Seek The Lord; Call Upon Him
Minister: | Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: | 8/12/2012 AM |
Text: | Isaiah 55:6,7 |
Psalters: | 88, 72, 188, 289 |
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper |
- What is to be done?
- This command (not an invitation) is addressed to the O.T. church.
- They are commanded to “seek” and to “call.”
- This refers to inquiring about something so often that a path is formed by the repeated tramping.
- To “call” is to seek God by way of prayer.
- “While He may be found” and “while He is near.”
- Implies that there is a time when God cannot be found and is not near.
- The time to seek and call is now!!
- How do we seek Jehovah? With sincere repentance.
- Those seeking and calling on the God are identified as “wicked” and “unrighteous.”
- Such are guilty and such are troubled and wicked.
- The only attitude required of such people is a repentant one.
- Repentance is first to forsake one’s ways and thoughts.
- “Ways” refers to the course of one’s life, and “thoughts” are the inner cogitations behind the sinful actions.
- To “forsake” is to leave behind, depart from, let go, and abandon.
- Second, repentance is to “return unto the LORD, and ... to our God.”
- Jehovah our God is the One Who brought us out of the bondage of sin and established a relationship.
- To “return” is necessary because in sin we departed from Him.
- Those seeking and calling on the God are identified as “wicked” and “unrighteous.”
- The motivation for obeying God’s command is the promise of “mercy” and “abundantly pardon.”
- God’s mercy is His loving deeply, His being compassionate and having tender affection.
- God’s mercy results in forgiveness, i.e., that He sees us as if we did nothing wrong and everything right.
- God’s mercy and pardon are “abundantly”, i.e., multiplied, increasing and exceedingly great.
- This does not imply that God’s forgiveness is conditional.
- In the way of forsaking our way and thoughts we subjectively taste God’s merciful forgiveness.
- God’s mercy is His loving deeply, His being compassionate and having tender affection.