The Mature Part 2

Hey everyone.

In my last post I started talking about what the Bible says to those who are mature.  We looked at a few scriptures.  In this post I will look at a few more.  We will start in Phil. 3:15.  It says, "All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things."  Now, to understand what Paul is talking about here we need to examine the context to see what view the mature should have.

Going back then to Phil. 3:1-14 should give a general idea of a mature point of view.  Here is what I get from it:

• Put no confidence in the flesh - In 3:3-6 Paul uses those words specifically and then points out that if anyone has a reason to put confidence in the flesh it would be him.  Paul had all the best credentials, a Hebrew of Hebrews, and in terms of righteousness under the law, he was faultless. However, he now recognized that all of his legalistic righteousness did not bring him any closer to God.  If anyone could have been saved through their own legalistic righteousness, it would have been Paul.  But he understood that his salvation and relationship with God was through Jesus Christ and not himself, so he boasted in Christ (v.3) and not himself.
• Jesus is better than anything he had to give up - In v. 8 Paul starts talking about "the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus."  He says that for the sake of Christ he has lost all things.  In fact, he says that anything he may have given up is "garbage," in comparison.  This is certainly a viewpoint of the mature.  The mature recognize that the world has nothing to offer and would never look back at it longingly.  Because Jesus is better.  A whole lot better.
• A point under this is that the mature are not afraid of loss or suffering.  Paul goes on to say in v. 10-11, "I want to know Christ- yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead." The mature will endure loss and suffering for the sake of Christ, knowing that what awaits us is is far better than living this life without suffering.  This is challenging.  I don't want to suffer.  Who does?  It challenges me to accept whatever difficult things come my way without feeling sorry for myself.
• The mature keep moving forward - In v. 12 Paul says, " Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."  Paul had not arrived.  Nor have we.  Those of us who have been around for a long time get tempted to settle into our lives and stop moving forward.  This is not a mature action.  We, the mature, owe it the next generation to keep moving forward and set examples for the young.

Another mention of the mature comes from Hebrew 5:11-6:3.  According to these verses, solid food is for the mature, who have trained themselves with constant use of the word.  In other words, the immature still struggle with teachings about basic righteousness, but the mature are beyond elementary teachings.  How did they get that way? (5:13) through constant use of God's word.  Sadly is is possible for a person to be around the church for many years and still be a spiritual toddler, because they have not trained themselves through the constant use of solid spiritual food.  The mature can handle God's word.

Finally, according to James 1:3-4, maturity comes through perseverance.  Making it to maturity in Christ is not going to come easy.  Perseverance comes through the testing of our faith.  So we understand that God allows our faith to be tested, so that ultimately we grow into mature disciples.

Any way, these are some scriptures with a message for those of us who are mature.
Tom   

The Mature

Hey everyone.

It has been a while since I have written anything, but I am hopeful that I can be a bit more consistent in the future.  Any way, I recently did a lesson for the teen disciples in New Jersey where we looked specifically at scriptures that talked to the young, so that we could talk about what God called the young to be like. We had a great discussion, and it was certainly appropriate to where they were at in their walk with God.  However, it started me thinking about my own walk with God.  I am not young in age, nor am I young in the faith, having been a disciple for 28 years.  So what then does God say to the mature?

I realized that we talk a lot about how God called many of his people when they were very young. Samuel, David, Mary and the apostles were all likely quite young when called. However, Abraham was 75 when God called him and Moses wasn't really ready at 40, so God called him at 80.  Clearly God has a plan for us to serve and accomplish his mission no matter what our age.  So, then, what does God say to the mature?  I pulled out my concordance and looked up the word "mature," and this is what I learned:

Luke 8:14 - In the Parable of the Sower the seed that falls among the thorns stands for those who are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures.  Jesus says here that "they do not mature."  So the seed in the thorny soil may represent those who are mature in terms of age, but who have not matured spiritually. So what then are the mature called to do here? 

• The mature need to learn to let go of life's worries.  I Peter 5:7 - "Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you."  Being mature becomes a faith issue.  How much do you trust god to take care of you issues?
• The mature are not caught up in riches or pleasure.  We who are mature in age are more likely to have money and have a greater understanding of what that money can do.  So we are more likely to be choked by it that the young who don't have any. Better that we mature should set an example for the young on how to be spiritual with our money rather than worried about it.

