Isaiah 52:7 (KJV) Beautiful Feet

Isaiah 52:7 (KJV)

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

 

The context of the passage makes it clear that the one spoken of is John the Baptist, called of God to announce the coming of the Saviour.

 

The deliverance of God’s people from Babylon is symbolic of the deliverance of the soul from the bondage of the world, through the Redeemer.

·     We are encouraged to hope in Him

· We are encouraged to listen for the announcement and

·  We are encouraged to depart from the world, taking none of it with us when He calls

 

The Apostle applied this verse, in Romans 10:15,[1] to those who preach the gospel in our day. This, in my mind, reinforces the Baptist belief that John the Baptist was indeed the first of our kind and that Baptists trace back, not through Protestantism[2] but outside of mainstream Christendom back to the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist.

 

#HopeInHim #ListenForTheAnnouncement #DepartFromTheWorld #BaptistBeliefs #GospelPreachersLikeJohn

Beautiful Feet: Following the Steps of John the Baptist

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6200 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
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Isaiah 52:7 (KJV) Beautiful Feet

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[1] Romans 10:15 (KJV)

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

[2] Which denies a connection to him.

Matthew 6:4 (KJV) Reading Between the Lines

Matthew 6:4 (KJV)

That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

 

We all make assumptions. I think it is impossible to avoid. The Christian makes assumptions about God:

·       That He is

·       That He can give us an infallible Bible

·       That He would WANT to give us an infallible Bible

 

We make assumptions about the Bible:

·       That it is from God

·       That it is profitable

 

The non-believer makes some assumptions too:

·       That there is no God

·       That science is accurate

·       That he is master of his own destiny

Etc.

I make assumptions when I read the Bible. I assume it to be what it says it is and I assume it to be supernatural, about a life other than the one we know on this earth. I assume that when Jesus said the Father will “reward thee openly” it is a heavenly rather than an earthly promise.

 

Assumptions are impossible to avoid but a person needs to acknowledge his assumptions and, I think, justify them. It’s ok to make assumptions and judgments. In some of the most important areas of life we have little else to go on. I would simply warn that it is dangerous to rely on those assumptions hastily.

 

#ChristianAssumptions #BiblicalWisdom #AssumptionsInFaith #CriticalThinkingFaith #SpiritualDiscernment #hermeneutics 

Reading Between the Lines: Unpacking Our Assumptions

 

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6200 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Matthew 6:4 (KJV) Reading Between the Lines

Isaiah 50:2 (KJV) God's Unchanging Power

Isaiah 50:2 (KJV)

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.

 

The passage is, I think prophetic. 

I believe it speaks first about Judah in Jeremiah’s day. God could redeem, deliver, save them. But they had to trust Him and come to Him for Him to do so. The Jews believed God should save them from their enemy whether they repented or not.

 

And the passage is, I think, meant to instruct our day.

·       God’s hand is not shortened.

·       He is more than capable to redeem.

·       God’s power has not diminished.

He is still able to “dry up the sea.” There is nothing God cannot do. There is nothing God will not do.

 

The onus is on us. God is here. His offer of salvation is delivered. He is ready, capable, and willing to save.

 

But we must come to Him.

 

I speak to people very often these days who believe the burden is on God. He needs to prove Himself. If He is capable of saving, He ought to do it regardless. If hell is real and souls are genuinely threatened with it, if God is able to prevent a soul from going there, then He must be, in their opinion, morally responsible to save without their repentance. 

 

He is God. Arguing morality with Him makes no sense.

·       Our ways are not His ways

·       Our thoughts are not His thoughts

·       His ways and thoughts are higher than ours.

Good wisdom demands we submit, surrender, and come to Him.

 

All those who do so will be saved.

 

#GodsUnfailingPower #SalvationIsHere #TrustAndBeRedeemed #DivineSurrender #ComeToHimAndBeSaved #Isaiah #soteriology

God's Unchanging Power: Coming to God in Surrender

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6200 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Isaiah 50:2 (KJV) God's Unchanging Power

Isaiah 48:18 (KJV) The Almighty's Paradox

Isaiah 48:18 (KJV)

O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:

 

God, who is almighty and wholly omnipotent, voluntarily surrenders the right of choice to man. It is at once His most gracious act and His most contested decision.

 

The grace that gives us choice

I, for one, am eternally grateful that God did not choose to make me a robot, forced to do His bidding. I had the choice to call upon Him. I had the choice to follow Him. I have the choice to die daily to self that Christ may live through me.

I do not always make the right choices and I frequently regret choices I’ve made. But I am happy they are mine to make.

 

His grace has made some accuse God of impotence

A common objection of the unbeliever has been that, if God is, He would certainly have the ability to make man conform to His will and to make us happy with it. Professing Christians frequently complain that God hasn’t answered their prayers, especially for things like the saving of their loved ones or something like the safety of a family member.[1] God, they confess, is supposed to be powerful enough to do these things and yet in some cases does not.

 

I can only answer, "He is God." I am not, and neither are His objectors. He is God. He has obviously, and I believe graciously, surrendered to us the right of will. He has done so at great cost to Himself. Rather than objecting, I choose to praise.

 

#GratefulForChoice #GodsGraceAbounds #DivineSurrender #PraisingHisWisdom #EternalFreedomInChoice #Isaiah #FreeWill

The Almighty's Paradox: God's Gracious Surrender to Human Will

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6200 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Isaiah 48:18 (KJV) The Almighty's Paradox

 

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[1] Perhaps who died in a traffic accident.

Isaiah 47:8 (KJV) Path to Defeat

Isaiah 47:8 (KJV)

Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:

 

John Gill says of this

“These words are sometimes used by the eternal and unchangeable Jehovah of himself, and indeed they suit with none but him; and it is the height of insolence and blasphemy in a creature to use them of itself; they fitly express that sovereignty, supremacy, infallibility, and even deity, which mystical Babylon assumes and ascribes to her head...” “I am and none else beside me” is to make oneself God.

 

The subject is the city of Babylon who, at the time of Isaiah’s prophecy, wasn’t the great city it would become. The threat in Isaiah’s day was Syria. Then it became Assyria. They were finally defeated by Babylon. Babylon was defeated the Medo-Persians, who were eventually defeated by Greece, which was defeated by Rome. Which was defeated by the Goths[1] after they got so proud and lazy, they wouldn’t even fight for their freedom.

 

Do we not live in a day such as this? Is it not true that we tend to believe we are either too great to be attacked, too strong to be defeated, too evolved to engage in such violence or else just too complacent to care?

 

Do we not live in such a time when the popular sentiment demands even God has no right to proclaim, “I am, and none else beside me”?

 

Just how long things continue before there is a great collapse, we shall see.

 

One thing is certain, such carelessness as we see today is far more dangerous than most will admit.

 

#BabylonianArrogance #HistoricalPatterns #CurrentDayHubris #MoralDeclineWarning #WakeUpCall #Isaiah #definitionofpride #makeoneselfgod

Babylon's Path to Defeat: Lessons from History

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6200 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Isaiah 47:8 (KJV) Path to Defeat

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[1] If memory serves.