselves.

Something like just happened to Isaiah,

a revelation of God to the heart.

This language is strikingly similar to other parts of scripture which will illuminate what is going on here.

Idolatry (Psalm 115)

Psalm 115:4–8 CSB

4 Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. 5 They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. 6 They have ears but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. 7 They have hands but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with their throats. 8 Those who make them are just like them, as are all who trust in them.

The key verse is 8

Those who trust in idols become just like them.

The NT teaches that this is all of us, we are born into this world worshipping false Gods

The Nature of Idolatry

Good things to God things

We all can do this.

Without a regenerate heart this is no way to come back.

Something substantial has happened in the coming of Jesus

we have been forgiven, as Isaiah was and we have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit

This means we can actually ‘respond to God’ in repentance

We can at last turn from our idols.

Jesus in the NT

Isa 6 is quotes numerous times in the NT

Jesus in teaching in parables says this is the reason.

We cannot understand God and come to him apart from his grace.

Matt 13 “bless are you for you hear”

Matt 16 “bless are you b/c the father has revealed this”

Rev 2 “to the churches, let those who have ears, hear what the spirit says”

Why does suffering happens?

Sometimes, it is to draw us back to God

it is to reveal our idols

Covid 19 is one form of that, it is stripping away the thing we ‘trust in’ for comfort, for meaning?

Why so that we might turn back to the Lord and be healed?

That we might have opportunities to share the gospel, like Isaiah did with the hope of repentance and healing

true life change.

How long oh Lord?

Isaiah 6:11–13 CSB

11 Then I said, “Until when, Lord?” And he replied: Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate, 12 and the Lord drives the people far away, leaving great emptiness in the land. 13 Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, the holy seed is the stump.

until the time is right

It will get bad — rest of OT

the holy seed is the stump — Jesus.

Sounds like a terrible ministry.

I’m going to preach and no one is going to respond?

Sounds like the ministry of Jesus:

John 6-8, many turn back.

Preaches to thousands, but in the end maybe has a ministry of 120 people, w/ 12 disciples.

We would do greater things

Reach the entire world with the Gospel of Jesus

Idolatry:

What is the problem in both of these examples?

Answer: Pride.

To use the language of Worship: self-centered worship

That is what is going on here.

But in Isaiah, we are talking about something much deeper than human emotions or human communication

We are talking about a deeply spiritual problem.

and it is a problem that we are all born into and prone to.

Namely: Idolatry

What is idolatry?

it is worshipping anything other than the God of the Bible as ultimate.

In short it is worshipping False Gods

You might think we don’t have idols today b/c you think of little statues, but virtually anything can be an Idol.

And the most effective idols are good things, that have become God thing.s

What Isaiah is getting at here is that

apart from God’s grace in our lives (like Isaiah experienced last week) we are all in this helpless condition of a never ending hardening of our hearts towards truth.

Elsewhere this is what the Bible calls being ‘spiritually dead’, that is unresponsive to God’s truth in our lives.

Futhermore, even after we ahve come to know God’s grac ein our lives we are still prone to return to