365 Reflections

Continuing from the chapter-by-chapter revelation of the Gospel from Isaiah 53 onward we come now to the place where God speaks to us of the assurance of His salvation for everyone who receives it. Isaiah 56 commands the new members of God's family to fully embrace the assurance of their salvation.  Isaiah 56:3 (ESV) Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” God will not cast out the foreigner. Nor will God let the eunuch be defined by his physical inability to produce offspring.  Isaiah 56:4–5 (ESV) For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. The interesting thing about this passage is that it follows Isaiah...

Isn't it wonderful when someone pays for something you desperately need? A timely gift comes in the mail and you suddenly have what you formerly thought was impossible to acquire? That's how God has handled your salvation. He purchased it for you. Therefore understand that you cannot purchase it yourself! Isaiah 53 prophesies the cross and suffering of Christ. Isaiah 54 tells the nation to prepare for expansion because the people of God will occupy the nations. Now in Isaiah 55, the prophet sends out the great invitation. An invitation that is so simple that many people miss it.  Isaiah 55:1 (ESV) “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. It's easy to miss salvation because it's free. Humans love to complicate things. We are born sinners which means we are born broken and messed up and need to be fixed. Surely anything to do with fixing our soul must cost us great...

God is a promise maker. It's unreal to hear how many times in the Bible God speaks about guaranteeing His people's future, safety, and prosperity. Perhaps one of those places in the Bible where the promises abound most incredibly is the second half of Isaiah 54.  God promises to make them beautiful in splendor. Isaiah 54:11–12 (ESV) “O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. 12 I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones. This is a nation that has been in exile, lost, and without hope. There is no beauty to them at the moment. But as the Servant of Isaiah 53 took the ugliness of sin upon Himself, the people of God benefit by receiving the beauty of God instead.  God promises generational safety. Isaiah 54:13 (ESV) All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. God is not only concerne...

God is very committed to the growth of His family. The departing words Christ left with the disciples were clear: Go make disciples of ALL nations. That's a lot of people from a lot of different places. And then there was Paul whom God took from devout Judiasm and separatism to spreading the message of Christ throughout the entire Roman empire. God has a heart for a big house full of people. Isaiah stipulates that in Isaiah 54 right after the glorious prophetic chapter on the Lord's passion.  Isaiah 54:1 (ESV) “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the LORD. There is a hint of the narrative of Sarah and Hagar in this passage. That is true as the Jewish people have produced more family members of God through Christ than the sons of Ishmael. God commands them to sing. There is joy in the heart of God for bringing ...

Isaiah puts the cross of Christ in plain sight. Isaiah 53 reads like a passage straight out of the New Testament. The details of what happens to Christ are hard to miss even for a first-time reader of this incredible chapter. If we take time and back up to Isaiah 52 we find a few things leading up to the detail in Isaiah 53.  Isaiah 52:14 (ESV) As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind— Jesus was beaten beyond recognition. Think of that. He was so disfigured that people could not recognize Him.  Isaiah 52:15 (ESV) so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. Immediately Isaiah shows the impact of the Cross. Just as the cross is startling to many, it is also salvation to many. The nations are sprinkled in the blood and kings from nations throughout...

To be saved is to experience the joy of the Lord. He brings you back from the captive places of this world that either other people or your own lusts (and mostly both at the same time) bring you into. The Bible is a record of God repeatedly restoring His people from exile. They were saved from Egypt in Abraham and Isaac, they were saved from Egypt through Moses. They are saved from Assyria and will be brought back from Babylon. And every time, their salvation produces JOY.  Isaiah 52:7–8 (ESV) How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” 8 The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion. The prophet calls on God's people to sing! To recognize the glory of salvation in that even the ugly parts of the messenger of salvation are beautiful! God reigns a...

I am amazed at the number of times we are called to remember in the Bible. It's all over the place. And here in Isaiah 51, it shows up yet again. But this time, it's a call to remember the Lord himself.  Isaiah 51:12–13 (ESV) “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, 13 and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor? Notice the double "I" at the beginning of the verse. The heart of the Lord revealed. He calls His people to the most rational thought they could have: He is the ONE they need and they need not be afraid of any other.  Isaiah 51:17–18 (ESV) Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have d...

Isaiah is a book of warning, judgments, dark imagery, and everlasting hope. The people of Israel have been harassed for years by Assyria and they know their doom will come one day at the hands of Babylon. It's a dark time in Israel's history.  I've always had a question about the people of God during those dark times: Were they all utterly corrupt? The truth is, NO, they were not. In a time of overwhelming national sin, there were still people who sought Him diligently. And in Isaiah 51, Isaiah has a message for them.  Isaiah 51:1–2 (ESV) “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness , you who seek the LORD : look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. 2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him. You can imagine the need for this word of hope among those few people who pursued righteousness. They were vastly outnumbered and they watched as the ...

Isaiah 50:1 (ESV) Thus says the LORD: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. The Lord did not divorce Israel. They must have thought so. Because they were busy entertaining other lovers (idolatry) and He was disciplining them for their sins. Sometimes our relationship with the Lord can feel very much like a divorce. We fall into a terrible season of sin and experience God's chastisement upon us forgetting its ultimate intention. Perhaps we have gone too far. But God affirms in this passage there is no separation from Him! Then Isaiah brings them back to remembrance of how they came to being asking why they forsook the one who made them and did not respond to His call. Isaiah 50:2 (ESV) Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, tha...