L)The advice...
Illustration
(L)
The advice of Isaiah to enter our chambers is advice to withdraw from the crowds of life, on occasion, and prepare for a private audience with the Almighty. After all, that's how it's going to be at the end of time when we face God as judge.
Our lessons today talk about crowds. Crowds are common, cruel, and often comforting! We don't have to have a conscience in a crowd. We can let the emotion of the moment rule. We can say that "majority rules," and let the majority be conscience for us.
Crowds are dangerous because we do not have to have our own opinion. Crowds forgive each other when forgiveness is not due, because the wrong judgment, even if decided by a majority, is still the wrong judgment.
In eternity, when we face God, he will not ask us how many others thought like we thought. God will ask the question that Søren Kierkegaard asks us in Christ's name: "Were you an individual?"
Individuals refuse the cowardly comfort of the crowd. Individuals hear God's word and know it is spoken directly and personally to them. Individuals see God watching them. The individual lets conscience reign, because the conscience and the self are one; because the conscience is God's tool to make us be his individual people.
God's got a lot to ask us. He's not going to let us draw back into the crowd then. It's going to be a private audience with him and no one else can answer for us.
Advice time: Prepare your defense now. Enter your chamber and get to know the Lord of this life, Jesus Christ, and ask him to accompany you to the throne, so that the throne will be a throne of grace and not of wrath.
-- Bansemer
The advice of Isaiah to enter our chambers is advice to withdraw from the crowds of life, on occasion, and prepare for a private audience with the Almighty. After all, that's how it's going to be at the end of time when we face God as judge.
Our lessons today talk about crowds. Crowds are common, cruel, and often comforting! We don't have to have a conscience in a crowd. We can let the emotion of the moment rule. We can say that "majority rules," and let the majority be conscience for us.
Crowds are dangerous because we do not have to have our own opinion. Crowds forgive each other when forgiveness is not due, because the wrong judgment, even if decided by a majority, is still the wrong judgment.
In eternity, when we face God, he will not ask us how many others thought like we thought. God will ask the question that Søren Kierkegaard asks us in Christ's name: "Were you an individual?"
Individuals refuse the cowardly comfort of the crowd. Individuals hear God's word and know it is spoken directly and personally to them. Individuals see God watching them. The individual lets conscience reign, because the conscience and the self are one; because the conscience is God's tool to make us be his individual people.
God's got a lot to ask us. He's not going to let us draw back into the crowd then. It's going to be a private audience with him and no one else can answer for us.
Advice time: Prepare your defense now. Enter your chamber and get to know the Lord of this life, Jesus Christ, and ask him to accompany you to the throne, so that the throne will be a throne of grace and not of wrath.
-- Bansemer
