Righteousness?  In the very earliest translations of the Bible into English this word was spelt right-wise-ness!  Interesting – we like to think of it as indicating that the only wise way to live our lives was always to aim to do right – that is, right by God’s standards.. 

Paul, in concluding his first letter to Timothy tells him that he needs to pursue a ‘right-wise’ way of life.  It needs mental energy, a real sense of the right direction on which to focus the eyes of our minds. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom” [Matt. 19 v.23].  There are “riches” of human creation  all around us in the world today- as never before!

This is the point Paul is telling Timothy to make to believers while he is living in Ephesus (1 Tim.1 v.3). Paul writes to him saying, “for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.  It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.  Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life to which you were called …” [v.10-12]

This advice to Timothy is surely for us as well! How do you “take hold” of something?  You need both hands!  Well, in those days, indeed until about 200 years ago, most individuals who needed to travel some distance had to mount and take hold of the reins of a horse (or a camel or an ass in Bible times) and guide it with firm hands to the desired destination. He had to have a good sense of direction, sign posts were non-existent! 

May all of us have such a commitment to living our lives that we “take hold” of the right and wise directions in life, ignoring the distracting human signposts and “the uncertainty of riches” [v.17] but, as Paul advised, to be “rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”[v.18,19]  We can only effectively “pursue” that which we have set our eyes (and minds) to look upon!   David wrote in Psa. 101 v.3 “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless”, let us do likewise.  

What is godliness?  Is the answer obvious?  It should be, but in a world that increasingly does not believe in God, let alone read the Bible, few have a clear idea of what godliness is!  Do we?  We are reading Paul’s letters to “Timothy, my true child in the faith” [1 Tim 1 v.2].  Paul had urged him to stay in Ephesus and set an example of “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” [v.5]   

    There were some there “who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.  For everything created by God is good … (and) is to be received, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” [Ch. 4 v.3-5] 

Human nature always seems to be inclined to make rules, such as to abstain from this or that, or worship on a specific day or way (see Coloss. 2 v.8,16-19) and then think they are ‘better’ people in God’s sight as a result. 

    Paul tells Timothy, “If you put these (good) things before the brothers (and sisters), you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.” [v.6]  He then stresses “… train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” [v.7-8]

Paul tells him to “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” [v.12,13]

    Imagine living 400 years ago, when people were in church every day to read or hear read the Bible that had been chained to a reading stand!  What value was placed in those days on the word of God – what a comparison to today! 

Paul’s words summarise the main factors in true godliness.  Given the way in which our minds are so easily distracted we must note the stress that Paul  makes in his letter to his “true child in the faith” to “keep a close watch on yourself  and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” [v.16]

We are not ‘hearers’ – instead we are ‘readers’ – what a wonderful blessing to have these words preserved for our guidance – that we can (and must) read every day.  After Jesus told the familiar parable of the sower sowing the seed he said, “He who has ears, let him hear” [Matt. 13 v.9] We can and should ‘translate’ that as, ‘He that has eyes to read, let them read’ – and absorb into their consciences what they read and so develop greater ‘godliness.’

Over the last few days we have been reading about the conquests of the Israelites after they crossed the Jordan.  The account of the conquest of Jericho is well known and the way the walls fell down. Then there was a setback in achieving what had appeared to be an easy task in conquering the nearby smaller town of Ai. A surprising reason came to light; there had been disobedience with a stealing of the spoils in the conquest of Jericho. The Israelites learnt a hard lesson.  A second attempt to conquer Ai succeeded.

It is most illuminating to note what Joshua then did; “he built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal” [Ch. 8 v.30], and they made “offerings to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings” [v.31] and Joshua “wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses” [v.32] which would have been the ten commandments.  But not content with that, “afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law.  There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones and the sojourners who lived among them” [v.34,35]

It is obvious to us why he read “all that is written” – it was so that the failure they had recently experienced would not be repeated!  Also, that they would be inspired with a “vision” in their minds of the wonder of the God they served and the long term future of their nation. 

This is the reason why we read God’s words every day. It is more essential than ever for God’s word to be in our minds to “inspire” us to face each day with a ‘vision of things unseen.’   Look at the words we read in Isaiah today! “God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid … with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  And you will say in that day, ‘Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples … Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously …” [Ch. 12 v.2-5]  He has done – but will do even more gloriously.  Isaiah later writes, “… no eye has seen a God beside you, who acts for those who wait for him.  You meet him (& her) who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.” [64 v.4,5]

 Today, more than ever before, we live in a herd environment, a human herd.  Mass advertising in a great variety of media confronts us hour after hour, this creates a herd mentality. We reflected on this as we read Paul’s words this morning.  He told the Thessalonians that we “give you in ourselves an example to imitate.” [2 Thess. 3 v.9]  What do we imitate? What or who do we take as our examples in life?  An equally important question – why do we see them as examples that we might feel inclined to imitate?  Bad examples surround us!   But there are other things that are in some aspects good, but are dangerous in other ways! In these cases we need to acknowledge the good but be conscious of the potential for danger, seeing the aspects that could be deceitful, as Paul did.  

