Good morning my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
Patience is a rare virtue in 2024 would you agree? Not so many years ago long distance communication was primarily written, today we call it ‘snail mail’ because it is agonizingly slow! Then our world discovered the telegraph and then telephone and finally satellite aided communications. Now, with cyberspace and modern devices, for almost everyone, almost everywhere in the world, communication is almost instant, in real time, both auditory and visual. As a result most humans expect instant access to information; instant contact with any person; and instant response to any question about any topic, all at any time. Honestly now, do you?
As a result, have you found yourself growing impatient with God if His response to you takes longer than a millisecond? And what do you do, my friends, if God doesn’t respond either IN your expected time frame or WITH the information you expect? I think if you’ll look closely, God is rapidly being marginalized in every part of the world, by all generations, as we grip our handheld computing devices giving us instant access to almost everything.
Yesterday I left you with King Hezekiah, 2700 years ago, waiting for God’s response to his desperate prayer. King Hezekiah had actually rolled out before God, an inflammatory letter he had received from King Sennachrib of the Assyrian empire. (Is. 37:14) King Hezekiah had made several bold statements in his prayer: “LORD, Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, LORD and hear, open your eyes LORD and see, listen to all the words Sennecharib has sent to ridicule the living God.” (Is. 37:16,17)
Do you hear the outrageous claims of King Hezekiah? Do you see that Hezekiah actually believes he is speaking with the Creator of the universe? Is that possible? Hezekiah actually believes this Creator God has eyes to see, ears to hear, a mind to understand and a powerful will to take action! Is that true? Hezekiah believes this God is Almighty and surrounded by cherubim angels! Is that reasonable? Now friends, it’s time for an important question… what do you believe about God? How similar or different is King Hezekiah’s description of God to whatever god you pray to?
Hezekiah had also sent word to the prophet Isaiah who believed in this same God and had actually received a life changing vision encounter with that God several years before. Isaiah gave us a clear record of that powerful encounter in Isaiah 6:1-8. We looked closely at that remarkable experience several days ago. Isaiah’s experience challenges us, each of us, all of us, to look closely at our lives to evaluate the most significant spiritual experience with God that we’ve ever had! I wonder what yours is, my friend? Did it change your life? If so, how? Has that change lingered? Has it changed your understanding of God and your relationship with God?
Hezekiah and Isaiah were both praying to the only living, Almighty, Holy God of Israel. They were praying from two different locations in Jerusalem, and both asking for a significant response from God. These were desperate times for the people of Jerusalem and Judah. They needed an answer from God. Not simply a verbal answer but an answer with action, powerful action! There was essentially nothing King Hezekiah or the prophet Isaiah or the Levites or priests or government officials could do to force God to take action or respond. They had only one option… pray, worship and wait for God!
As I study these chapters I do not find details which give me an exact timeline, so I don’t know if they waited 10 minutes or 10 days, but I believe it may have been in this waiting time that Isaiah received several very challenging messages from God, about the uniqueness of God, which Isaiah wrote for us in the chapters Isaiah 40-48. Look at this specific message I find in Isaiah 44: “This is what the LORD says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty. I am the first and I am the last; apart from Me there is no God. Who then is like Me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before Me what has happened since I established My ancient people, and what is yet to come – yes, let them foretell what will come… Is there any God besides Me? No, there is not… I know not one!” (Is. 44:6-8) While it was true, no god of any nation had been able to defend against the mighty Assyrian army, (Is. 36:18-20) it’s because the Assyrian army had not yet come up against the one true God, the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel!
And because ALL the gods of the nations of the world, including Assyria, are man-made gods, the LORD God gave this challenging message to Isaiah to proclaim: “All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless! Those who would speak up for those idols are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit them nothing? People who do that will be put to shame…
The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the hot coals; he shapes an idol with his hammer, he forges it with the might of his arm. But then he gets hungry and loses his strength…
The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline… He cut down a cedar or perhaps a cypress or an oak… It is used as fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire with it and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it, he makes an idol and bows down to it… He prays to it and says ‘Save me! You are my god!” (Isaiah 44:9-17)
It’s a strong and powerful message of truth, isn’t it my friends? From the beginning of time, in every part of the world, every society of the world, people have chosen to worship things their own hands have fabricated, or simply worship themselves and each other, rather than worship the Almighty, Creator God! It’s foolishness; it’s insanity; it’s illogical and is self shaming, yet it can be seen in every place in 2024 where there are living, breathing, human beings!
And so Isaiah received and recorded one more brief summary statement from God in this message: “This is what the LORD God says – your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb. I am the LORD the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spread out the earth by Myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense.” (Is. 44:24,25)
Now I believe the reason we have these important messages from God in Isaiah 40-48 about His unique identity, His unique attributes, His supremacy, is that God invites us to know Him, honor Him, live in relationship with Him without expecting God to act like “Siri” or “Alexa” immediately available to give us an AI response to whatever question or demand we have!
That’s called living by faith. It’s “walking with Jesus” with our spiritual eyes fixed on and confident in God’s supreme sovereignty, regardless of the circumstances around us. Are you and I living like that? Let’s just ponder that as we worship with this song and tomorrow let’s meet here again to see how God DID RESPOND to the confident, patient prayer of King Hezekiah.
Today’s Scripture: Isaiah 44.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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