THE HOLY SEED IS A STUMP

Isaiah 6:

⁸ And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 

This is one of the most famous verses in the Scripture and many know it by heart… However, very, very few Christians have ever read it in context…

Isaiah 6:

⁸ And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” ⁹ And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“‘Keep on hearing but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
¹⁰ Make the heart of this people dull,
    and their ears heavy,
    and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
    and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
    and turn and be healed.”
¹¹ Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
    without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
    and the land is a desolate waste,
¹² and the Lord removes people far away,
    and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
¹³ And though a tenth remain in it,
    it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
    whose stump remains
    when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.

I have had preachers tell me to my face that God would never send sickness, famine or death… Most of us know 2 Chronicles 7:14, but have you ever read verse 13?

2 Chronicles 7:

¹³ When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people,

After God contradicts the sloppy-grace preachers, He continues…

 ¹⁴ if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

BUT…

But preachers somehow always seem to ignore the “but”.

¹⁹ “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, ²⁰ then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ²¹ And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ ²² Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”

         Jeremiah 14

¹⁰ Thus says the Lord concerning this people:
“They have loved to wander thus;
    they have not restrained their feet;
therefore the Lord does not accept them;
    now he will remember their iniquity
    and punish their sins.”

¹¹ The Lord said to me: “Do not pray for the welfare of this people. ¹² Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Lying Prophets

¹³ Then I said: “Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’” ¹⁴ And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. ¹⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name although I did not send them, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not come upon this land’: By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. ¹⁶ And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword, with none to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their evil upon them.

Make a note of this passage in Jeremiah… we will see these words again…

Jeremiah 15:

         ¹Then the Lord said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go! ² And when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord:

“‘Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence,
    and those who are for the sword, to the sword;
those who are for famine, to famine,
    and those who are for captivity, to captivity.’

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

Lamentations 2:
⁵ The Lord has become like an enemy;
    he has swallowed up Israel;
he has swallowed up all its palaces;
    he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
    mourning and lamentation.

¹³ What can I say for you, to what compare you,
    O daughter of Jerusalem?
What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you,
    O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is vast as the sea;
    who can heal you?

¹⁴ Your prophets have seen for you
    false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
    to restore your fortunes,
but have seen for you oracles
    that are false and misleading.

Revelation 13:

⁶ He began to speak blasphemies against God: to blaspheme His name and His dwelling—those who dwell in heaven. ⁷ And he was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them. He was also given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. ⁸ All those who live on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name was not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slaughtered.

^{Pay attention here, you have heard these words before…}

⁹ If anyone has an ear, he should listen:

¹⁰ If anyone is destined for captivity,
into captivity he goes.
If anyone is to be killed with a sword,
with a sword he will be killed.

This demands the perseverance and faith of the saints.

PRAY-THINK-PRAY

David…