Isaiah 35

Therefore, though we acknowledge that we often have news that is less than what we might desire, and though we have precious and frequent opportunities to comfort our beloved brothers and sisters in their very real disappointments and heartbreaks today, may we know even now something of heaven’s gladness. In Christ we are not far from the kingdom, where all our best hopes and dreams are surely reserved for us. We have sent our best treasures there ahead of us. Where your treasure is, let your heart be. Because of the hope of Israel, may your sorrow and sighing flee away in the wonder of the love that excels all earthly joys.

Isaiah 34

Isaiah 33

Isaiah 32

One of the wonders of the Lord’s perfect reign in our lives is that there is a complete agreement in all things between the divine King and the divine Spirit. We praise both. We receive both. They have no power struggle, but together with the Father, they are one God eternally. We will have quietness and security forever in the kingdom of the Lord. The reign of our King will never end, and the power of the Spirit will never be quenched.

Isaiah 31

Isaiah 30

Isaiah 29

Are you satisfied with everything just as it is? If this is all the heaven that you will ever get, would it be enough for you? No – this is a passing world of fleeting pleasures. We are looking for the new city where the blind see, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised incorruptible, and where all sin has been not only forgiven but entirely removed. We are looking for the temple where Jesus Christ is the pure and holy cornerstone. We want to be in the place where we will one day see as we are seen.

Isaiah 28

Isaiah 27

This was the cross of Christ, which though it was accomplished 2000 years ago, yet still we can say that the church lives in the day of the cross, and we still face the dragon’s teeth as we are called to crush Satan under our feet. As the Lord warned, the true followers of Christ will yet have a cross to bear. One day all of this will be done. The day of humiliation will be completely over, and the victory of God will come in its fullness. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has the future firmly in His hand, and who will bring us home in a day of perfect victory, the day when He comes with his angels, who will separate the wheat of the church from the weeds of the world.

Isaiah 26

Even our dead shall live and their bodies shall rise because of our risen and conquering Lord. The people of God from all ages shall be one in Him. Their hearts shall be fully blessed as those who are stayed upon Jehovah. Through the Lord they find the promised and perfect peace and rest of our God even now. May He keep us in His everlasting grace yet again this day. May He restrain the evil of our hearts, our lips, and our hands. For the glory of His name, may we walk in faith in a world of pain.

Isaiah 25

Isaiah 24

Isaiah 23

International trade is a way of life for all of the prosperous nations of the world. What that means is that a disaster in one land will have serious consequences for the economic life of other countries. We see something of the world of international business in the history of ancient Tyre, one of the nations that the Lord addresses in Isaiah 23.

Tyre was a place known for its ships and merchants. Many nations counted on trade with the Phoenicians. If Tyre were to fall, other powers would miss the economic benefit of their engagement with the businessmen of this port city. Isaiah lists Tarshish (apparently in Spain), Cyprus, and Egypt as among those who will be distressed with the coming trial that their trading partner will face.

Tyre will face a generation or more of trouble, and even the seas seem to be mourning the loss. The waters are personified here and are said to be made fruitless, with no birth of any descendants. The loss that places like Egypt face are not mere business failures. It is presented almost as grief over the death of a loved one. Egypt will be in anguish. Tarshish will wail. The loss of prosperity is like the loss of the most precious object of affection and devotion for these other lands across the waters.

There are few specifics in this prophecy that would help us to pinpoint the specific historic events that are being referred to in this chapter. What we do see clearly is the ultimate source of the trouble that Tyre will face. "The Lord of hosts has purposed it." We also see the reason for these events. It is because of the "pompous pride" of this land of commercial prosperity. God is able to bring dishonor upon the proud peoples of the earth, no matter how honored they may be in the opinion of their trading partners and in their own eyes.

It appears that there will be some period of disgrace and humiliation that God has ordained for this land. The Assyrians have been an agent of distress upon other places. Will they be used by God to humble proud Tyre? If He chooses such a thing, He can certainly make it happen. Like a forgotten prostitute, the nation is pictured in a pitiful journey around the cities of the world, singing songs of better days so that her memory will not be completely erased from the minds of the lands that once were her customers.

At the end of some defined period, Isaiah seems to say that her business will be restored to the benefit of the people of the Lord. God's purpose for even this proud city will certainly be accomplished.

