Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Have you ever imagined yourself a prisoner, a hostage, being held in bondage, against your will, in some dark and frightening place? And what if that bondage was inescapable? That’s what POWs in every war have experienced. It’s how the Hamas hostages lived in those tunnels under the desert sand.
In a different way, it’s what millions of addicts live with every day. But did you know EVERY person, including you and me, lives as a hostage, in bondage to inescapable sin? Inescapable until a much stronger power can overcome and break the powers that hold anyone in bondage in any situation! And that truth is why the next message from God, through the prophet Isaiah, is so important and has been such a great source of HOPE for millions of people.
Join me again in Isaiah 45. Yesterday we saw two extremely powerful verses in which God claimed that because HE Created the universe and humanity, He ALONE has the right to declare the truths by which all that He created functions, and the moral RIGHT which God designed to govern all that He created!
And by implication God is saying to the human race: ‘When you, any of you or all of you, can Create some from nothing, then you the Creator have all rights to define the truth and moral right by which that which you created functions’.
Until then, we humans created by God, live in a world & universe created by God and thus we have no option but to live our lives in respect of and under the authority of the Truth & Right God, the Creator, has defined and put in place for that which He created! Now pause a second. Did you get all that? It is THE foundational reality for every living human being and every part of our universe.
But humanity, from the first two people God created, have said NO to God. We’ve said NO repeatedly, in every generation individually and as families, and as cities and nations. We’re born into this rebellion nature and as a result we all live in self-inflicted, inescapable sin bondage! God’s response never ceases to amaze me. So easily God could annihilate the human race and start all over if He so decided.
God could adjust some planetary movements and bring the earth just a little closer to or further away from the sun and we’d either roast or freeze. God could easily stop rainfall and very soon every living thing would dry up and die. Or God could change the delicate balance of the air we breathe, just a little, and we’d all suffocate!
But instead, God sent this message to our planet through Isaiah the prophet: “There is no God apart from Me, a righteous (holy) God and a Savior. Turn to Me and be saved, (delivered) all you ends of the earth; for I am God and there is no other.” (Is. 45:21,22) God is proclaiming the truth, isn’t He? It’s a truth God repeatedly proclaimed about Himself through Isaiah.
Our very existence as humanity is totally, fully, continually reliant upon the God who created us, to provide us all that is needed for life, every moment! But through Isaiah’s message here God wants His human creation to understand that He sees us living in our self-inflicted bondage and He cares deeply! Furthermore, God the Creator and Sovereign offers us, humanity in bondage, a deliverance, a rescue, an escape that only He can accomplish by His supreme power!
Why is God the only Force able to offer humanity rescue? Because He is the Creator! He alone has supreme power and authority over all He has created and therefore His power is the only power strong enough to break the shackles of whatever holds you or me or any person in our inescapable bondage!
That’s why Isaiah wrote this next important statement from God: “By Myself I have sworn, My mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before Me every knee will bow; by Me every tongue will swear. They will say of Me, ‘In the LORD alone are deliverance and strength. All who have raged against Him will come to HIm and be put to shame!” (Is. 45:23,24)
When God says EVERY knee will bow before Him, there are no exceptions and “every knee” includes every living thing with a soul, especially every human and angelic being. Thus, any human who holds another in bondage, and every person living in sin bondage will bow their knee one day to Jesus in submission! Every demonic force which terrorizes people will bow its knee before Jesus. Satan himself will bow in defeat before Jesus the Victor!
Perhaps you remember the Holy Spirit moved the apostle Paul to write a further word about this in his letter to the Christians in Philippi written 700 years after Isaiah: “…God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:9-11) And why will this most certainly happen?
Because of this great truth Paul wrote about: “Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, rather He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross…” (Phil. 2:6-8)
This is the remarkable, unimaginable, almost unbelievable GOSPEL… that God Himself, creator of the universe and humanity, came here to earth, taking on human flesh to live among us. While here Jesus lived a sinless life. He allowed humanity to so totally reject Him that He was crucified. In that crucifixion, God the Father poured out on God the Son, Jesus, the full wrath of God’s justice punishment for the sinful rebellion of humanity. In that crucifixion, Jesus experienced both physical death and spiritual perish, separation from God. Yet God rescued Jesus from perish through His resurrection and now the resurrected, ascended Jesus reigns supreme and sovereign over all from heaven, at the right hand of God the Father, ready and fully able to reduce ANY repentant person trusting Jesus for their deliverance! (Heb. 7:25)
One future day an eternal judgment will take place in which every knee shall bow before the ultimate holy Judge, Jesus. (Rev. 20:11-15) In the meantime, because Jesus is victorious over sin, Satan and death, He ALONE is able to be the deliverer for any person living in any inescapable bondage, including the bondage and condemnation of Sin! (John 3:16)
Now that, my friends, is the greatest news of all time! Proclaimed by God Himself through Isaiah and lived out in perfection by Jesus Christ, God the Son. As a result, any person today living in sin bondage is rejecting the ONLY deliverance available! It’s almost beyond imagination to think someone would actually CHOOSE to remain a hostage, living in their inescapable bondage, but some tragically do!
And nothing grieves God more than rejection of His offer of rescue, a rescue which required the payment of God the Son’s life! Are you still a hostage or are you living free, rescued by Jesus? And how do you thank Him? I love this song which celebrates this, the greatest rescue available to anyone and everyone. . .
Today’s Scripture: Is. 45:21-23.
Choose below to read or listen.
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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
“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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