It’s Really Just Basic Stuff

    Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two.  Every good boy does fine.  My very excellent mother just served us nine planets. The Great Lakes are HOMES.

   You may recognize these mnemonic devices from your school days[i], the little memory trick you employed to keep those random facts in your head.  The repetition does something to your brain, making those easily quickly forgotten facts somehow stick.

   It however can seem a little childish. I know as a preacher, I blush a little when I still sing my books of the Bible when looking up a passage. While the simple technique may be effective, we might dismiss it as somewhat immature.

   That is exactly what Isaiah’s critics are doing in Isaiah 28:9-13;

"To whom would He teach knowledge, And to whom would He interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast?  "For He says, 'Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there.'"  Indeed, He will speak to this people Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue,  He who said to them, "Here is rest, give rest to the weary," And, "Here is repose," but they would not listen.  So the word of the LORD to them will be, "Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there," That they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.

   When you can’t attack the message you attack the messenger.  Is this kids’ stuff?  What kind of expert can he be with such a simple message?  His silly little rhymes, his hokey rules, his simple speech, this something for children not well learned adults!  That simple method, those basic truths, will be however exactly what will condemn the people.  Since they refused to listen to that simple message they will be destroyed not for their ignorance but for their arrogance.

   People are not that different today.  The truths in the Bible are not that hard to understand, people make them much more complicated than they need to be.  Maybe we like it complicated, it gives us more room to try and wiggle out of a clear command.  Knowing what God wants you to do isn’t hard, it is the doing it that is difficult.

   Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:3, But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ”. Don’t be deceived by those that change the commands of God from its clear simple message. It says what it means and means what it says.

   Don’t overthink it. Just do what it says.

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[i] If not you may be wondering about my sanity