Cover With the Spirit

“Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin… Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us” (Isa. 30:1,8-11). These things are easy to read on paper, and easy for us to believe that it was true when it was spoken and written by the prophets; but we can’t afford to miss the actual meaning of WHY it was written. These things were NOT written so that we could see how bad old testament Israel was, and thereby be self assured that things aren’t that way today, or at least not with ourselves personally. The apostle Paul certainly did not allow those to whom he ministered to have that idea, as he demonstrated with the believers in Corinth: “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for OUR admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (I Cor. 10:11,12). Actually the “covering” that Isaiah alluded to in our text passage, which God’s people had covered themselves with, were their own traditions and doctrines that they had invented; which things they esteemed above the law that God had given to them for the covenant. As he stated, that covering was NOT of the Spirit of God, and therefore it served as a force field AGAINST the things that WERE of God’s Spirit; namely the law and the words of the prophets that confirmed and upheld the law. That is why they said to the seers, “See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things.” That is also why they had become “lying children.” Their own invented covenant displaced the true covenant of God, and their thinking was shaped by that instead of by the things that God had ordained for them.

The sad truth is that it has always been that way among God’s people, as Jesus also continually encountered when he came here: “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (Jn. 9:39-41). So the Pharisees, who were the religious elite of their day, thought they were ‘seeing,’ and Jesus said that was their downfall. So just exactly what WAS it that they thought they were seeing? Jesus answered that question as well when he explained why they couldn’t believe his words: “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition… Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye” (Mk. 7:7-9,13). They were “covering with a covering, but not of [God’s] Spirit,” even as their fathers did in the days of Isaiah. So their own religious inventions had blinded them to the truth of God, and Jesus stripped that covering off of them and manifested their blindness and deceit, as he said in another place: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin” (Jn. 15:22). The Pharisees should have done what the apostle Paul said, and been admonished by their father’s errors, and taken heed lest they should fall; but they did not.

So what about now? Are “things just different now?” Let me guess: “We’re under grace now.” Is that the way it is? Well in that case we should be sure to heed the admonition in the book of Hebrews ABOUT grace: “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and GODLY FEAR: For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28,29). I will tell you with genuine and wearied sadness that I am able to write things like this because it is my personal experience to be in the middle of these things being relived today. It is my privilege in a sense, to have occasion on a regular basis to be around a lot of God’s people from various Pentecostal affiliations; and I can tell you with authority from heaven that the EXACT SAME THING is going on today in spades! What nobody seems to get is that we, God’s people, are ALL repeating the history of the very Bible we read; and we simply have no choice but to be on one side of that history or the other. My friend, whatever you do, pray earnestly for an ear to hear, eyes to see, and a heart to understand and feel. There is a very good reason for this sobering admonition from the same chapter of Hebrews as the quote above: “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven” (Heb. 12:25). As for me, I am instructed and admonished by all of these things, as well as by the practice that was stated and employed by the apostle Paul: “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (I Cor. 9:26,27). May God help us, one and all. Amen.