Psalm 105:1-22; Isa. 65:1-12; 1 Tim. 4:1-16; Mark 12:13-27
The Lord’s answer to Isaiah’s prayer may have caused him to wish he hadn’t prayed at all. The announcement is that these people have forsaken Him, they have played at religion and have forgotten what holiness truly is. They have gone after other gods, namely Fortune and Destiny. Many Christians play at these same things, fortune tellers and other seers have a good business among some and horoscopes and star charts remain popular. We want to know the future, we don’t like surprises and the Lord won’t give us that information in a form we can use so we seek wisdom and knowledge elsewhere and plan our lives accordingly. He says these things are abominable in His sight and bring us under judgment as rejecting Him and His counsel. Let us rid our lives of such things.
The little question about paying taxes to Caesar gets turned on their heads. Whose likeness or image is on the coin is a way of saying that you render to Caesar that which bears his likeness but you were created in the image of another and to him you are to render your lives. We need always to remember that we do bear the image of God and our lives are to be offered to Him just as Jesus came in our image in order to render a sacrifice for those whose image He bore. His answer to the Sadducees leaves them no less chastened, saying you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God and ending with “You are quite wrong.” What would change about the way you think about the world and life if you believed as the Sadducees, that this life is all there is?
Paul’s words to Timothy concerning dietary laws reveal that the Lord has done a work in Paul and that indeed some things have changed. In the Isaiah passage the people are excoriated for eating pork yet here Paul speaks of all things being acceptable if they are received with thanksgiving to God who can make them holy. Clean and unclean related primarily to ritual sacrifice and in Jesus the system was done away with so the issue was mooted. Paul says that godliness has benefits in this life and the next. How does godliness in this life benefit us in the next? It prepares us for full enjoyment of the presence of God and is training for the life to come when true godliness will be revealed. It causes us to desire the kingdom where we will be truly godly people.
All laud we would render; O help us to see
’Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee,
And so let Thy glory, Almighty, impart,
Through Christ in His story, Thy Christ to the heart.
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