Hello my ‘WWJ” friends,
How important is accurate, reliable guidance or advice for you especially in decision making? Yesterday we saw in Isaiah 48 that God was calling His people Israel to recognize their history of being ‘stiff necked’ and ‘rebellious’ toward God. Are we sometimes like that? When it comes to important life decisions, do we push back resisting any involvement from God or His truth; or do we draw near to God seeking His wisdom?
Today in Isaiah 48:12-17 God makes three very powerful statements for both His people Israel 2700 years ago, and also you and me today! Why? Because God doesn’t change! (Mal. 3:6) Look with me at these three declarations, my friends, and let’s see how they might apply to your life or mine today in 2024.
First God again declares His uniqueness and His Sovereignty in Is. 48:12,13 “Listen to me, Jacob, Israel whom I have called; I am HE, I am the first and the last. My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens…”
If you’ve been with me on this “Walking with Jesus” journey for a while perhaps you think these statements by God are getting repetitive. Are you wondering why God seems to make these same statements over and over? Well, the simple answer is you and me, we humans, all too quickly forget. But it’s more than that isn’t it my friends?
It’s the harsh reality that most people don’t want to acknowledge Almighty God as the Creator of all things. Why? Because if God is Creator of all then God’s power is supreme, His knowledge and wisdom are unlimited, and His Sovereign authority over all things is unrivaled! By refusing to submit to God, people elevate themselves to independence from God, and sometimes even further, to declaring or at least acting as though they are their own God! Now does that seem like an extreme statement?
Just look around your part of the world. Do you see people, even significantly influential people, behaving and speaking as though they disregard God and view themselves as their own Sovereign, accountable to no one? The people of Israel found themselves too often turning their backs on God, as they were doing in the days of Isaiah when God made this declaration. God repeated it often because all humanity needs to hear it…often and we need to change! Change our thinking, change our attitudes, change how we are living. And if we don’t, do you see humanity is on a course toward self-destruction in every culture, every society, every city of the world?
Secondly, God declared that in His sovereignty over all things God could not only FORESEE the future He could CHOOSE those people through whom He would accomplish His great PURPOSES in the future.
In Isaiah 48:14,15 God again predicted He would raise up a great leader whom God calls His ‘ally’ through whom God would accomplish His purpose in the Middle East at that time in history. God had in mind a specific mission of defeating the mighty Babylonian army AND releasing the Jewish captives the Babylonians had taken from Jerusalem. God said: “The LORD’s chosen ally will carry out His purpose against Babylon; his arm will be against the Babylonians. I have spoken; yes, I have called him; I will bring him, and he will succeed in his mission.” (Is. 48:14,15) As we saw in Isaiah 44:28 & 45:1,5,6,13 God would raise up a man named Cyrus to accomplish this mission.
Friends, we have several times before discussed this reality that God sometimes accomplishes His purposes on earth even through military maneuvers or great armies and their generals, even those which do not acknowledge God. For the people of Israel this concept seemed incomprehensible. They couldn’t imagine the God of Israel would ally Himself with one of their enemies and actually lead that enemy to invade, overpower and conquer Israel!
But it happened when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom Israel in 722bc. It happened again when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 586bc. It happened again when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70ad. Has it happened at other times in history? Has it happened in your country or mine as God accomplishes His purposes of discipline and judgment, sometimes using vicious, even vulgar people? Now that’s a staggering thought, isn’t it?
Finally, God made a third great statement in Isaiah 48:17 “This is what the LORD says – your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.”
Now that, my friends, is one of the greatest statements of God found anywhere in the Bible. I have drawn a big box around it in my Bible. When God was preparing to create humanity God made this statement: “Let us make mankind in our image…so God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female…” (Gen. 1:26,27) Among other things it means God has designed human beings with both a soul and spirit which can live in relationship with God. We can interact with God. We can receive direction and instruction from God. We can understand God and live our lives in purposeful obedience to Almighty God’s guidance. Do you see that is what God was saying to Isaiah in Isaiah 48:17?
So, the obvious question is HOW does any person, anywhere in the world, male or female, experience Isaiah 48:17? How does God teach us humans? How do we learn from God? How do we discern when God is speaking to us or what God is saying to us? How do we then adjust our lives to live in obedience to and alignment with what God is saying to us? Would you agree those questions are among the most important questions any human being can wrestle with and find answers to? The answer, I believe, is three-fold.
First God’s Word is God’s truth spoken to us. The more we digest it, fill our hearts and minds with it, the more God’s Word will guide and teach us. (Hebrews 4:12; Psalm 119:105)
Second is God’s Holy Spirit. The more the Spirit of God guides and teaches a person, the more they will be receiving their guidance directly from God Himself. (John 14:26,27)
Third, is the miracle of God opening the mind and heart of a person to know God and receive God’s guidance by His Word and His Spirit and that happens in a relationship with God which removes all the barriers. Our sin nature, our darkness filled mind, the influence of the dark kingdom in our lives etc. (2 Cor. 4:4)
Oh my, that’s a lot of great truth today isn’t it my friends? I urge you to memorize Isaiah 48:17 and dedicate yourself to live by its truth every day! Let’s talk with God about that and worship Him with this song. Will Is. 48:17 become a guiding beacon for you and me and our families, for the rest of our lives?
Today’s Scripture: Is. 48:12-18.
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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