Isaiah 1:18-19.
Good morning, reasoning Christian! The Lord God, through the inspired writing of His prophet, Isaiah, has graciously invited you and I to ’Come now, let us reason together…’, and by faith, we have sought to take the Lord God at His own inspired Word. Thus, we are enabled of Him, by His Spirit, and in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, empowered and invited to ’reason together’ in prayer with our Creator Lord. Wow! What an absolute Divine privilege God has given us! Hallelujah!
This
man-to-God ’reasoning’ is what David is seeking to do in our selected verse
from Psalm 30: “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the
pit? Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth?” The Lord graciously invites us to reason with
Him in this reverent and sincere manner of close communion in prayer.
Old
brother Job - in all his deep and terrible testing, heartache, and grief -
sought a ’daysman’ ( a person who appoints a day to hear a cause; an umpire, or
a mediator) that would act as a go-between with him and the Lord God, and
explain to him, or help him to understand why such terrible things had befallen
him and his entire family circle. Job
manifested a profound need to be enabled to ’reason together…’ with the Lord
God Almighty.
“For
He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together
in judgement. Neither is there any daysman
betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both. Let Him take His rod away from me, and let
not His fear terrify me: then would I speak, and not fear Him; but it is not so
with me.” (Job 9:32-35)
Job’s
heartfelt plea is fully answered in this dispensation, for at the appointed
time, the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world; was born of a virgin; lived a
sinless life; was in fact, God manifested in flesh, or incarnated in a human
body; went to the Cross for ‘His people’; suffered to pay the full penalty for
our sins; died the infinite death you and I deserved to die; was buried in a
tomb; and on the third day, arose again from the dead to justify all those whom
the Father had elected in Eternity to save.
Hallelujah!
We
now have that ‘daysman’; that Holy Umpire; that One Mediator between God the
Father and sinful mankind - Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living Lord God! Glory to His Holy and Victorious Name!
“For
there is ONE God, and One Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus;
Who gave Himself a ransom for all (elect from every nation), to be testified in
due time.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6) Hallelujah!
We
now have a Divine Daysman, in Christ Jesus! Glory to His Holy and Heavenly Name. Amen.
We can now ‘Come, and reason together’ with our Heavenly Father, through
our Mediator Lord and High Priest, His dear Son, Jesus Christ.
“For
we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin. Let us therefore come
boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to
help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16)
Verse 9. “What profit is there
in my blood? So then, poor saints of God when they come and tell
the Lord in prayers that indeed He may condemn or confound or cut or cast them
off; He may continue to frown upon them; He may deny such and such requests of
theirs, for such and such just causes in them; but what will He gain
thereby?
“He
may gain many praises, etc., by hearing them and helping them; but what good
will it do Him to see them oppressed by the enemies of their souls? Or what delight would it be to Him to see
them sighing and sinking and fainting under sad pressures, etc? This is an allowed and very successful kind
of pleading (reasoning).” (Thomas Cobbet
1608-1686)
Verse 9. “…Shall the dust praise
Thee? Can any number be sufficient to praise Thee? Can there ever be mouths enough to declare
Thy truth? And may not I make one - a
sinful one I know - but yet one in number, if Thou be pleased to spare me from
descending into the pit?” (Sir Richard
Baker 1568-1645)
All
the old Puritans knew this concept well, the concept of reverent ‘reasoning
together’ with the Lord God Whom they loved and sought to serve
diligently. It is this power of
permitted ‘reasoning’ with Divinity, that enabled such prayerful men and women
to take a stand against the powerful Stuart kings and their notion of Absolute
Monarchy, the Divine Right of kings to rule a nation as seemed good in their
own eyes; practiced in England in the seventeenth century. ‘The Lord is our Salvation’ was on their
battle standards, but it was on their knees in reasoning, pleading, prayer that
the Puritans won their victories!
“Prayer
that is likely to prevail with God must be argumentative. God loves to have us plead with Him and
overcome Him with arguments in prayer.”
(Thomas Watson 1620-1686)
Thought:
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:” (Isaiah 1:18) A church without prayer, is a church without
power to serve the Lord God.
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