Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 43-47.

I was reminded of the first episode of “The Chosen” when I read this part of the first verse of today’s passage:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”
In that episode Mary Magdalene holds on to that verse in the face of her troubles and demon possession.  The high light of that episode comes when Mary is at the end of her rope and wants to die, Jesus calls to her by name.  I cannot convey just how powerful this verse affects me if you have not seen that episode.  God has redeemed us, and He calls us by name.  We just need to answer His call and turn to Him.  He will bring us from far away, even from the ends of the earth and blot out our sins.  He does this not because of anything we have done, not because we deserve it.  God will blot out our sins because it pleases Him to do so.  All of this God does for those who are called by His Name.  It does not matter how we identify ourselves as His, merely that we do so.  The prophet writes:
“Some will say, ‘I belong to the Lord’;
    others will call themselves by the name of Jacob;
still others will write on their hand, ‘The Lord’s,’
    and will take the name Israel.”
What matters is that we are His.  

The prophet also warns us against thinking ourselves to be the arbiter of what is right and true.  Whatever else we may think to worship, whatever else we might think to be the source of goodness is but a created thing.  Isaiah spells that out by giving the example of a carpenter who takes a tree, makes part of it an idol and burns the rest to cook his food.  He goes on to condemn Babylon for thinking that it was “the one” and that there were none beside it.  Only God can accurately say:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other;
    apart from me there is no God.”
If we are more than discarded potsherds on the floor of the potter’s workshop it is because God has made us into a vessel for which He has use.  If we refuse His purpose, we are worthless.  But, if you think you are worthless, remember that He has called you by name and you are His.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 43-47.

Today’s passage continues Isaiah’s prophecy that God’s ability to reveal what will happen in the future offers proof that He alone is worthy of our worship.  Not because He reveals the future, but because no other “god” can.  God’s ability to tell us about the future reveals that He alone has power over what will happen, and what has happened.  And, because God has powers, we need not fear for He is with us.  He calls to Him everyone willing to be called by His name.  He has foretold what will happen and stands by those who will be His witnesses that He is God.  As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 107 verse 2, “Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story.”  Let us remember that we are witnesses to God’s power and glory and our job is to tell others about it.  God has forgiven our sins and will heal us of the damage we did to ourselves by sinning.  He does this because it reveals His power even more than everything else He has done.  God’s goal is that from where the sun rises to where it sets, people will know that there is no other god, no thing which can stand against Him.  Isaiah goes on to warn those who choose to oppose God, doing so is like clay arguing against the potter.  They trust in their wickedness, rather than placing their trust in God’s righteousness.  They set themselves up as the arbiters of what is right and good, putting their trust in themselves, their knowledge and their wisdom.  They fail to recognize that they are leading themselves to disaster.  In time, every knee will bow to God, and every tongue will acknowledge His power.  Whether we do so when there is time to follow His guidance to avoid disaster, or after we have suffered complete destruction of all we hold dear is the only choice we have in the matter.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 43-47.

I want to apologize for missing yesterday’s entry.   I am preparing for a vacation and thus writing these a few days in advance in order to get them written for when I will be away and I did not realize I had not written one for July 31st until the morning of July 31st.

Today’s passage begins with the passage which the show “The Chosen” used to introduce Mary Magdalene in its first episode.

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

There is something very personal about this.  God has called each of us by name: not the way a restaurant calls out your name when your table is ready, but the way a mother calls when she sees her lost child looking the other way in a crowd.  I want to expand on that image a little.  Imagine a child who had wandered away from their parents in a crowd and just realized they do not know where their parents are.  The child begins to panic, and their mother, who has never lost sight of them, calls out their name for the child to come back to them.  That is God calling to us, telling us not to be afraid, to just come back to Him.  Throughout the Bible, again and again, God tells us not to be afraid.  Out of all of the billions of people on earth, He, the Creator of all that is, knows us by name as individuals.  He has summoned me and He has summoned you, not you as in that group over there, but you as an individual whose name and history He knows in detail.

There was a lot more I intended to cover from this passage, but I am going to stop there.
  

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 43-47.

Since I am going to be on vacation from July 31-August 9 I have already written my blog posts for these days and scheduled them to be posted.  However, I may not be able to post a link to them on FaceBook, Gab.com, or MeWe.com during every day (or any day) during this time period.  So, please continue to visit my site to read my daily devotional.

Initially I intended to write about how Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 43 looks so much like what happened with the modern state of Israel:

“Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
    I will bring your children from the east
    and gather you from the west.
 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
    and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the ends of the earth—”

Those of Jewish descent have come to the modern state of Israel from the ends of the earth, wherever they were found.  In some cases, great effort was made to extract them from places which were hostile to them and where attempts were made to prevent them from leaving.  Then a little later in what appears to me to be the same prophecy, Isaiah wrote this:

“Yet you have not called on me, Jacob,
    you have not wearied yourselves for me, Israel.”

This also reminds me of the modern state of Israel, with its explicitly secular nature.

