"FOR HE SHALL GROW UP BEFORE HIM

AS A TENDER PLANT"

ISAIAH 53:2

 STEPHEN RICHIE

In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth and He rested on the seventh day.  If a human being had ever worked as hard as God did in those six days, he or she would most certainly want a glass of water to drink!!!  God has placed within human beings the thirst for water. A person would not want just any glass of water but only the coldest and clearest glass of water with lots of ice and plenty of water with no impurities and nothing else in the water to change the taste of that glass of refreshing ice water!!!

Human beings, however, occasionally like to add something to that water even though the water is all that we need to drink.  Some people like to dissolve tea leaves in the water....some like to add cola syrup to it (20%)......and  some like to add hops and barley (12%) or fermented grape juice to it (8%).  We all think we have to have our "favorite" drink when what we really need is water. (Proverbs 18:4)  We need to have a bubbling fountain of water to quench our thirst.  Water with a single drop of anything else mixed with it is no longer pure water.

Human beings also have within their flesh an ungodly spiritual thirst to sin.  As a result, people have their own personal favorite sins. (James 4:4)  In other words, people have their own personal pollutants they add to their spiritual  bodies.  Some prefer the sin of covetousness.  Others sit before a television set and worship it as a god.  Some prefer to hate various individuals thereby commiting murder in their hearts.  Some prefer stealing other individual's (or businesses') goods and money.  Some prefer fornication or adultery.  The list of preferred sins is endless. Each individual's sin preference is rationalized in the flesh mind and the rationalization of the sin is also sin! (James 4:17)

In this world's barren wilderness filled with the quagmire of sins and temptations, there is Jesus to be found....God's LIVING water.   (Isaiah 55:1)  While this evil world offers it's own filthy spiritual waters to drink from, there is a well of Living Water to be found in The LORD Jesus.  He is spiritual water that quenches the spiritual thirst of thirsty and desperate souls.  He is also spiritual food for the spiritually hungry soul. 

Let's take a look at what the world has to offer in spiritual food and spiritual drink.  It is filled with spiritual contaminants and spiritual pollution.  It is poison.  It is deadly.  There is no spiritual life to be found in it.  It destroys body and soul and spirit in the carnal Christian.  For an unsaved person, it continues to keep in spiritual death that which is spiritually dead....for there is no birth of spirit until one is saved by The LORD Jesus.  It leads each group AWAY from Jesus and LEADS TO HELL'S FLAMES WHEREIN THERE IS NOT A DROP OF WATER TO COOL ONE'S TONGUE IN THE FLAMES!!!  In hell, there is no Living Water to be found, either.  Jesus, God's Living Water, can ONLY be found while we are here on this earth.  We must drink from Him here on earth for there is no mercy to be found at the end of a sinner's life.  It will simply be too late. 

"Friendship with the world is enmity with God." (James 4:4)

Isaiah chapter 53 is a chapter filled with prophecies pertaining to the Messiah Jesus Christ.  It says that "He grew up before Him as a tender plant" and that "He was as a root out of dry ground".  The "He" was Jesus and the "Him" was Father God and the "dry ground" had to have been  this spiritually barren wilderness called earth.  While Jesus Himself WAS and IS The Living Water, we are NOT!!!  We MUST have Him in order to be given eternal life in this evil, ungodly, and hell-bound world.  He is the ONLY One Who can give it to us.  Our spiritual roots are to be then grounded in Him just as The Word tells us.  We must be watered by The Word often.....in other words, we MUST read our Bibles!  We will grow into what He desires for us to be if we will but obey Him and abide in Him.  We cannot grow up spiritually by taking in things of this spiritually bankrupt world.  We will become choked and destroyed by such things.  Jesus told us in His Word that He is the vine and that we are the branches.  He said that we MUST abide in Him and He went on to say that without Him we can do nothing!!!  

Just as a rose bush thrives on water, so shall we thrive if watered by The Living Water.  Deprive a rose bush of water and pour upon it any other liquid for sustenance and see what happens.  It withers and dies.  It MUST have water.  So it is with God's true children.  We MUST have THE LIVING WATER!!!  His eternal life and Living Water flows from Himself to us as we abide in Him.

