All glory to God our Father.
I’ve been reading much about prophets of late and it’s got me curious. When you think of prophets, you might think that Jesus was our last prophet and yes, Jesus was a prophet. What then is a prophet, you might ask? In the dry and unbelieving world that we live in, I found this when searching in online: A prophet is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on that entity’s behalf, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the supernatural source to other people. That definitely sounds like Jesus and I wonder if that surprises you. That Jesus was a prophet among all his other glorious attributes and our Savior. These are things that come to me in the middle of the night and cause me to ponder just a bit.
Let’s turn to Isaiah 41 and see what our prophet of God’s word has for us today.
Isaiah 41 seems to be a continuation of the questions asked in Chapter 40. Basically that chapter and this one deal with the greatness of God and the weakness of man. This chapter can be broken down into 3 segments.
Verses 1 through 6: God overrules individuals.
Verses 7 through 20: God asks Israel to trust Him.
Verses 21 through 29: God overturns and mocks idols
1 “Be silent before me, you islands!
Let the nations renew their strengths
Let them come forward and speak;
let us meet together at the place of judgment.
These Islands I imagine would be the pagans, idol worshippers, gentiles and Us. Don’t think that God is just talking to the people of Judah. This passage is in the Bible for a reason. How could it not be about us, too? We are just as wayward as the Jews. Keep in mind you are the only Bible some unbelievers will ever read, and your life is under scrutiny every day. What do others learn from you? Do they see an accurate picture of your God?
Are you constantly needing to remind yourself that this Book is the Living Word of God and useful for our daily living, as much now as it was then? What’s coming is Judgement. Like DelRoy said last week. We’re all going to live forever. Where will you live when judged of your faith?
Lightness is overcoming darkness. Our God is telling them, and us, to be quiet and consider what He is about to say.
2 “Who has stirred up one from the east,
calling him in righteousness to his service?
He hands nations over to him
and subdues kings before him.
He turns them to dust with his sword,
to windblown chaff with his bow.
Who is this person? Some say Cyrus the King of Persia, but no, I believe it is Jesus and his rule of righteousness at his return to Earth. Who among us could turn Kings to dust? Who among us could do anything but return to dust ourselves.
Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
3 He pursues them and moves on unscathed,
by a path his feet have not traveled before.
4 Who has done this and carried it through,
calling forth the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord—with the first of them
and with the last—I am he.”
The majesty of our Lord God, from which all has been created. Those Jews, led out of Egypt. How many miracles did they witness. And yet not that long afterward, while Moses was chatting with God, they persuaded Aaron to fashion a golden calf to worship. God came very close to destroying them. And I wonder today, how close we come. We have no Moses to talk God out of it. His Grace and Mercy are truly a blessing, each day. Make sure you tell Him that.
5 The islands have seen it and fear;
the ends of the earth tremble.
They approach and come forward;
6 they help each other
and say to their companions, “Be strong!”
7 The metalworker encourages the goldsmith,
and the one who smooths with the hammer
spurs on the one who strikes the anvil.
One says of the welding, “It is good.”
The other nails down the idol so it will not topple.
The hubris of man. We think that we can overcome what God has wrought. Nail down those idols so they do not topple. What Idols have you nailed down in your life? What is so important, so powerful in its attraction that you put it before all else? Be honest with yourself. We’ve all done it. For me it would be technology, learning new things to do with it. I had a working artificial intelligence of a sort. No, I did not create it on my own but I did get it working on a little tiny computer the size of a deck of cards. I could tell it to turn on and off my lights, start my coffee. I was working on a robot that would follow me around and expedite my supposed needs. Idols come in various forms. You need to recognize that and take measures to remove them from your life. And one of the best ways of doing that is reading the Bible and being around and talking with other believers, like what we are doing now. Remove the people from your life that do not serve the Lord. And if you are going to a Church that serves out only skim milk, find one that serves meat, or speaks the whole truth. They are getting harder to find in these modern times.
8 “But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
you descendants of Abraham my friend,
9 I took you from the ends of the earth,
from its farthest corners I called you
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
This is God’s basic argument for all of us. I chose you after calling you from the ends of the earth. Since we have accepted Christ, we are also descendants of Abraham in spiritual sense. We are his servants. Let that sink in a bit. Do you feel like a servant? Act like one? Really? How do you think the Lord feels about our rebellion? He chose us and He did not reject us, meaning that in spite of various sins we commit, and remember He hates sin, He still calls us His children. And do not fear. How could we?
Psalms 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
11 “All who rage against you
will surely be ashamed and disgraced;
those who oppose you
will be as nothing and perish.
12 Though you search for your enemies,
you will not find them.
Those who wage war against you
will be as nothing at all.