However, when I read the end of the passage I was struck by the connection between what Isaiah said at the end of today’s passage.

“those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
    let them save you from what is coming upon you.”

This reminds me of those today who tell us that this or that disaster is coming if we do not repent of sins which are not among those sins mentioned in the Bible (some of those “sins” to which I am referring are telling people about the sins which ARE mentioned in the Bible).  Isaiah warned them:

“Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you
    when you say to yourself,
    ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’
Disaster will come upon you,
    and you will not know how to conjure it away.
A calamity will fall upon you
    that you cannot ward off with a ransom;
a catastrophe you cannot foresee
    will suddenly come upon you.”

These prognosticators think that they are gods, but God tells us through Isaiah:

“I am the Lord,
    and there is no other.
I have not spoken in secret,
    from somewhere in a land of darkness;”

That last part is important.  There is no “secret” knowledge.  God has made His will known for all who care to listen.  I don’t need to be taught by someone to whom secret knowledge has been passed to know God’s will.  Nor do I need a degree from a properly accredited institution.  God has provided each of us a mind which is capable of analyzing the evidence for ourselves.  If the experts claim that you must take their word for it because you are incapable of understanding it for yourself, they are not speaking of something which comports with God’s will.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 43-47.

In yesterday’s passage, Isaiah declared that God, and God alone, was able to tell us what would happen in the distant future.  In today’s passage Isaiah predicts the return of the descendants of Jacob to Jerusalem and the surrounding lands.  They would be brought back to the land which God promised their ancestors from the ends of the earth.  Certainly, this prophecy was fulfilled when the Exiles returned under Cyrus and his successors.  Yet, my impression is that only a small percentage of the Jews living throughout the world returned during that time.  The Book of Esther recounts large communities living in many cities throughout the Persian Empire.  But today we see what appears to be a different story.  There are only a few nations outside of modern Israel with large Jewish populations.  Who would have predicted that 200 years ago on any basis other than a belief that this prophecy would come true once again?

Isaiah tells us that Cyrus was God’s chosen one even though Cyrus did not know who God was. God used Cyrus despite the fact that Cyrus did not worship Him, or even acknowledge His existence.  God used Cyrus for His own purposes.  Isaiah tells us that God acted despite the failure of the people of Israel to ask for His help.  Further Isaiah tells us that God will bring this same salvation to all of the people of the world.  God will do all of these things so that we may know that He is God, and there is none other like Him.  God declared these things before the entire world for all to see.  God does not issue His commands and prophecies in secret to a select few.  He declares them for all to see and know.  The Lord wants everyone to know that He is God and there is none other like Him.

I want to add on that this passage can be hard to read, but it is worth the effort.  There are many other points made here than I can cover in this short blog.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  I am going to be on vacation through August 10th.  I have prepared my daily Bible Studies for each day throughout that time in advance since I will have limited access to the Internet during this time.  The timing on when I publish these blogs may be erratic during this time.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 43-47.

The God of Abraham created the world and there is no other god.  That is the main theme of this passage.  Isaiah makes a few other points in this passage but he keeps coming back to that one.  Isaiah starts today’s passage with God’s promise to be with the descendants of Jacob no matter what difficulty they may experience.  When they go through deep waters, they will not drown because God will save them.  When they walk through fire, they will not be burned up.  He makes clear that these are metaphors for whatever troubles they may face.  The prophet tells us that God traded others lives for those of the people of Israel.  But what of us who are not descendants of Jacob?  Isaiah gives us God’s answer to that as well.  God has called to bring the people of Israel together and includes with them everyone who claims Him as their God.  God has chosen as His own all who claim Him as their God.

And for what purpose has God chosen us?  He has chosen us to know Him, to believe in Him, and to know that He alone is God.  We are witnesses to the fact that there is no other god.  God has shown us His power and calls on us to proclaim that fact.  The prophet spends a few paragraphs illustrating why worshiping an idol made with human hands is silly.  Then he goes on to predict the restoration of Israel from an Exile that has yet to happen (I will note that there are those who believe this section was written after the return from Exile, but the starting point for making that case is the disbelief that the prophet could have predicted the return).  God predicted through His prophets that the people of Israel would go into exile and, through those same prophets, He predicted that they would return.

Those who seek God will find Him.  He does not have secrets which He hides from those who wish to know.  Those who claim to have secrets from God which only they know are liars.  God does not whisper obscurities in dark corners.  He boldly proclaims His promises and His wishes.  There is no secret hidden code which you need to discover to understand what God has to say.  The prophet spells this out clearly for us in Isaiah 45:19, but really that theme is throughout today’s passage along with God’s declaration that He alone is God.  The time will come when every knee will bow before God and declare allegiance to Him.  No one will be able to claim that they did not know. 

I want to wrap up by coming back to the twofold theme which is central to this passage.  God created all that exists and is sovereign over all of it.  There is no other which can challenge His sovereignty.  The first addresses those who believe there is no God.  The second addresses those who believe there are other gods, other Truths.