This teaches us that . . .
(You will find it helpful to LISTEN to the Audio, as you READ the text below.)
Isaiah 53:2-3,
"He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him.
There was nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces—He was despised and we esteemed Him not."
It is astonishing that with such plain prophecies concerning the Messiah, the Jews should have made such a fatal mistake in reference to Him. They looked for a temporal conqueror who would come in splendor, notwithstanding that this and many other Scriptures speak of His coming in humiliation in express terms. Every unprejudiced person might have seen from this passage, that the Messiah when He came, was not to be surrounded with pomp—but would come as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," and be "despised and rejected by men."
Though this truth was written as with a sunbeam, and the Jewish people were acquainted with their own Scriptures—yet when the Messiah came unto them, they did not received Him. Though favored with the clearest prophecies concerning Him, they rejected His claims and cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
This teaches us that the plainest instruction, however earnestly and forcibly delivered—cannot be rightly understood by the unregenerate mind. The carnal mind cannot discern spiritual things—its eye is darkened, and its ear is heavy. The inspired Word itself, cannot put a spiritual truth so clearly that lost men will understand it—unless their eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit. Vain is the best light to blind men.
How ardently we should adore the Holy Spirit, that He stoops to our spiritual blindness—and is pleased to remove the scales, and pour light into our souls. Whatever we have rightly discerned, has been revealed to us by His teaching, for apart from His illumination, we would have been as obstinately unbelieving as the Jews who crucified their King.
"For the carnal mind is enmity against God;
for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.
So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Romans 8:7-8
"No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him" John 6:44
"No one can come to Me, unless the Father has enabled him" John 6:65
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We have published Grace Gems for NOVEMBER 2024 in one file.