“To the teaching and to the testimony!” Thus Isaiah cried when people in his day asked him to consult with mediums and necromancers for guidance and wisdom (Isaiah 8:19, 20). The prophet lived in a time of general apostasy from the truth and worship of the true God. The Lord had revealed himself to his people not only through prophets like Isaiah but in many other ways (Hebrews 1:1). So the Israelites had available to them all they needed to know God and his will, and to serve and worship him accordingly. Nevertheless, by and large they rejected that revelation, plunging themselves into spiritual darkness and moral chaos. As Isaiah put it, they had “no dawn,” that is, they were bereft of the light of God’s revelation (Isaiah 8:20).
We are living in similar times today. As a society and culture, we are rapidly becoming unmoored from even a nominal acceptance of biblical truth and standards of morality. And even among those who profess to be evangelical Christians, a large proportion reject key biblical teachings. According to this year’s State of Theology survey conducted by Ligonier Ministries, 30% agree with the statement: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” And almost half (46%) of evangelicals believe that “everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature”! Though to the unbelieving world these may be “enlightened” views, they are in fact indicative of spiritual blindness. If the Scriptures teach anything, it is that Jesus is God, and that we need him as our Savior because we are, by nature, sinners.
In our day of engulfing spiritual darkness and concomitant moral confusion, Isaiah’s cry must also be ours: “To the teaching and to the testimony!” In the Scriptures, we have the very Word of God (1 Timothy 3:16), the one, true source of light and life. And the Scriptures are light and life to us because of the One to whom they testify: the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He became man, lived a perfect life, and suffered and died upon the cursed cross, all for our eternal salvation.
Though being a minister of the Word of God is not always easy in a time of general rejection of God’s truth, it is a privilege each Sunday to set forth Christ from the Scriptures for the salvation and sanctification of God’s people. May it please the Lord to use the ministry of his Word at Mt. Rose and at all faithful churches, to draw many to the Savior Jesus Christ.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor Johnson