I Corinthians 2:6-7 - "We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.  No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began."  So the mature are supposed to be wise.  But our wisdom is spiritual, rather than worldly, in nature.  So where do we get this wisdom?  God shows it to us. Look later on at verse 13: "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words."  We, the mature, should be able to correctly handle God's word to answer questions and guide the young.  The mature are called to know their Bible.

Ephesians 4:11-13 tells us that God has appointed some to apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip God's people for works of service.  Those in these roles have several tasks given them by God.  One of these tasks is to help God's people become mature.  It follows then that if I want to be mature, I would give ear to those God has appointed to help me be mature.  In other words, the mature listen.

There are more scriptures for the mature.  I will get to them another day.   
Tom 

The Journey

Hey Everyone.

This summer I have been reading a book called Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mulholland Jr.
About halfway through the book, Mulholland makes a reference to Abraham and his journey, saying "O God, I feel like Abraham must have felt when he started his journey of obedience to you, not knowing where he was going."  This comment struck me because I have often felt like that.  So I started looking at Abraham and his journey to see what I could learn for my own journey.

In Gen. 12:1 God says to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."  Verse 4 says, "so Abram left, as the Lord had told him."  Good for Abraham.  He is obedient to God.  He is commended for his faith in Hebrews 11:8 for doing this.  It says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."  This would challenging for me.  I would really want to know the plan. I lack patience. I read spoilers.  I would have had a million questions. "Can I have a map?" "How will I know when I get there?"  Questions like that.  Nevertheless, it appears that without a clear plan, Abraham took God's promise and loaded up the family and moved to some place that God would reveal to him.  So Abraham arrives in the "Promised Land."  Notice what happens shortly after they arrive in this new land.  In Gen. 12:10 it says that there is a famine in the land and they they have to move on the Egypt.  I think that I would have had a hard time with this.  "Go to Egypt?  I just got here." "God, this land you brought me to is really awful.  How can this be the plan?"  I would have really questioned God because things were not going the way I thought they were supposed.  I mean imagine arriving at the place God has told you to go to, only to need to go somewhere else shortly after you got there.

Then in chapter 13, shortly after coming back to this Promised Land from Egypt, Abraham starts having family problems and has to part ways with his nephew Lot.  Again, something happens that was not supposed to happen.  Abraham undaunted continues to do God's will.  And God continues to bless him.  How often do we struggle in our faith when things don't seem to go the way they should, or we are having problems with a family member?  I couldn't tell you how times I have said things like "God, I don't understand what you are doing."  (Now, to be fair to us, Abraham was not perfect. I skipped part of the story in Gen. 12 where Abraham really blew it in Egypt. You can read that on your own if you wish.)

So what can I learn from Abraham?  First, he was obedient to God, no matter what.  God told him to go, he went. Later, God would tell him to sacrifice his son and he set off to do even that.  Abraham's obedience to the will of God set him apart as a man of great faith. Secondly, Abraham worshipped God every where he went. Notice this:

Gen. 12:7 "So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him."
Gen. 12:8 "So he built an alter to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord."
Gen. 13:18 "so Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord."

Obedience no matter what and worship no matter where.  These are things that Abraham took on his journey. I should take them on mine.

Tom

The Anatomy of God: God's Arm

Hello everyone.
Big things in the Hughes family this week.  Both of our boys are graduating from something and moving on to something else.  Our youngest, Aaron graduated from middle school and going to Passaic County Tech to study graphic arts, and is also entering the Teen Ministry.  Our oldest, Caleb is graduating from high school and is entering the campus ministry.  He will be going to William Paterson University.  The time goes by quickly.  

Any way, I wanted to continue to share some of the things I have learned while looking at God's anatomy.  This time looking at God's arm.  We would naturally associate God's arm with his power, and truly God's arm is powerful, but it is not the only attribute that we can see from it.  We are going to look at Moses as he led the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery for a little bit.  A story where God flexes his muscles considerably. 

