epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Monday, November 19, 2007

Isaiah 48

Who can stand before our holy God? How quickly we will fall. It is easy to look at others and call them hypocrites, but it is harder for any of us to live up to our own professed standards. When we look at the history of Israel, while there are some fine moments, most of this heritage (which is now ours in Christ) is deeply flawed through blatant and communal sin. The story throughout the history of the church has too often been the same. We have confessed the God of Israel, but have we done it in the sincerity of true obedience?

God knows this about us and he knew this about Israel of old. His understanding of their sin influenced his revelation. Recognizing our sinful tendencies, God has concealed certain things and revealed certain things. He revealed certain things long ago so that people could not claim that their idols brought about these events. But there are new things that he has not revealed so that his people could not claim to know the hidden things of God. He knows exactly when to reveal to His people the events that they will face. They would use this information in rebellion against Him, so he reveals certain things at one time and conceals them at another.

Despite all our rebellion, the Lord remains committed to His people, ultimately for the glory of His own name. This is of first importance. It is only right that the One who is immeasurably above all of creation in His eternal nature and deity should glorify His own name. He will not give His glory to another. We must receive Him as He is. He is the one who has called us. He is the first and the last. He laid the foundation of the earth. He spread out the heavens. All the stars respond to His command.

The power of the Babylonians, or of any other human empire, will not stand as a matter of its own sovereign will. The Babylonians will have their day, but it is God who gives them the years of rule, and the extent of their empire. If he appoints a man to defeat them, that man will prosper in his plans, because it is God who has planned it all first.

There will ultimately be one amazingly victorious King, a King who will rule over a spiritual Kingdom by the force of God’s Holy Spirit. In this way the Lord will redeem His wayward people. By His powerful Spirit He will lead them in a new way – the way that they should go. If they had gone this way in former days – the way of obedience to His commandments – then they would have known peace and growth generation by generation. Yet even now there is a hope that God is establishing a way of life for them. Yes they will be under the power of foreigners for a time, but eventually they will go out from Babylon and they will be redeemed.

Surely there was a small taste of this redemption in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, but this taste is nothing when compared to the redemption that we are given through Christ. The God who brought His people through the wilderness, and cared for their needs day by day in the desert, has now given them every spiritual blessing and an eternal hope. There is no peace for the wicked, but God has provided a way for the wicked to be accounted righteous in His sight. This way is only through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM

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