Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Think back to what your parents and other adults have told you about your childhood. Were you branded as “a strong-willed child”? Were you defiant against instructions or even discipline from your parents or other adults? Were you a rebellious teenager pushing back against teachers and parents and even the police? Now look closely at your adult life, my friends, have you been in adulthood what you were in your childhood?
God has several names for people like that: “stiff necked” or “hard hearted” or “rebellious” are a few. Often in the Old Testament, God used phrases like that to describe the people of Israel, God’s chosen people. Despite God’s outrageous love for His people and His frequent, miraculous intervention in their history to help or even rescue His people, most of the time God found Israel to be like a ‘strong willed child’ resisting or even refusing to obey God or honor God or sometimes even acknowledge Almighty God as their God!
Once again through the prophet Isaiah, God sent a message for the people of Israel in about 690bc which was probably hard for Isaiah to write, but God felt it was important for His ‘hard hearted’, ‘strong willed’ people to hear. Isaiah 48 is that message. God declared: “I knew how stubborn you were, your neck muscles were iron, your forehead was bronze.” (Is. 48:4) Don’t you love how graphic and descriptive God can be? Did your dad or mom ever have to take hold of your head and turn it to face them while they were instructing you? That is exactly what God is doing in Isaiah 48! Now is it possible God may be feeling exactly the same way today as God looks at your world and mine? Is humanity rebellious against God? Are even religious people around the world, ‘hardheaded’, ‘strong willed’ and rebellious? Do you see any evidence of that in your church, whatever church it is and wherever you live in the world?
Frequently God reminded His people that over their history God often predicted, even in detail, something He was going to do, long before He did it, even if it seemed outrageous, unimaginable and the people knew it would require a God sized miracle. Of course, many times in Israel’s history God did those amazing miracles and the Old Testament is filled with those stories. But repeatedly the people of Israel, like you and me today, seemed to have very short and distorted memories. In fact, I think we could call it spiritual dementia! They simply lived as though the great miracles of God had never happened. God said through Isaiah “I foretold the former things, long ago. My mouth announced them, and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass... but before they happened, I announced them to you so that you could not say: ‘my images brought them about, my metal gods ordained them.” (Is. 48:3,5)
Look around my friends, look back over your life, have we done that? Have we discounted the miracles of God as simply coincidence or a natural law or a freak accident or have we even declared it was ‘mother nature’? In so doing have we stolen the glory from God and given that glory to science or ourselves or even the government? As I write this, I look out my window and I see thunderstorm clouds in the distance. I hear some rumbling thunder and as I watch, I can even see some distant lightning.
God is putting on a show for everyone living within 20 miles of where I am. All we need do is look up and see it, or listen and hear it, or even be still and feel the chest pounding thunder or lightning crack affecting our bodies. I love thunderstorms because they cause me to worship the Almighty God who creates and controls them. I can’t make the wind blow or create a cloud or cause lightning to crack. How about you? But when we lose our awe of God and disregard His direct involvement in our world and our lives, that is a very dangerous place to put ourselves! WHY? Because then God has a choice... does God’s love for us cause Him to pursue us, to do even greater things to draw our attention to Him, (Romans 5:8) or does God’s justice restrain Him as He turns us over to pursue our own self-destruction, as He describes in Romans 1:18-32?
Here in Isaiah 48, God was pursuing His people, even in their hard-hearted rebellion, as they followed the wicked ways of their leader king Manasseh, who was embracing idolatry and even sorcery and other forms of the occult. (2 Kings 21:1-9) So God declared He was doing two powerful things that He wanted His people to recognize.
First, God said: “from now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you. They are created NOW and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today.” (Is. 48:6b,7)
God was both proclaiming and putting into motion new, not before seen, mighty works of God which would impact the world of the Israelites, the middle east, both in their day and in decades and even centuries to come. What kinds of things? Well, God was allowing Babylon to rise up in power to displace Egypt as the global power. And 100 years later Nebuchadnezzar and his army would invade and destroy Jerusalem. But God was also nurturing the little seeds of a future global power the city of Susa and the Persian empire which would eventually conquer Babylon. None of this would have been imaginable to the people of Isaiah’s day.
So, I wonder, what does God see out ahead of us, you and me my friends, that HE is doing far away from where you and I live yet those things may have direct impact on our children or grandchildren or great grandchildren in decades to come?
Secondly, God was withholding His judgment, at least for a while. God said “For My own name’s sake, I delay my wrath; for the sake of My praise, I hold it back from you, so as to not destroy you completely. See I have refined you…I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake I do this. How can I let My name be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another.” (Is. 48:9-11)
We’ve done that as parents and grandparents, haven’t we? In response to the disobedience and maybe the infuriating rebellion of our kids or grands, we have warned them, tried to teach them, implored them to correction, rather than lowering the hammer in judgment. Right now, in 2024, is God showing great restraint by withholding His wrath judgment from destroying great cities or even entire nations in our day?
In closing today, did you notice the powerful statement God repeated several times: “For My own sake…”? While we assume the entire universe revolves around planet earth and the human race, and perhaps you are someone who thinks the world actually revolves around YOU, God is making it clear EVERYTHING, everywhere, always revolves around HIM! He, the Creator, is the most important being in all eternity, in every universe! What He does anywhere in the universe is ultimately for HIS glory! The sooner we get our lives, our agendas, our future dreams and aspirations, our values and priorities aligned with God so EVERY aspect of our life is for HIS glory, the sooner life will make sense and will be fulfilling, everyday!
Now we need to pause and ponder my friends. What is God saying to you and me today through Isaiah 48 written 2700 years ago, but so practical and relevant to our day? Here’s a song that will help us reflect on that…
Today’s Scripture: Is. 48:1-11.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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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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