When we have large accounts we imagine that we are gods and the masters of our own destiny. We proudly boast about our plans to go here and there and to make more and more. But we do not even know when our lives will be required of us. In a few short years it is the destiny of almost every man to be forgotten by others. Even if someone has established a memorial gift or some wonderful monument, it is the destiny of almost every man to be unknown by those who look at the name on the trophy and wonder who this person was.

It is part of the deceptiveness of riches that cause a man to think that this will never happen to him. The story of our Savior is so very different. He was born in a state of profound humiliation, and he died on a cross after soldiers had cast lots for the garment he was wearing. Yet at the name of Jesus ever knee shall one day bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

We don't think very much about Tyre and Sidon today. Their day has come and gone. But the poor man who came to give His life for sinners is still the great lover of the church, and He will be highly exalted forever and ever. Kings and kingdoms shall all pass away, but there is something about the person of Jesus Christ and the story of the events of His life and death that convinces us that He is worthy of the most serious consideration this day and always.

Isaiah 22

Since the fall of Adam the people who would follow God have had a battle on their hands. Success in any battle can have something to do with who has the high ground. In the spiritual battle that we face today, we do not use the weapons of the world, and we do not try to force people into submission to Jesus Christ. Instead we bring forward reasonable spiritual propositions for the consideration of people who are being drawn to the Lord. For this kind of battle for the souls of men, having the high ground can also be important. We are told to be a city on a hill, which cannot be hidden. We are to be the light of the world in Jesus Christ, who is able to draw men to Himself.

Jerusalem was literally a city built on a hill. She was to be a place of great spiritual vision. Even on the grounds of the temple mount God had made the court of the temple to be a place where the nations would come for prayer. This city was to be a light to the world. But instead of being a mountaintop of vision, Isaiah says that she had become a valley of vision. The view of the world from the valley may not be the best vantage-point for our understanding of the world around us, and for world's appreciation of the Lord's kingdom. The church needs to be like a lamp which is placed upon a stand. It should give light to all the house. But a "valley" of vision is like a lamp under a basket.

It is amazing that in the midst of statements against Edom, Arabia, Assyria, Babylon and other nations, God had a word for Jerusalem. She too had done evil and would face discipline from the Lord. The sin of the leaders is mentioned by Isaiah. They would one day flee from the city and abandon their people, rather than stand firm in the faith, listening to the word of God's prophets. Therefore, a day was coming upon the Land, a day of destruction, but also a day that God had decreed long ago.

God called His people to weep and mourn, to put on sackcloth and to humble themselves before God. But they would not look to the source of the discipline they faced. God would be the one who would bring the day of disaster. Amazingly, in his discipline of specific officials and the nation more broadly, God would put an end to the covenant community that was not living as the light of the world, and God would begin a new community where we are connected to one who is uniquely the light of the world and who calls us to be the real Jerusalem, a city set on a hill.

If this new Jerusalem was to be born, it seems that it was necessary for the glory of the Jerusalem that is below needed to be diminished some, so that people could look beyond what was low in the valley and fading away, and could begin to set their heart on Christ the cornerstone that the builders would reject, on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, and on the church as a living letter of divine light scattered abroad as bread cast upon the waters. This is of course an amazing privilege, for we are a part of the Kingdom of heaven - the new Jerusalem.

In the day of Isaiah, God called His people to weep and mourn for the poor condition of the Jerusalem below and her people. Instead of this humility, there was a strange arrogance among the leaders, and a hedonistic fatalism among some. Even a high official like Shebna the secretary, was seeking great things for himself and for the glory of his name in a day of disaster for the people of God. He would be replaced by a man who would have more concern for the good of those who were looking to him for godly leadership. Where can great men like this be found in the church today?

We have such a great man over the household of God. Jesus the Christ is more than a servant in the house of the Lord. He is the Son of God and the sinless leader of the people. Everything that He has done has been accomplished with a full heart for the people that He came to represent. We needed Him, and He has come. He has opened a door to heaven that no one can shut. But when He shuts that door no one will be able to open it again. Today the door is open for all who would repent and believe. Come to the city of light, the city on a hill. Come to the new Jerusalem and find the peace and security of the new world that Christ has won for us.

Isaiah 21

The world that we live in is vast, and the universe beyond causes us to wonder. Even within our own small area of life in one town within one nation there is much that is happening that simply escapes our notice. Concerning the movement of time, we live for a brief period, and our understanding of the affairs of other centuries is very small. We pick up small pieces of information and consider. We make our preliminary conclusions, but it should be obvious that we have nothing close to exhaustive knowledge.

