Isaiah
40 – 44
Verse 40:1 has God giving Isaiah clear and concise
instructions when talking to the people:
“Comfort, comfort
My people,” says your God.
I read this and think of a movie called Ghost, this movie
was about a guy who died and his ghost was trying to contact his wife. He found
a “medium” that he could communicate through and went to his wife. Well he was
basically saying what God said to Isaiah, but the “medium’s” (played by Whoopee
Goldberg) response was: “Girl, you in danger”. This was in no way comforting to
his wife.
Imagine knowing the future and having to tell people about
it. What if you knew without a doubt the Jesus was returning tomorrow. Would
you hide in a corner and pray or would you run around like a mad man telling
everyone you could? The problem with being a mad man is you will not get much
notice other than maybe a 72 hour lock down in the county “funny farm”. With
something like this you have to comfort the people and not panic them. So that
was what Isaiah was charged to do.
Verse 40:7 is directly conflict with Matthew 6:26 (saying
birds are cared for and we are more important):
The grass withers,
the flower fades
as
the breath of the Eternal One blows away.
People are no different from grass.
On one hand we are told we are important,
on the other we are compared to grass. You know the same grass they walk on,
that feeds their livestock and gets poo’ed on by them. So we have this view of
self-importance, but are really nothing in the grand scheme of things. Sure we
make our mark on the people around us, but as with Moses parting the Red Sea,
we will be forgotten quickly. So although God cares about us like Matthew, in
the end we are just like the grass.
Verse
42:25 is shows the headache God is going through:
That’s why God
sent all fury against Jacob
in
the shape of war, and we were burned.
We
experienced all this;
Yet we didn’t get it. God’s people did not take it to heart.
We can get hit against the head with a 2×4
and still not get it, at least that is often the case for me. God is talking to
a people who have a long history of being delivered with miracles and then in
short order they are worshiping false gods. I often wonder looking at today
when God will just say enough.
I have postulated that Revelations has
already happened. Think about Adam and Eve in Eden, they had paradise and how
they fell. What if we were in Eden again and fell away again? Heck it’s
happened over and over again, why not over and over again for ever? Think about
it Satan as cast out of Heaven, so why not again. Sorry for the depressing
though today, but we live for God and never forget and we never have to worry.
Don’t let the future paralyze you, but at the same time never forget the past
so we don’t repeat it in the future.