In Exodus 6:1-8, there is a conversation between God and Moses that I would like to look at.  By this point, Moses has returned to Egypt and appeared before Pharaoh.  Pharaoh has added to the burden of the Israelites by no longer giving them straw to make bricks.  The people have complained to Moses, so Moses is now complaining to the Lord, saying in Ex. 5:23, "You have not rescued your people at all."  Doesn't it seem like that some times?  That God is not working at all on our behalf.  We can be assured however, that God knows something that we don't know, and that He is at work whether it seems that way or not.   

God responds in Ex. 6:1-5 by telling Moses a few interesting things.  First, that because of God's mighty hand, Pharaoh would let them go.  Second, God says that he would reveal himself to Moses in a new way.  He says that He had revealed himself to Moses' ancestors as El-Shaddai, or God Almighty, but He would make himself known to Moses by his name, as Yahweh (I AM) or Lord.  Pretty cool for Moses.  Third, God said that He had heard the groaning of the Israelites, showing us that God has ears as well.  

It is verse 6 - 7 that I want to focus.  God says "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.  I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.  Then you will know that I am the Lord your God."  God says that he is going to stretch out his arm and do two things, redeem and judge.  God is going to reach down into their situation and make it better. In fact, He is going to make their situation awesome.  How fortunate we are when He does that for us. So God is going to stretch out his arm and liberate the Israelites and make them his people and judge the Egyptians.  God can use his arm to liberate or to judge.  Of the two, I prefer liberation.  That freedom comes with being one of God's people.  I see also that God is using his outstretched arm to make himself known to the Israelites. So the pattern I see is that God's outstretched arm is really good for those how are his people (freedom and knowledge of God) and not so good for those who are not his people (judgment.) 

Soon Moses and the Israelites would get to see God's outstretched arm in action.  They will see plagues and miracles. The Egyptians would be judged and they would be be free.  A story that begins with discouragement, ends with great victory because of God's outstretched arm.

Tom       

The Anatomy of God: God's Hand

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

I have been looking at the Bible's references to God's hand for some time now.  There are many, many references to God's hand in the Bible.  God does many things, in terms of blessing and punishment, using his hand.  Of the two, I prefer the blessing.

Today I want to look in Ezra 7.  Judah had been taken into captivity by Babylon and now were under the power of Persia.  The Persian kings had allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem.  Ezra is going to lead a second group of captives back to Jerusalem.  Here in Ezra 7:6 it says that because the hand of the Lord was on Ezra, the king granted him everything he asked for.  This is a good deal.  Who wouldn't want the hand of God to be upon them in such a fashion, where you get everything you ask for?  Take a look at the letter that Artaxerxes, King of Persia, wrote for him in Ezra 7:12-26.  Here is a list of some of the things in that letter:

• Any Israelite that wants to go with Ezra, may go. (v13)
• They were given silver and gold given by the king and his advisers. (v. 15)
• They were to take more silver and gold that they carried with them from Babylon. (v. 16)
• After buying animals and grains for sacrifice they had freedom to use the money as they thought best.  Artaxerxes trusted Ezra's judgment. (v. 18)
• The treasurers of Trans-Euphrates were to provide Ezra with whatever he asked (within certain limits) of wheat, wine, olive oil and salt (unlimited). (v. 22)
• Ezra and anyone involved in the temple worship didn't have to pay taxes.  (v. 24)  
• Ezra was to teach anyone who didn't know the God of Israel, about Him.  (v.25)  (This was unusual, since the Persians were typically not followers of the God of Israel, but rather practiced Zoroastrianism and followed a god called Ahura Mazda.)

So God's hand was on Ezra in a great way and He caused Artaxerxes to give Ezra much.  So what had Ezra done to gain such blessing.  Fortunately, the Bible tells us.  Ezra 7: 8-10 says, " He had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was on him.  For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel."

Here in verse 9 we see that God's hand, his gracious hand, is on Ezra.  But why?  Verse 10 gives three reasons.  First, Ezra devoted himself to the study of God's word.  Second, he devoted himself to the observance of God's word.  In other words, Ezra obeyed God's word.  Third, he devoted himself to teaching God's word.  Summing up, God blessed Ezra because he studied, obeyed and taught God's word.  We can all do this.