There is a God who is aware of every place and every time in the fullest detail. His knowledge is far beyond second-hand awareness. He does not learn through investigation. He knows as the One who decrees. He is the God of Israel, but He speaks through His prophet to the nations of Babylon, Edom, and Arabia. He has a word for their future, but beyond His word is the person of One who rules.

First Isaiah speaks of Babylon. He begins by calling them "the wilderness of the sea," probably a reference to the fact that they referred to their southern region as "the Land of the Sea." Later in the prophecy, the name "Babylon" is mentioned, so that there is no doubt about what land is spoken of in these verses. Yet we normally think of Babylon as the conquering power that defeated the Assyrians and then Jerusalem and Judah. Here the prophecy seems to say that they will be greatly distressed by an approaching army, and will be defeated by the Assyrians. Before they defeated the Assyrians, they were first overtaken by them. They would later rise against them and have their day of glory for a season until the next ruling empire would eventually conquer them after their short time of supremacy.

Isaiah speaks of the vision of Babylon's destruction as one that brought him anguish, made him bowed down, dismayed, and appalled. At the end of this section after announcing the coming of armies through the eyes of a watchman, and then pronouncing the fall of Babylon, Isaiah speaks again of the source of his prophecy. This comes from the Lord of hosts, who is the God of Israel.

Briefer words of coming difficulties are given to Edom and to Arabia. The word regarding Arabia seems to be one of clear and very imminent destruction, while the message regarding Edom is somehow hidden in just a few words of both morning and then night, with an instruction to come back again if you want to inquire. The chapter concludes with another reminder that these sure words come from the Lord God of Israel, who has spoken.

In the vast array of lands near and far and the river of centuries that come and go, is there anyone who really knows? In the coming and going of nations and empires through wars and rumors of wars, is there anyone who truly understands? As lives are turned in very unexpected directions like fallen leaves washed away by sudden violent storms, is there anyone who rules, who decrees, who ordains, and who accomplishes his purposes? It is the God of Israel. He is the Lord of armies. The watchman may see the sand of the deserts raised up to the skies through the galloping of horses coming through the wilderness. He can sound the alarm, and call warriors to oil their shields in the sudden panic of the most unwelcome evidence of impending doom. The Lord God is not surprised. He knows. He understands. He has decreed. He shall accomplish all His holy will.

It is this great God of Israel who was willing to humble Himself for our sake. He came as a servant for our salvation. He was obedient even to the point of death on the cross, because this was what was necessary for the eternal glory of the Father and for the good of the ones who were loved by Him before the foundation of the world. Kingdoms will rise and fall. In the centuries after Isaiah, Babylon will become the very symbol of the impressive powers of this world. Yet she was conquered once in a way that we barely remember, and she will be conquered again in the years beyond Isaiah. But the kingdom of heaven, and heaven's King, will last forever and ever. When all appears to be lost, the faithful gospel watchman is able to take the sure word of truth and announce the morningstar. The first glimpse of resurrection has come. The full day will soon arrive. No earthly power can stop the Lord of the Day. Believe in the coming victory of God with all your heart this day, and live by the faith that the Lord, the God of Israel supplies through His sure word.

Isaiah 20

We live in a light-hearted age in some ways. There is much that is dark all around us, but our preference is to keep things superficial if possible. We like to fill our minds with the distractions of frequent entertainment. If we think of the image of someone running in public naked, we assume that it must be some joke. If we are witnesses to the event we may avert our eyes, and wait for security to remove the unruly fan, or wonder what that particular college student could be thinking of in acting so foolishly. It does not occur to us that God would ever use such a public display as a sign of judgment or as a warning to His people.

In the world of the ancient near east, public nakedness was not a joke; it was a reminder of the poverty and humiliation that could come upon a people if they were carried away as captives by their enemies. In Isaiah 20, the prophet gives the message of God not through mere words, but through a living parable of the exile to come. Assyria would soon be the instrument of God's judgment upon many nations. Many would look for a better tyrant, hoping that they could be a vassal servant people or perhaps even an ally with some other powerful nation as the lesser of two evils. In the case of God's people, they may have looked to Egypt for support, or even to Cush. Yet neither of these powers would be of any use in preventing the coming Assyrian assault.

Isaiah was to be a living sign of the future exile. The prophet was to walk around naked and barefoot, perhaps even for three years, as a visual warning to the people who witnessed this prophetic oracle. We are told that this display had a very specific meaning. God knew that many would have wanted to look to Egypt or Cush as a possible deliverer for Israel. Yet this prophecy of Isaiah is against them.