Let us set aside the sin that so easily besets us and run the race that God has set before us while we are here on this earth.  He has said that it is he that endures til the end that will be saved.  Let us look to the day when we are raised up by Jesus and live with Him eternally.  We will inherit a new heaven and a new earth. (Revelation chapter 21)  There will be no temptation to sin.  There will be no crying.  Everything will be new for all who believe in Him.  Indeed, just as God carried Jesus from the cradle to the grave and then raised Him up by His resurrection power, so will He carry us and will cause us to be risen to eternal life just as Jesus was.

Carnal Christians, do you really want to continue to spiritually pollute your mind and soul and body and spirit with the spiritual food and spiritual drink of this hell-bound evil world? Come to Jesus. Repent and renew your life in The LORD Jesus and let Him give you a place in heaven by trusting in Him.  Do not forfeit your salvation that He so graciously has given to you.  Jesus promised that no man can pluck you out of His hand but He did not say that you could not willfully walk out of His hand.  Scriptures indicate that indeed one can do exactly that.

Lost sinners, call upon the Name of Jesus and be eternally saved today.  Cast off that sin burden and live for Jesus!  Learn to be pure by reading His Holy Word and growing spiritually strong and healthy in His image.  God loved you so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that you might have everlasting life by believing in Him!! (John 3:16)  THIS IS GOD'S PROMISE TO YOU!  Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life!! (John 14:6)

Carnal Christians and sinners, give up that spiritually polluted life of sin that you are cherishing and come to Jesus!  Give up that love of self.  Become new in Jesus.  Have a rebirth in Jesus and cast off that old life and live new in Him.  Jesus was wounded and He died on an old rugged cross for our iniquities.  If we believe in Him, we will then have peace with God.  We will have peace in our lives because the torments of unforgiven sin will be replaced with assurance that indeed Jesus has forgiven all of our sins and has blotted them out of His memory just as He promised He would do.  We will have eternal life also.  Do you want to be spiritually blind in sin or do you want to live eternally with Jesus in eternity?  Who will you choose to spend eternity with?  Will you choose Jesus or will you continue to choose satan?  To this man, peace with God is the best and the ONLY choice.  Belief in The LORD Jesus Christ is the ONLY way!!!  A pure life of knowing and living in Jesus is the best and ONLY way for you and me to enjoy this life on earth and then enjoy eternal life in Heaven with Jesus.

Trust in this "tender plant".  Trust in Jesus.  He bore all of the pain and took all of the sin on Himself so that you could receive eternal life if you will but choose to repent and ask Him to save your soul and ask Him to give to you His eternal life.  Give up the spiritual pollution in your life and the spiritual pollution that others may be planting in you through false teachings and counseling, false doctrines, and any and all religions outside of true Christianity.  Believe in Jesus and search His Word to find your solutions for life's problems.  Believe in Jesus to remove the spiritual scales from your eyes and cure you of the desire to sin by allowing Him to do a great work in you.  He will, you know.  He did it in this man and I promise you that He will do the same for you.  Christ is the answer for any and all crisis times in your life.

Fellow Christians, time is running short.  The signs of prophecy are coming true very rapidly and Jesus is coming again!!  Repent of your sin today!!  Too many professing Christians have become blind to Godly teaching and we truly are in the last days of this earth.  In Revelation, this compromising and lukewarm Church-age of the last days is called the Laodecean Church.  Jesus speaks this to our shame in these last days.  All of the flesh wisdom and monetary riches of this last-days Laodecean Church-age is considered to be of high price to those within but the last-days Laodecean Church is considered wretched, poor, naked and blind by Jesus Himself and He states this plainly in Revelation 3:15-17.  Jesus is offering His cleansing to us if we will but repent and return to our first love....JESUS.  He will clothe us in His spiritual clothes of righteousness and will open our blinded eyes if we will but repent. Eternity with The LORD Jesus will be ours!!!  Heaven is waiting for all that truly believe and are eternally saved by Jesus.  WE MUST NOT WAIT ANOTHER DAY BECAUSE TOMORROW MAY BE TOO LATE.  WE MUST COME TO JESUS TODAY! 

FATHER GOD, COME INTO THE HEARTS OF MANY TODAY AND WASH THEM CLEAN IN YOUR HOLY GRACE AND SALVATION.  FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM TO SURELY COME.  AMEN.

01/05/2007