Bruce Collins, Evangelist

The personal website of Bruce Collins

The Quandary

Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our report?  And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

 

The Wise Men

In Matthew 2, wise men from the East saw the Lord’s star which had to be in the west.   They were being led from the east to the west to find and worship “the King of the Jews.”  These wise men (sometimes translated Magi) seem to be a select group of priests or religious astrologers from Persia.  The Medes and the Persians subdued the Babylon of Daniel’s day.  It is my conviction that Daniel taught the Chaldean (Babylonish) astrologers of his day more than they taught him.  I suspect that these wise men in Matthew had access to Daniel’s teachings as given to the Chaldeans of his day.  They believed those teachings while the Jews had access to the whole of the Old Testament scriptures and as a whole the Jews didn’t believe them.

 

The Samaritan Woman

In John 4 there is a woman from a group despised by the Jews who also knew more that the Jews knew.   She was a Samaritan.  Samaritans knew how to worship Jehovah because of a priest brought back into the land by Assyria after Israel had been taken captive. 

 

We read in 2 Kings 17:28:  “Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD. However every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt.”

 

Samaritans had some truth and a lot of error.  They worshipped in the wrong mountain and offered sacrifices at the wrong altars.  They combined the worship of Jehovah with the worship of pagan gods, and yet here was a “sinner of Samaria” who knew that the Messiah was coming.  She was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah because he told her all the things that she had done including the fact that she had married five times and was now living with a man.

 

The Quandary

Why is it that the ones that we would expect to believe the truth about Christ often do not?   That includes many children who were raised knowing the Bible and the prophecies that were fulfilled when the Lord came into this world the first time.  They know that the Lord has described them and their sins perfectly.  They know that they have not lived up to their own standards let alone living up to the standards of God.  They know that God loves them even though they do not love God.

 

What is true of many privileged children who were raised being taught the truth is often true of many good church going people today.  They would like to make salvation “universal” meaning that ultimately there is no eternal condemnation for unbelievers.  They would like to make morals relative and let “our day” and “society” determine what is right and what is wrong.  Their worship of the Lord is determined by current fads rather than by Scripture.  But should this surprise us?

 

No!  If Magi could understand the truth and if Samaritans could understand the truth while Jews by and large rejected the Truth, it should not come as a surprise that those we least expect to trust in the Lord do trust Him.  It should also come as no surprise that those we think should believe in the Lord do not.

 

So Where does that Leave Us?

Are we among those who have “believed the report?”  Or are we among those who despised Him and didn’t esteem or honor Him?  I am among those who believe the prophetic truth in Isaiah 53:4-5 written 700 years before the Lord was born that says:  “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

 

So who has really believed this report?

 

Bruce Collins

 

Meditation for the week of December 21, 2014

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