The people of Israel may have been looking to Africa for special allies to fend off the Assyrian empire, but this was not to be. The nations that were supposed to be part of some alliance would themselves be carried into humiliation. There would be no real help from Egypt or Cush, because the Lord had plans for their demise by the flood of the Assyrian war power.

We all have a danger coming upon us from God's wrath against sin that is more than any one nation-state conqueror could ever approximate. What is your hope in your time of greatest need? The Lord will return to judge the living and the dead. We are to be watching and working until He comes.

What is your only hope in life and in death? The Heidelberg Catechism moves us rightly and richly in the direction of Jesus Christ. In him we find comfort. To trust in something other than the Lord Jesus Christ is madness. We thank God that He has begun to lead us out of that darkness of self-sufficiency or trust in some powerful-looking entity. It is time for us to remember the God who made the heavens and the earth has granted to us deliverance from our enemies through his mercy extended to us in Jesus Christ.

We must not set ourselves up for failure and debilitating disappointment, by putting God's plan of redemption on the back burner while we fill ourselves with mindless amusements or with the fear of some lesser threat who may be coming against us all one day. We need to recapture again a fear of God; a fear that awakens us to a better life and calls us to the One who is the key object of our affection. He is the Savior who has told us that if we lose our lives we will find them. He has conquered sin and death for us through the love of the cross.

Do not trust in idols. In fact, flee from idolatry. And while you are running away from one place or habit of rebellion, run into the arms of a Redeemer who does truly love you, and who demands that you deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Him.

Isaiah 19

Every land has its pride and glory. In the state that we live in we are proud of a rock formation on the side of a mountain that looks like the rugged face of an old man. In recent years this has become more obviously absurd since the rock formation fell off of the side of the mountain. Some of the residents wanted to hold a memorial service for the "Old Man of the Mountain." His image still appears on the license plates of our cars, though the "man" who never was in now most decidedly gone.

The ancient Egyptians had a more reasonable boast in the River Nile. It's waters were necessary for the prosperity of the economy. Without the overflow of the Nile the field would have no water and would produce no grain. The effect of this disaster would be felt by so many within the nation, both high and low, if the river ever became dry and parched.

Who has power over the Nile? If some evil person or nation could dry out the Nile by an act of will, the nation would be brought to her knees. But there is a good God who can dry up the bed of the sea by His own command, and all nations must finally bow before Him. In Isaiah 19 we read that it is this good God's intention to do this very thing, and many will humble themselves before Him in the midst of their great suffering.

The Lord is stronger than the supposed gods of any nation who must cringe before Him when He comes in power. All the Egyptian idols would be unable to keep the Nile flowing, and thus to deliver the nation from disaster. The people of Egypt and her proudest leaders would also be brought low and would have to eventual admit their inability.

Leadership is a wonderful gift of God. There is little doubt that some people are able to inspire the confidence of their countrymen and lead them in the crucial moments that define the future and which require a more then perfunctory courage. But above all those leaders and beyond all of the people who would follow, there is a God who really has defined the future before any subordinate leader forged a pathway of strength. If He chooses to show the counsel of wise men to be foolishness, or to turn friends into adversaries and brothers into enemies, He can easily throw a nation into confusion in a moment. They may turn to their idols or consult the dead, but all of it will be for nothing if the Lord God Almighty has purposed to bring a people low.

Isaiah indicates that this will happen to Egypt. This part of the story is not very surprising to anyone who knew the heritage of God's dealings with Egypt. In this land God's people were slaves for hundreds of years. They cried out to God and He delivered them through the hand of Moses. He humbles the Egyptians and their king with miraculous signs and wonders displayed through the agency of His chosen mediator.

The surprise of Isaiah 19, similar to the good news for the tribal groups associated with Cush in Chapter 18, is that God has a wonderful plan of grace which will most certainly reach the Egyptians. Throughout the great exodus of Israel from the grip of Egypt, God had made a very definite distinction between Egypt and Israel. One group gets drowned in the Red Sea, the other crosses on dry land. How shocking is it then when God tells us here that His intentions for Egypt (and also for Assyria) will be intentions of grace!