    Do you remember what he wrote about sin in Romans ch. 7?  Verse 11 challenges our understanding.  Paul wrote, “For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me …” Yet, the next verse says, the “law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” 

What does he mean?  It appears to us that in studying the law and keeping them they became proud of their righteousness, that pride, deceived them! Now he was a follower of Christ, Paul sees life through Christ’s eyes, he now has what we might call, a down to earth perspective. He  writes, “you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it … that we might not be a burden to you.” [v.7,8]  

So we need to ask ourselves – are we pulling our weight, doing our share?  We live in a world (in the west in particular) where getting something for nothing is the aim of quite a percentage of the population.  Some have seen a career in ‘Christianity’ as a means of making a living with very little hard work attached to it.  This is sometimes evident in India, especially if some overseas organisation is pouring in money. 

In this country the degree of ‘social welfare’ encourages some to try to live ‘idle’ lives, but the true believer must have an attitude that is the very opposite.  Soon we will be reading the letter to the Hebrews where it is stated, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.  Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” [13 v.7] They did not have the blessing of a Bible to read every day and we cannot help but think that, if they had, they would have read it every spare moment – and made as many such moments as possible.  Today with so many Bibles available, it is vital we ask ourselves what part does God’s word take as we live each day?    

One of the smallest “books” in the Bible is the 3^rd letter of John. Let’s take our final point from what he wrote at the end of his long life. “Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good.  Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.” [v.11]  What will you do today that you would call “good”? We should read the Bible with such dedication of mind that we “see” God.

Today’s chapter in Isaiah reveals how God uses evil nations, in this case the Assyrians, as his axe, rod or saw to deal with other nations he had decided to punish – often that nation was his own  people Israel.  These nations think they are achieving their successes by their own strength – and so, in one sense they are, but God is in overall control. This has always been the case.   But those who are proud of their achievements are in turn dealt with by God and this was first the fate of the Assyrians and after that, Babylon’s.  God through Isaiah (Ch. 10) says, “Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it” [v.15]  God was the one who was doing the hewing, he had a spiritual reason in view. 

What specially attracts us to this chapter are the implications that history will repeat itself in the future! In v.20 we read, “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.” [v.20,21] ”  When is that day?  

Israel today while much stronger in itself, still leans on another nation, that has been the USA.   Before its re-establishment as a nation, it was the U.K., whose troops liberated Jerusalem from the Moslems in 1917 and then issued ‘the Balfour Declaration’.  But England proved to be a weak leaning post and went back on their word, in their subsequent history; one is inclined to the view that God has judged them.   Now we see the USA lessening its support for Israel, is this a factor in the USA’s greater recent troubles?  We can watch with interest, but even more than this, we must read God’s word as carefully as possible to try to correctly understand its prophecies.

One thing we noted, as quoted above, was that when Israel lean on the Lord, they do so “in truth,.”  The next verse (v.22) says, “For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return.  Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness.”  It may be that the destruction that was decreed has already occurred when Hitler killed 5 million Jews, we cannot yet know for sure, but the Holocaust event so provoked the conscience of the world when the facts became known, that the newly formed UNITED NATIONS voted in 1947 in favour of the establishment of Israel.  But it was God who wrought miracles to see the nation victorious the following year; the U.N., as it still is (eg Syria), was powerless to enforce its decisions of 1947.  

We will read more of this in Isaiah’s next chapter with great interest, just as we read with great interest the passages today in the New Testament of the “man of sin” the lawless one “whom the Lord Jesus Christ will kill with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.” [2 Thess.2 v.8]   We are living in momentous days, but they are becoming ever darker except for those whose minds are illuminated by the word of God.

 Four times, the first three being in today’s reading of the 9^th chapter of Isaiah, the prophet’s message is, “For all this his anger is not turned away and his hand is stretched out still” [v.12,17, 21 and 10 v.4].  It is a condemnation against those who speak “in pride and in arrogance of heart” [v.9] of all they will do in their own strength to recover from their disasters and restore the things that have gone wrong in Israel.  They say, they will rebuild “the bricks that have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamore have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place” [v.10]. 

The nation refused to see that it was the LORD who had caused these disasters, but their thoughts were on rebuilding and even making things better than they were previously; they did not see that God’s anger was still there, his hand was stretched out for further punishment because “the people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the LORD of hosts.”[v.13]

We noted the extreme result of their attitude –  “the LORD will have “no compassion (even) on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly (Footnote: ‘disgraceful things’)”   [v.17].  Our LORD is not endlessly compassionate, Israel, had taken his blessings for granted! Their hearts were filled with “pride and arrogance.”  

There is a solemn lesson in this today; Some years ago near where we live the people experienced dreadful forest fires covering large areas with great loss of property, nearly 200 died – in the summers since then there has been great concern in case extra hot weather could cause a repeat. We have not seen any inclination to pray to God about these concerns.  Other massive disasters have occurred in the world since then – God’s anger is not turned away! 

