Grow or Die

Fellow dust collectors, brother Paul said, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4). Given that encouraging word, I find that Isaiah 28 contains some interesting and baffling statements.

Before you read further, please take a moment to read Isaiah 28.

Here are some things that catch my eye. Verses 7ff indicate that the priests and prophets had become unreliable voices for God. In fact, they are talking “baby talk”—“Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little here” is a Hebrew nursery rhyme. As a result, the people persist in an incomplete and immature understanding of God.

So, according to verse 11, God begins to speak to His people with foreign lips and strange tongues. In other words, He speaks a message of peace but they cannot understand Him. So, the word of the Lord becomes baby talk SO THAT they will fall backward, be injured and captured (vs. 13).

There are many other notable things in this chapter, but here is a lesson I see in these select verses. If we persist in approaching God from a standpoint of immaturity—refusing to grow up, God will reward us with a shallow knowledge of Him. The inevitable result will be our DOWNFALL. He will continue to speak an encouraging message but it will be a foreign language to us. All of which leads me to become ripe pickings for the Enemy—or, at the very least, an inadequate and useless representative for God.

The stinger to Isaiah’s message is in verse 19, “The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.” Well, friends, I am now afraid to NOT grow and mature.

Press on!
Bryan