A Recurring Theme

As I've been blogging through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel I keep noticing a few things:

1. God is in charge
2. He takes His rules very seriously
3. All three men were commanded to preach faithfully no matter what the response

It's easy to sometimes look at the Old Testament as, well, old. We think that it doesn't have any bearing on our lives today. I agree that it is often an abuse of the text when the Old Testament is used to give us a lot of direct applications, though there are times for that. But what can we get from the stories of these men?

The obvious one that I keep harping on is the call to preach faithfully. They had poor soil to scatter seed in, but they still had to keep scattering the seed. They understood their role and God's role and were faithful to their callings.

The first two are really compelling to me lately. I hate the idea of "Old Testament God" vs. "New Testament God." We know that God doesn't change. Yet we see a lot more wrath in these books than we see in 26 of the New Testament books. What changed?

I would maintain that the cross changed everything. God's wrath on Judah was so severe that people were cooking their children to get through the famine. That is the same wrath that was propitiated at the cross. God hasn't changed, but we now have the cross so that we do not have to suffer from His wrath because of our sin.

It's easy to look down our noses at those idolatrous fools, isn't it? We are no different in our hearts. Yet we have an all-sufficient Savior who took the punishment for us. I hope that gives you some joy.