A Few Survivors

Instead of writing down my thoughts on Isaiah 1:9, I'll quote Ray Ortlund Jr. in a blog post he wrote earlier this week:

"If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah." Isaiah 1:9

Did you notice how God intervened this week? The Church of Jesus Christ did not go completely apostate. The Gospel Coalition did not disown its Confessional Statement. Acts 29 did not repudiate church planting. Together For The Gospel did not fragment in mutual recriminations. Sovereign Grace Ministries did not deny the new birth. And I did not walk away from Jesus.

We all sinned this week, and a lot. No surprise there. After all, original sin means our wills are unfree. But we held fast to Jesus our Savior, and for a whole week.

Truly, the age of miracles is not over.

HT: CDS

P.S. Ortlund wrote the footnotes for Isaiah in the ESV Study Bible.

Children Hit By A Bomb

Visualize a person that matches this description:

"The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil" (Isaiah 1:5b).

Where have you seen a person like this before? It sounds like someone that has barely survived a bomb blast and will die soon if they do not receive treatment, doesn't it?

This is the Bible's description of mankind. This is not unique. Most people would agree that mankind on the whole is somehow wounded.

What makes the Bible's description of mankind unique is that God claims mankind has experienced this bomb blast because mankind is a child that has run away from a perfectly good, perfectly loving father thus cutting ourselves off from him. And that bomb blast is called sin. When God looks at us rebelling against him, this is what he sees:



"Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me... Why will you continue to be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel" (Isaiah 1:1b, 5a)?

It makes a little more sense that God is angry when he sees sin if what he sees is his children bloody, devestated, and dying for no good reason; it's senseless that we have turned away from a perfectly good, perfectly loving father. So what did God decide to do about it?

"For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:3-7).

Who Is The One Forsaken?

Humanity says, "God, you have forsaken me, you have despised me, and you are estranged from me." See: Any philosophy class.

God says, "Humanity, you have forsaken me, you have despised me, and you have estranged yourself from me because of your sin." See: Isaiah 1:4.

Is there any good news? Yes.

"For if, because of man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:17).