Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
As you look around your part of the world, I have a question: where do people look for hope in the midst of their despair? And here’s a follow-up question: in their search are people finding the answers and the hope they long for?
You and I are together walking a 30-day journey toward Christmas ’22. I’m attempting to help us see how famous people or events in the Old Testament of the Bible pointed forward to that first Christmas. Yesterday I introduced you to Mr. Isaiah and today he has another powerful message for us, which he delivered to the people of Israel about the year 720bc. Isaiah’s message describes a dark time, a very dark time in Israel’s history.
The words Isaiah used may sound amazingly accurate when describing our time, no matter where you live. Listen: “When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” (Is. 8:19)
Now pause here a moment friends and take an honest look at the society in which you live, no matter the nation, or county, or city. Is this a fair analysis of the spiritual condition of your society? Do many people around you seek either answers or escape from life’s problems with medication or entertainment or alcohol or the occult or mediums or spiritists or therapists who use all types of incantations and theories which have nothing to do with Almighty, Holy God, and in fact lead them away from God? And what are the results you see? What is the suicide rate where you live or the level of alcoholism or drug addiction?
Mr. Isaiah continues: “Consult God’s instruction and His testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land. When they are famished, they will become enraged and looking upward will curse their king and their God. Then they will look around them and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.” (Is. 8:19-22) Look down through history, the history of humanity in any part of our world. These powerful words are so very, very true, aren’t they? The price of ignoring or rejecting God’s truth is despair. As the suffocating despair of life lived without God deepens those caught in the downward spiral find themselves more and more frustrated, angry, bitter and they turn toward those around them unleashing BLAME. They blame their parents or their employer or their spouse or children or the police or the government. Blame, however, does not bring hope or comfort, blame only fuels despair and the suffocating darkness deepens.
You’d think we’d learn these important life lessons, but we don’t! Generation after generation as parents and grandparents try to warn their kids and grandkids from their own painful mistakes, ears close, minds ignore, hearts turn hard, and the darkness tightens its grip as life despair deepens. Oh Mr. Isaiah was so very right and it’s because he wrote as led by the infinitely wise Holy Spirit of God!But have you noticed my friends, God never abandons us to despair! Holy, Almighty, loving God always offers HOPE! Note please, I said God ‘OFFERS hope’. God will never force Himself upon anyone. He will never forcibly take control of your life or life choices. God invites, God offers, and God gives to every person the privilege of thinking and deciding for themselves what life path they will choose. Let’s listen again to Mr. Isaiah as he looks forward in hope, to the first Christmas: “Nevertheless, there will be NO more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past God humbled the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, but in the future God will honor Galilee…” (Is. 9:1)
That may be a bit confusing to you and me who did not live in ancient Israel. When Isaiah speaks of the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, he is referring to the time, beginning in the days of Joshua, when the second generation of Hebrews left the desert after escaping Egypt with Moses and they followed Joshua into the land God had promised them. After several years of fighting to dislodge those people who had moved into that land after Jacob and his family moved to Egypt, the Israelites divided that entire land so each of the 12 tribes of Israel had a specific section of land for their new home.
Two of the tribes, Zebulun and Naphtali, were given land on the extreme north of the land of Israel. But very sadly there was civil war in the days following the reign of King Solomon and all the tribes north of Jerusalem split away from the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south. That northern region quickly turned away from God and worshipped the false gods of the nations around them. Despite God’s warning and repeated appeals to His people to return to Him, they rejected God and in 722bc were invaded and conquered by the wicked nation of Assyria. Towns and cities were destroyed, many people killed. It was a desperate time for the people of the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.
But then came that first Christmas and in the days of Jesus He grew up in Nazareth, a town in that region and as an adult spent most of His ministry years in that area which in His day was known as the region of the Galilee. Do you see how Isaiah is prophesying that someday something will happen which will transform the darkness and despair of that region in Isaiah’s day, into a place honored by God? That ‘something’ was of course Christmas and the life of Jesus, Immanuel, “God with us”!! Could anything bring more hope to any desperate place in the world than the living presence of God there… Immanuel?
Now watch this my friends: The Holy Spirit is the Presence of God, right? And the Holy Spirit lives within those people who have trusted Jesus Christ to be their Savior, right? So, wherever those people live, darkness and despair should be penetrated by the HOPE of God’s Presence! Do you agree? Is that happening where you live? Isaiah continues: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned…” (Is. 9:2) Do you see how these words point so graphically and powerfully to that first Christmas and to Jesus Himself? The brilliance of the angels illuminating the night sky and telling the shepherds that they bring a message of ‘good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord!” (Luke 2:10-12) Do you see how the words were echoed by Jesus Himself when He said, “I am the light of the world, whoever follows Me will NOT walk in darkness.” (John 8:12)
As the people in Isaiah’s day heard Isaiah speak these great words of hope, I imagine they were a bit confused and probably saddened. What could it all possibly mean? And considering the depth of darkness and despair all around them, the older adults probably concluded that perhaps these powerful words might become reality in the generations future, but certainly not for them.
But today my friends, these words of Isaiah are for us, you and me, no matter the depth of the darkness and despair where you live, or even in your own life! Christmas did happen. Jesus did come, and He is God, and He can dispel any darkness in any life, anywhere in our world!!
Do you believe that? Have you experienced the deliverance only Jesus can accomplish in your life? Today, again, God calls us all to understand His offer of hope found only in Jesus… and more than that, to understand, to respond by placing our full faith and trust in Jesus and by inviting Jesus to unleash His mighty power into our lives bringing deliverance and new life! And here’s another great Christmas song to help us celebrate how Isaiah’s words can be true in your life and mine today!
Today’s Scripture is Isaiah 8:19-9:2.
Choose below to read or listen.
 |  |
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.