Presently the world is nervous about the ‘health’ of the ‘God of Mammon’ as financial uncertainties make the world anxious: in a later chapter in Isaiah we will see implications about the ultimate failure of money.   

But for those who look for light in the darkness what marvellous light is to be found in verses 7 & 8 of today’s chapter!  “For unto us a child is born … and the government shall be on his shoulder … of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end … to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.  The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”     

Let us all see the light in the darkness. Let us all realize how much we need the light that only God can provide?

 What do we find encouraging in our lives?  Some would find this a difficult question – our Godless world has threatening storm clouds on the horizons – and many are fearful of how serious they might become.  Paul’s words to the Thessalonians with which our chapters today conclude contained a positive message, this was that they should not grieve over any of their number who die.   Paul writes, “… we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as do others who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” [I Thess. 4 v.13,14].  

He then explains how this will happen, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we too who are alive, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” [v.15-17] 

As Jesus was about to ascend to heaven he told his astonished disciples, “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons that the Father has fixed …” [Acts 1 v.7].  Time has progressed onward for almost 2,000 years and men and women of a great many generations have died.  We have to accept this as God’s timetable; it was about 2,000 years from Abraham to Christ – and now – in God’s scheme for human life – another 2,000 years has elapsed.  

However, for those who, as Paul puts it, “fall asleep”, let us realize that none of them are conscious of the passage of time.  When our Lord descends from heaven – at that time there will be a great awakening and all who have died with this “hope” will, from then on, “always be with the Lord” – and our Lord, as so many scriptures tell us, will be reigning over all the earth.  With this understanding we can see how meaningful the last verse is – “Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 

Do you feel encouraged?  When your loved one’s ‘in Christ” die may “you not grieve as do others who have no hope.”  If this is not going to be the case – now is the time to do what you can, seeking God’s guidance in prayer and through his word, to create a more encouraging expectation. 

Today we began reading the book of Joshua: also Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians.  Both recount the need for  boldness and the need to be courageous – comparable in some ways to the thought that has been expressed in recent generations, ‘the power of positive thinking,’ but which lacks the ‘God-fearing’ ingredient.

Attitudes of thinking in the minds of those with a true faith in God, minds that are ‘fed’ by daily ‘feeding’ on God’s word, grow stronger and stronger. Paul told the Thessalonians how he, with Silvanus and Timothy, were “constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” [1 v.2,3]

They had “received the word in much affliction” [v.6] and had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven … who delivers us from the wrath to come.” [v.9,10] There are increasing indications that the final period of God’s wrath must be very near on a world that has become almost totally godless, therefore we need, more than ever “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” [v.3] and “boldness in our God to declare … the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.” [2 v.2] 

We compare this situation with the boldness of Joshua who had been thrust into the leadership after the death of Moses.  God says to him, “Just as I was with Moses, I will be with you.  I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous” [1 v.5]  God then repeats this and adds, “The book of the Law … meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.  For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success …. Be strong and courageous … for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. “ [v.8,9] 

What words of encouragement – and what an example in Moses he had to follow (just as Christians have Christ and the apostles) – and we have just been reading Moses’ final messages in the book of Deuteronomy, words which  Joshua would have very much in mind. 

But today we have the whole Bible! Let us develop a spirit of dedication, being committed to read his word and develop “boldness in our God.” 

 Moses has reached the end of his long life, he is now 120 years old and his final effort is a final message to the nation.  We read, “then Moses spoke the words of this song  … in the ears of the assembly of Israel.” [Deut.31 v.30].  His words were designed to be memorised.  “When Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel” [32 v.45] “he said to them, take to heart these words … that you may command them to your children … for it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live …” [v.46,47]  

We can see his final message as a microcosm of all God’s words that he has caused to be preserved for humanity for the guidance of those who seek to believe in him and seek to do his will. Such will therefore read his word and apply their minds to understand.

Moses final message to the emerging nation of Israel applies, in its basic principles, to all who seek to serve God.  God could see that many in succeeding generations in Israel would lose their vision of God and not remain faithful – and so, sadly, this has also largely been the case with those who say they are following Christ. 

God says to Israel, prophetically through Moses, “I will hide my face from them … for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.” [v.20] and so it has been – and is equally true in this 21^st Century with so many who claim to follow Christ.  Through Moses, God said the people would become “a nation void of counsel and there is no understanding in them.  If they were wise they would understand this; they would discern their latter end.” [v.28,29] 

Other scriptures give us more details of their latter end but Moses ends his song positively seeing a time when God “avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries and cleanses his people’s land” [v.43].  Then Moses “came and recited all the words … in the hearing of the people” [v.44] and added in conclusion the words we quoted at the start; “it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live”  This is parallel with the words of Christ and the apostles by which we must live – and, as a result, live eternally.  

“Words” in our world are “empty” of eternal meaning – so let us make God’s words our “very life.”