Ezra concludes this chapter in verse 28 that because God's hand was upon him, he took courage and gathered leaders to go with him.  So because God's hand was upon him, Ezra was courageous and called others to follow him.

May the hand of God be on us.
Tom   

The Anatomy of God: God's Heart, Part 2

Hello everyone.

About a month ago I wrote about God's heart.  I am finally finishing up that thought for you.  In the first part, we looked at how God's heart was deeply hurt by the sin of the world in Gen. 6, and how God carries his sheep close to his own heart in Isa. 40, but mostly we looked at his love and compassion for Moab, a people that were not his own chosen people, yet his heart still cried out for them.    

To finish this look at God's heart we will look at the prophet Hosea. In the beginning of the story of Hosea, God appears to him and tells him to marry a promiscuous woman. (Hos 1:2)  God is going to make Hosea an object lesson for the nation, because Israel, in God's words, is like an adulterous wife.  So, in verse 3, Hosea marries Gomer and they have a child that they name Jezreel.  As time goes by, Gomer has another child.  The text implies here that Hosea is not the father.  A daughter is born and she is named Lo-Ruhamah, which means "not loved."  Gomer later gives birth to another son, and again Hosea is apparently not the father.  The third child is named "Lo-Ammi," which means "not my people."  God tells Hosea to name the child Lo-Ammi because "you are not my people, and I am not your God."

Imagine how Hosea must have felt knowing that his wife had been unfaithful to him repeatedly.  God is expressing the same feeling here toward Israel and its repeated unfaithfulness. If you read Hosea chapter 2, you see the anger that God feels toward Israel for their unfaithfulness.  Perhaps the saddest part comes in Hosea 2:5-8, where Israel does not acknowledge that God had given many blessings to Israel, instead Israel credits God's blessings to other "lovers," and uses those blessings in worship of Baal.  Gomer and Israel deserve nothing but punishment here.  In return for kindness and blessing, they have given only unfaithfulness.

By chapter 3, Gomer is prostituting herself.  No one would fault Hosea for severing all ties to her.  Her unfaithfulness would undoubtedly be the cause of tremendous pain for him. We have to remember that the relationship of Hosea and Gomer parallels the relationship between God and Israel.  Israel has committed that kind of unfaithfulness against God.  Who could fault Him if He completely destroyed Israel?  No one.  So what does God do?  He has Hosea go to Gomer and buy her out of her prostitution.  (Hos. 3:1-2)  The parallel is there.  But God not only buys Israel out of it's prostitution, He buys our way out of our sins with Jesus on the cross.

The picture of God's heart comes in on chapter 11:1-9.   For several chapters, God spells out his anger but in chapter 11, he says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son."  God then expresses the kind of concern for Israel that a parent would.  He talks about taking Israel by the arms and teaching it to walk (v. 3).  God says that He had led Israel with cords of human kindness, lifted it up to his cheek and bent down to feed them.  Still, Israel was determined to turn away from him and deserves to be punished.  Never-the-less, in verse 8, God says that He cannot give Israel up, and that his heart is changed within Him.  Within God's heart, all of His compassion is aroused.  There is the picture of God's heart.  In spite of all of the unfaithfulness, God still loves Israel and has compassion for the nation. 

Place yourself in Hosea's shoes for a moment.  How much compassion could you find in your heart for Gomer? I think most people would answer "none."   God's relationship with Israel parallels the Hosea/Gomer relationship, so I think we would understand if God had reached the end of his compassion for Israel, and it appears that He has.  Yet God still finds compassion for Israel, because that's God's heart.  How can He still care about Israel? The answer is in verse 9.  Because He is "God and not a man."

We established in Gen. 6, that God feels deep pain because of our sin, but now we see that he feels deep compassion for us in spite of it.   

Tom

          

The Anatomy of God: God's Heart

Hey everyone.
Along with my study on Acts, I have been reading a book called Knowing God by J.I. Packer. It has been great to learn more about God's attributes.  Something he said gave me an idea for continued study.  Packer suggested that when we read about God's wisdom, we are seeing God's mind.  When we read about God's power, we are seeing his arm, and when we read about God's love we are seeing his heart.  It made me wonder what other body parts God has.  So interspersed with my study of Acts, I am also now looking at the scriptures and what they have to say about God's anatomy.

