“I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.”
~ Isaiah 13:11
Hi James and Ellen,
Has your ma and day given you your very own Bibles? Your grandmaa and grandpaa gave your dad and your Aunt Lynn their very own Bibles. Your grandpaa spent years going through one Bible. The Bible that your grandpaa used to go through twice was one that your dad had when he was at Tambo. Your grandmaa and grandpaa each have a couple of Bibles that they use. Reading the Bible is different than reading any other book. The Bible is not a novel or an autobiography. A novel is a story that a guy or a gal made up and wrote down as a book. An autobiography is the life story that a guy or a gal tells about himself or about herself that he or she wrote down as a book. The Bible is not a history book. History books are written to report on what took place on planet Earth at different times and in different places. So – what really makes the Bible different from every other book that has ever been written? God tells you in the Bible that He breathed on guys the words that are in the sixty-six books that make up the Bible. God Himself is speaking directly to whoever is reading a Bible. Most of the time when you hear God speaking, it is in the Old Testament. God spoke in different ways through the different guys who scribed the Bible’s books. God spoke to some of these guys in a dream or in a vision. God talked directly to some of these guys while they were awake. God does not talk to guys today through dreams or visions or directly as He did with the Old Testament prophets. Besides having God speak to you directly through the Bible’s living words, God may speak to you today in other ways. God may speak to you through a sermon that you heard a preacher preach or God may speak to you through what you heard a teacher teach in his or her Sunday School class. God may speak to you through a Christian book that you read or God may speak to you through a devotional that someone has written. God may speak to you as you sit and meditate on what you have just read in the Bible. If you ever hear what seems like a voice speaking to you, you need to carefully listen to the voice as the voice may just be God’s still, quiet voice. Your grandpaa will tell you someday what that still, quiet voice promised him after your grandpaa heard God’s voice calling him to be a missionary.
God sometimes gave messages – which are called oracles, when He spoke through the Old Testament major and minor prophets. An oracle is a prophesy or a prediction. God spoke through His prophets to warn guys what was going to take place in the future. Have you ever predicted anything? An oracle is more serious than a prediction; it is a forewarning of something bad that is going to happen. The major and the minor prophets who wrote the books in the Old Testament were asked by God to warn different people groups and different countries. Why do you think that God would have these prophets – such as Isaiah, warn different people groups and different countries? Why and when do your ma and dad warn you? Do your ma and dad warn you when you are being good or do your ma and dad warn you when you are being bad? What do you picture God as being like? God is your Heavenly Father. You have been uniquely created by God. Do you think that God ever gets angry? Do you think that God will ever destroy what He has created – such as guys, gals and kids? God did become very angry at some of the guys who were living on planet Earth. God eradicated these guys and destroyed the places where these guys had lived. God first warned the guys who He would annihilate. God – in Isaiah 13, has Isaiah telling the guys and gals who are living in Babylon what is going to happen to them. Ask your dad to show you were Babylon is located on one of the maps that can be found near the back of his Bible. Have your dad also show you where Assyria was. Assyria is now Iraq. Babylon is located in Iraq. Ask your dad what kind of country Iraq is. What do you think God wanted Isaiah to tell the guys who were living Babylon? God tells the guys who were living in Babylon through Isaiah in verse 11 “I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.” God promised the guys who were living Babylon – Babylon ostensibly being the greatest city on planet Earth when Isaiah was alive, that He would take away their pride and that He would make their city like Sodom and Gomorrah. What do you think that it would be like to live in a city that was like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? Sodom and Gomorrah were very evil cities. God ended up completely ravaging Sodom and Gomorrah because of how awfully corrupt that they had become.
You may think that as you read the Bible that you will read about mostly good things. You will actually read about a lot of bad things that happened to God’s specially chosen people. You will also read about a lot of the bad things that God’s specially chosen people did. Why do you think that God allows bad things to happen? Why do you think that God allows guys, gals and kids to do bad things? God is teaching you to know that He will protect you if you believe in Him. God is teaching you to know that He will not be happy with you if you continue to sin. Your grandmaa and grandpaa have the privilege of telling guys, gals and kids that God will protect them if they believe in what God’s Son – Jesus Christ, has done for them through His death on the cross. There are guys, gals and kids who have never heard what will happen to them if they do not accept Jesus as their Savior. Your grandmaa and grandpaa use a tract when they talk to a guy, gal or kid about how sinful they are and how – if they accept that Jesus died on a cross for their sinfulness, they will then have God helping them. The tract is called Cinco Pasos Hacia la Vida. Your grandpaa feels a spiritual adrenaline rush when he finishes sharing the Cinco Pasos Hacia la Vida tract with a guy.
Isaiah 13 (46)