13 For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.
To have the Creator of us and the universe say to us do not fear, he’s got our back. Wow. We are nothing, as you’ll see in the next verse, nothing. God can vanquish your enemies, including satan’s demons. What could we possibly worry about. I used to be very concerned with security, after all, I thought I was in charge of my life. I knew how to shoot, pistol, rifle or shotgun and was good at it. Had my concealed carry. Kept a close watch on large parking lots when shopping among the unwashed. Mildly paranoid if you had to ask. Now, when my Lord is my Savior and protector, the last time my brother in law was visiting, I gave him all my pistols. My nephew will probably get the rifles and shotguns. I have no need for them. I am not concerned about my safety, I am not concerned about anything at all really, that is my Lord’s concern. All I have to do is believe, trust and have faith. And is that all you have to do, too.
14 Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,
little Israel, do not fear,
for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
15 “See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,
new and sharp, with many teeth.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them,
and reduce the hills to chaff.
16 You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up,
and a gale will blow them away.
But you will rejoice in the Lord
and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
Once again, God is reassuring his people and us that he will protect us, strengthen us, make us grind our enemies so that the wind will pick up the pieces of them and blow it away. Our God is an Awesome God!
17 “The poor and needy search for water,
but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the Lord will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18 I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
19 I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
20 so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
Our whole purpose in this life of ours is to glorify our God. To know that He is all powerful, all knowing, all involved with our little lives. We so often forget to glorify God in the successes that we have in this life of ours. Could we have accomplished that success on our own? It is all good to be humble and meek, but if you forget to glorify God, you are missing the point and probably the Blessing.
Quite a few times in the Bible it says to be in constant communication or prayer with God.
Romans 12:12
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:17
Pray without ceasing,
Philippians 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Ephesians 6:18
Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
To name a few.
This constant prayer is part of giving glory to our Lord. I am not sure if they really mean constant prayer as in CONSTANT prayer, by I think that by doing good works, keeping the Lord at the front of your mind, praying with great regularity, not hit and miss with mostly a miss. This in particular is what I think it means. That and loving your neighbor as yourself is going to go a long way toward what the scripture implores us to do. So do so!
21 “Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Set forth your arguments,” says Jacob’s King.
22 “Tell us, you idols,
what is going to happen.
Tell us what the former things were,
so that we may consider them
and know their final outcome.
Or declare to us the things to come,
23 tell us what the future holds,
so we may know that you are gods.
Do something, whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
24 But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.
I do like when God is using His ironic sense when talking about things made of wood or metal or what have you. He is talking to the people who try to justify themselves with things made of wood, metal or stone. These days we would add plastic and technology to that list of stupid things to worship. I am continually struck by how everything old is new again and there really is nothing new under the sun.
25 “I have stirred up one from the north, and he comes—
one from the rising sun who calls on my name.
He treads on rulers as if they were mortar,
as if he were a potter treading the clay.
King Cyrus who would be considered to come from the East. Who calls upon my name – This expression means, probably, that he should acknowledge Yahweh to be the true God, and recognize him as the source of all his success. This he did in his proclamation respecting the restoration of the Jews to their own land: ‘Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, Yahweh, God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth’ Ezra 1:2. There is no decided evidence that Cyrus regarded himself as a worshipper of Yahweh, or that he was a pious man, but he was brought to make a public recognition of him as the true God, and to feel that he owed the success of his arms to him.
26 Who told of this from the beginning, so we could know,
or beforehand, so we could say, ‘He was right’?
No one told of this,
no one foretold it,
no one heard any words from you.
Which of your idols could foretell such things as these from the beginning of the world unto this day? Do not fool yourself in thinking idolatry is of the past and has no connection to our timeline. We idolize many things, to our ruin.
27 I was the first to tell Zion, ‘Look, here they are!’
I gave to Jerusalem a messenger of good news.
The passage means that the hearer of the good tidings of the raising up of a deliverer should be sent to the Jewish people. To them the joyful news was announced long before the event, so long before that many forgot. It would occur as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy recorded among the Jews. Isaiah refers here to his own prophecies uttered so long before the event would occur, and which would be distinctly known when they would be in exile in Babylon.
28 I look but there is no one—
no one among the gods to give counsel,
no one to give answer when I ask them.
29 See, they are all false!
Their deeds amount to nothing;
their images are but wind and confusion.
A final “outburst of scorn” and fittingly so. Idolatry has been one of the primary sins that his chosen people fell into. The first commandment: God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:1–3
This is why God told Joshua to destroy all who breathe:
Deuteronomy 20:16-18
16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.
Verse 16 and 17 in Deuteronomy is a major argument by nonbelievers, saying God is not a loving, forgiving God. Why would He kill all those people. The answer is in verse 18. And them, being nonbelievers and have not read the Bible, continue to claim what they do, which corrupts others who hear this. These nations were not unaware of God and His ways.
We find in Joshua 2:11 what Rahab the prostitute said to the spies:
I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon, and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.
We look to Romans 1:21-25 to find the Cannanites were not Innocent victims:
Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man-and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped the creature rather than the Creator.
Is this not still true now? Hear the word of our Lord and heed it!
Let’s finish with this:
Psalm 62:5-8
5 Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. 6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8 Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.