These nations had no right to partake in the sacrifices, the offerings, and the vows of the Jews. They were strangers to the law of the circumcised and could not partake of the assemblies and rituals of those who worshiped God in the temple in Jerusalem. Yet here we are told that there is a day coming when both the Egyptians and the Assyrians will know the Lord and will fear Him. Using the prophetic idiom of Old Testament sacraments and regulations, Isaiah announces that there will be a strange common bond between the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Jews in some future day.

Somehow they will all worship together. Their practices will not be some compromise of three very different systems of religious rituals and customs. These people will all worship the God of Jacob, and they will be blessed by God, and will in turn be a blessing to the earth, rather than a terror to the weak. This is an amazing miracle, and it can only be fulfilled in Christ. Though Old Testament words are used since the original audience is presented this amazing truths in the words of their own devotional practices, the reality of the prophesy can only be a New Testament fulfillment based on the common bond of a Jewish Messiah.

Through Jesus, Egypt and Assyria are called the people of God, the work of Yahweh's hands, the inheritance of the Lord. Just as not all Israel is Israel, in the words of the Apostle Paul, not every individual Egyptian and Assyrian will be counted among the people of the Lord. Yet many will be counted as the beloved people of God, bought by the blood of Christ, and granted the gift of faith in the name of our glorious Messiah. Surely we have not yet seen the greatest fulfillment of this wonderful prophesy, but in our day we can almost taste it as we see indigenous church planting movements springing up in the Middle East in the midst of great suffering.

Only God could have done this, and He appears to be doing it even in our generation through the message of the Christian gospel. This is no time for the nations of the world to turn to powerless Egyptian deities or empty and false philosophies that only bring slavery. Through freedom Christ we have been set free, and nothing - not even the worst persecution - can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Isaiah 18

It is a mind-expanding experience to visit another land. More than likely the people we meet there may speak, eat, and behave differently than the hometown group that we are most accustomed to. If a person is wealthy enough, they may have some first-hand experience with neighboring nations, but relatively few people have ever been to a very exotic location. If that is true in the cosmopolitan era that we live in, it was certainly the case in the Ancient Near East of Isaiah's day.

While the prophet seemed to be very aware of the neighboring lands, in this chapter he addresses the more remote land of Cush (southern Egypt and beyond). We get the sense that we are talking about an exotic people that are far away from Israel in every way. Nonetheless the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has something to say to the most remote nations. The people of Cush are stirring up other surrounding nations, mighty conquerers who are "tall and smooth," feared by others near and far. They are perhaps flexing their muscles together against the Assyrians. If they can gather the nations of the remote world of African tribes in a powerful assault against their enemies, perhaps they will prevail.

Then God addresses all the inhabitants of the world through His prophet. God is not threatened by the fierce alliances of men. His plans are not overturned by the strategies and capabilities of strange nations. He is like a Gardener over all the earth and the people groups of all lands are quietly pruned or rooted out as He sees fit. If he wants to destroy a powerful nation, and give their land to the wild beasts, this is not a hard thing for Him to do.

What is very surprising is that at the end of this chapter, the Lord announces that the tribal nations that Cush is joining together will instead be assembled by God to bring worship to the Lord of heaven and earth. Isaiah uses the same language as He did in the beginning of the chapter to describe these distant groups. They are "a people tall and smooth." They are "a people feared near and far." They are "a nation mighty and conquering." But the Lord of hosts will bring them to "Mount Zion."

Surely God is not bringing tribal nations from Africa on pilgrimage to the earthly Jerusalem. Yet many Africans have been streaming up the heavenly Mount Zion as believers in Jesus Christ. They serve this one Davidic King, the Jewish Messiah who atoned for the sins of both Jews and Gentiles. What mercy the Lord is showing! His plan is for redemption of far off people groups. Now we can call one another brothers and sisters in Christ though our customs may be very different. What unites us is far more substantial than what may divide us. We are in Christ, and we bring our lives as tribute to the crucified and victorious Savior who has led us up the holy mountain to God through His resurrection and ascension.

Isaiah 17

In short, though we may seem to lose for a time under the oppression of the world, the outcome of our warfare is not in doubt to God, and we must believe what He tells us. Our great leader of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, has said that we will have tribulation in this world. But then He adds that we are to be of good cheer, for He Himself has overcome the world. In His strength and faithfulness we stand fast in the gospel. There is no other name by which we must be saved. The enemies of the name of Jesus cannot stand, but the love of God in Christ to the elect will be a present and eternal comfort to those who have conceded that they are weak, but He is strong.

Isaiah 16