Reading
SAA Notes
You find God’s heart in 5:4-6. Verse 5:24 is a good motto for police detective work and our lawyers and judges. God Himself and belief in Him is the foundation of good justice that is for our common weal! Complacency was and still is a besetting sin for believers.
SJA Notes
* Holy God, please put a right spirit within us, a true heart after Your own heart.
We see in this passage the sheer stupidity of _false_ religion – God hates it.
God says, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.”
Unbelief manifests itself in hypocrisy. Look at the Pharisees, the Chief Priests, the Teachers of the Law in Jesus time!
But more, look within our own lives.
The Lord is not speaking here to the pagan societies of the day, not the idol-worshipping unbelievers in surrounding lands.
No. This warning is to the CHURCH!
“Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.”
Why is God speaking this way to His people?
From yesterday’s passage we remember, “… Yet you did not return to me,”
Israel has rejected her King, her Lord, her God … Her FIRST LOVE (This is not limited to the Old Testament pre-Jesus nation of God, see Revelation 2 v4, the church at Ephesus had abandoned their first love too).
What is the answer then? How was Israel to resolve this complancency, this pride – “I abhor the pride of Jacob, and hate his strongholds,”
The answer lies at the beginning of this passage.
It’s a simple powerful call from God.
“SEEK ME AND LIVE”
That’s it. Right there. The heart of the matter.
Let’s be encouarged and convicted to seek out our God, to follow Him, to do what He tells us.
* Righteous and Holy God, please help us to seek You in our lives. Help us, because we cannot help ourselves.
Thank You that in Jesus we find rescue and salvation, hope and assurance.
Bind us up in You Lord, with cords that cannot be broken, that each day we might seek You, in spirit and in truth.
Amen.