I started with God's heart.  God's heart is mentioned a few times in the scriptures and I will share a few of the things that I learned with you.

I Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22 tells us that David was a man after God's own heart. This tells two things.  First, God has a heart.  Second, we can have a heart like His.  So as we look at His heart, we can appreciate God for who He is, and also be challenged to work on our own hearts.

Gen 6:6 is the first mention of God's heart.  It says, "The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth and his heart was deeply troubled."  That is what is says in the NIV (2011).  Personally I prefer the translation in the NIV translated in 1973 where it says that God's "heart was filled with pain."  It helped me to understand that God is an emotional entity and that He feels things very deeply.  (It would be interesting to study out God's emotions.  Just off the top of my head I can think of examples where God expresses anger, jealousy, joy and sadness.)  We need to think about this passage and see what was causing God such pain.  It is pretty clear that the cause of God's pain was sin. As we look at God's heart, this will come up again.

In Isaiah 15:5 and 16:11, God says, "My heart cries out for Moab," and "My heart laments for Moab like a harp."  So twice, God expresses that he feels sadness in his heart for Moab.  To understand this we need to have some understanding of who Moab is; so I will give you a brief history of Moab.  We see the original Moab in Gen. 19:30-38. After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his daughters are living in a cave.  The daughters get Lot drunk and have sex with him.  The offspring of these incestuous relationships are Moab and Ben-Ammi.  Gen. 19:37 tells us that the Moabites are the descendants of this Moab.

The Moabites appear again in Numbers 22 through 25.  It is Balak, the king of Moab, that summons Balaam and his talking donkey to curse  Moses and the Israelites.  Balaam refuses to curse them, telling Balak that he can only do what God tells him to do, and instead blesses Israel. So we see early on that Moab stands in opposition to God's people.  In Judges 3, the Moabites have conquered Israel and are oppressing them until God sends Ehud to rescue them.  (It is an interesting story, in which Ehud stabs Eglon, king of Moab, with and 18 inch sword, but Eglon is so fat that Ehud loses his sword inside and the fat closes over it.)  In Judges 10:6 it says that the Israelites had served the gods of Moab.  So the Moabites had been a thorn in Israel's side throughout much of the period of the judges.  (The positive I find on Moab's ledger is that Ruth was a Moabite.) In I Kings 11:7 Solomon builds a high place for Chemosh, a Moabite god, for one of his wives.  Based on what I have read, there is not a lot known about Chemosh.  The name may mean "Destroyer" or "Fish God," but archaeology seems to indicate that Chemosh did have a taste for blood.  So by the time of Isaiah, Moab had opposed or hindered Israel for about 700 years.

Back in Isaiah 16 we see that even though God's heart cries for Moab, He has reached the point where He can no longer tolerate their sin.  Seven hundred years is a long time to tolerate something.  God has shown abundant patience.  In Isaiah 16:14 He says, "But now the Lord says: "Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab's splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble."  As much as God's heart is filled with compassion, He will deal with sin, just as He had during the time of Noah. We have to take our sin seriously, because He does. 

I will conclude this post with Isaiah 40:11.  Since Moab's story is a bit of a downer, this can pick us up a little bit.  Isaiah 40 says:
    He tends his flock like a shephard:
       He gathers the lambs in his arms
    and carries them close to his heart;
       he gently leads those that have young.

For those of us who are of His flock, He carries us close to His heart.  Imagine yourself in His embrace.  Perhaps you can feel the vibration of His heartbeat. Take comfort and know that you are near His heart.

More to come.
Tom
               

Confidence

Hey Everyone.

In my studies I have reached Acts 12 and the story of Peter's miraculous escape from prison.  In the early verses of Acts 12, Herod had the apostle James put to death by the sword.  This action pleased the Jews so much that Herod had Peter arrested and placed under guard.  We can assume that Herod planned to do the same to Peter, as after the Passover, he was going to put Peter on trial publicly.  I think that it is safe to assume that Herod's plan was to find Peter guilty and have him publicly executed shortly thereafter.

