“As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.” Isaiah 59: 21, NKJV.
Holy God, we are so grateful that You are an unchanging God, and that Your promises are firm enough to hold up the weight of anyone who desires to stand upon them. Please keep us close to your side. This is our prayer, in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today as we feast upon the unchanging Word of God, we want to begin by saying, “Thank You God, for giving us a hope that never fades, or that, cannot fail!” We live in a society, and in a world at large, where everything we hear, has to be taken “with a grain of salt.” Unfortunate experiences have taught us that things are not always the way “they sound.”
But thanks be to God, some of us have, in fact, all of us can, “taste and see that the LORD is good; [and that] blessed is the man [or woman] who trusts in Him” (Psalm 34: 8)! Now let us look at our text for today, within its context, and see how we can apply it to our own experience.
If we should go back a couple of chapters in the book of Isaiah, we will find that God is trying to reason with His people. He is trying to teach them the way He does things.
I firmly believe that God’s choosing of a particular nation and calling them “My people,” was not an act of favoritism. I believe that He chose a small nation to, show forth His power and might – for His glory, and for them to be a channel of blessing to the entire world. The temple of Jerusalem was not to be used for a show of national grandeur, but, as the prophet proclaimed many years before the advent of the Savior, ” . . . My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” Isaiah 56: 7b).
When the Savior came and saw how the divine plan had been distorted, the Bible informs us that “He, ‘ “went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, ‘ “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ ” ‘ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves’ ” ‘ ” (Matthew 21: 12, 13).
He was grieved over their blatant apostasy of the worse kind! They had become as bad as the nations around them. They had forsaken the only true God and His pure form of worship, for the licentious worship of pagan deities; even to the sacrificing of the fruit of their own bodies (Isaiah 57: 5)! Yet in the midst of it all, the “High and Lofty One,” “whose name is Holy,” who lives in a “high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (15), kept His part of the covenant!
He was trying to convince them that He did not see fasting the way they did. They had completely misunderstood the concept. They had made the means an end, in trying to please God. Now they must learn that the fast that pleases God is reflected in acts of redemption. He was trying to teach them what their high calling really consisted of. They were to reflect His glory, by letting His light shine through them as a nation, as the moon reflects the light of the sun. Then His blessings would flow upon them like torrential rains. He would send them a revival, where the standards that characterized them as His people, would once again be “raised up”
He sought to teach them what true Sabbath keeping was all about. It was never intended to be a burden, but a delight. They would not feel the need to hurry through the hours of the Sabbath day in order to get back to “business as usual.” Instead, they would be willing to set aside all business that they would be able to “honor” Him on “His holy day.” Then the promises of their forefathers would find its fulfillment in their nation, according to the, “This is what the LORD says!” (See Isaiah 58 on these two paragraphs).
It is to such a people, and to such a situation, that the LORD God Almighty is speaking. We will continue!