Eating the good of the land

Isaiah 1:1-20 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. ² Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me; ³ The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master’s crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider.”

⁴ Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.

⁵ Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints. ⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head, There is no soundness in it, But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; They have not been closed or bound up, Or soothed with ointment.

⁷ Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; Strangers devour your land in your presence; And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. ⁸ So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. ⁹ Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.

¹⁰ Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah: ¹¹ “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?” Says the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats.

¹² “When you come to appear before Me, who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts? ¹³ Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.
¹⁴ Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them. ¹⁵ When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶ “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, ¹⁷ Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. ¹⁸ “Come now, and let us reason together,”

Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. ¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; ²⁰ But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

It grieves God's Spirit when He looks at what He made and sees it corrupted, which is what God was seeing in our text today. God is not a sadist; He did not create the good of the land and deny us the opportunity to enjoy it. He made the good of the land for us to enjoy it right now, and in this season. 

Sometimes we interfere with the plan of God, of man enjoying the good of the land, through disobedience. This is what He intended for Adam and Eve. Because of disobedience, Adam was cut off from the plan of God, submitting us to the lineage of sin. 

Romans 3:23

... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...

Nothing and no one else can restore us to the purpose of God for man, except Jesus Christ. When we surrender and believe in Jesus, with our hearts and confessing with out mouths that He is Lord, then we are restored back to God's purpose. 

When we give our lives to Christ, we are cut off from the lineage of sin, and are brought in to the lineage of Christ. The Holy Spirit gets in us, and separates us from our old life of habitual sinning. 

John 1:11-12

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:  

Living a life in Christ is part of eating the good of the land. 

Isaiah 9:6-7

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

If I got the One with the government on His shoulders, what would hinder me from eating the good of the land? The things we allow in our lives on a daily basis either qualify or disqualify us from eating the good of the land. 

The design of God is that eating the good of the land starts with man' spirit being reunited to Him. If we are willing to be led by God, and obedient, we will make the first step towards eating the good of the land. 

John 10:10

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

It is not our business to focus on what the thief came to do. Human beings have a tendency to continue desiring a liberty they do not know the end of. God has given us the liberty to choose between life and death. When we choose life, we choose the good of the land (joy, peace, love, good clothes, food, health, sober minds, etc.) Imagine God providing all the good of the land and us failing to enjoy it. 

Enjoying the good of the land is a choice. If an earthly father can be filled with joy and love because of reconciliation with their child, how much more will our heavenly Father not rejoice when we are reconciled with Him, and enjoy blessings that add no sorrow?

We have to be a people who will make the choice to always live in obedience. 

Isaiah 1:16

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil...

We should put away the evil from our lives, in our thinking, doings, places of going, interactions etc. We have to make a choice like Joseph's, living a life that pleases God, not for God's good, but for our good. 

A relationship with God is like a marriage; a good marriage involves one that each of the spouses stops thinking about what pleases themselves, and starts thinking about what pleases the partner. To have a healthy relationship with God, we have to think about what pleases Him. The good of the land has been provided, it is for us to choose whether to eat or not. 

Let us be real and true Christians who are eager to please God, forsaking evil and lives that do not reflect us as Christians. May the Lord help us to be established, in order to eat of the good of the land, to stop running after things and instead run after Him. Instead of running after the promise, we should run after what we are supposed to do in order to eat the good of the land, to enjoy and inherit the promises (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). 

We have to be a people committed to do that which pleases God, for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (Acts 17:28). 

Amen.

-- Pastor Mary Mugo. 


22/12/13 Sunday service sermon, Teaching Transformation Ministry, Joska.


Pastor Mary Mugo is the Senior Pastor at Teaching Transformation Ministry. We are located along the Thika-Ruai Flyover Junction (at the Thika Rd./ Bypass intersection), Next to Eastgate Restaurant.