Peter was being held in a cell, chained to two guards, while two other stood at the door.  They did not want Peter to escape.  Never-the-less, on the night before Peter was to go to trial, an angel entered his cell to release him.  Interestingly enough, Peter was sound asleep.  The angel had to strike Peter to wake him up.  It was an interesting behavior for a man who was about to be put on trial for his life.  I think that we can say that Peter had great confidence in God here.  I'm sure he had spent some time in prayer, but now he slept confidently.  (Perhaps Peter looked back at Jesus' prophecy in John 21:18 that said that Peter would live to be old.)  Meanwhile, the church had gathered at John Mark's house and was fervently praying for Peter.

To continue, the angel came, struck Peter to wake him, released him from the chains and told him to get dressed.  He then led him out of the cell, through the prison gates and out into the street.  I'm sure that this is all very surreal for Peter, because is thinking that he is seeing some sort of vision like he had in Acts 10.  He does not realize that he is awake and that the angel is releasing him from prison.  It is not until the angel leaves him that Peter realizes that this really happened.  Finally realizing what has happened, Peter goes to present himself to the rest of the disciples at John Mark's house.  In v. 13, Peter knocks on the outer entrance and a servant named Rhoda comes to answer the door.  When she hears Peter's voice, she gets so excited that instead of letting him in, she runs back to tell everyone and leaves him standing at the door.  But when she announces it, no one believes her.  In fact, they tell her that she is out of her mind.  Peter continues to knock at the door until someone finally lets him in and they are all astonished by his miraculous escape.

Now, the disciples had been praying for his release yet were surprised when it happened.  It makes me wonder, what they were actually expecting to happen.  Perhaps they were praying that Herod's court come back with a "not guilty" verdict.  Needless to say, whatever they were expecting was not what happened.  God circumvented Herod's whole trial process.  God's plan was very simple and straightforward, so much so, that it took everyone by surprise.  He just send and angel and released him from the prison.  Peter didn't expect it this way.  The other disciples didn't expect it this way either.

Here is where I'm going with this.  God is at work.  Often times we don't understand how He is working.  Our faith can be challenged when things don't go the way we expect them to.  God did not rescue James.  This certainly had to be a blow to the faith of many.  But God's solution here took everyone by surprise (including the enemies of the church.)  And for us today, we can trust God as well.  God doesn't always work the way we expect Him to, but He is still at work. Let's keep our eyes and hearts open for how God will surprise us!

Tom       

The Arm of the Lord

Hey everyone.

This will be my first post of 2015.  I have continued in my study of Acts and have reached Acts 8, where Philip converts the Ethiopian eunuch.  I was curious about the passage that they looked at together in Isaiah 53. I wondered what made the message so powerful that the eunuch was so urgent to be baptized.  So I spent a few days looking at it in my Quiet Times.

Isaiah 53 is a prophecy about the Suffering Servant.  We all understand that it is talking about Jesus.  In truth, I have read it many times, but I really wanted to look at it fresh, like the Ethiopian had.  After reading verse 1, I realized that I had never really paid much attention to it.  I generally had read through it quickly to get to the more familiar, seemingly meatier parts, but this time it made a impact on me.  It says, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord be revealed?"  I had always read it as though it were two questions, "Who has believed our message?" and "To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" However, it appears to be one big question that ties believing to seeing the arm of the Lord revealed.

So we need to pause and ask ourselves, "what does "the arm of the  Lord" mean? It means "power."  I may be oversimplifying things, but it seems to me to be implying that if we truly believe the message then we will be allowed to see the power of the Lord.  Belief and seeing God's power are connected. This is awesome, because who doesn't want to see the power of God at work in their lives?  I certainly do.

Another thought I had about this verse went something like this: During the time of Isaiah, I'm sure the actual answer to this was most likely, "Not many."  There were probably not many who believed and not many to whom the arm of the Lord had been revealed.  I would hope that today the answer would be more encouraging. 

Of course, we get see the arm of the Lord, or the power of God, in the life of Jesus.  That is what this prophecy is about.  In the verses that follow we read about the Servant, who in his sacrifice bore the sin of many (verse 12).  Maybe this is what the eunuch learned.  If you want to see the arm of the Lord, look intently at Jesus.

Tom