Isaiah’s final chapter is primarily about worship. God is sovereign over the whole universe, there is no place that can encompass the Lord. God is vast beyond measure. God is infinite. You and I cannot contain God in a building, or a particular kind of philosophy, or liturgy.
“Thus says the Lord:
Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
so what kind of house could you build for me,
what sort of place for me to rest?“All these things my hand has made,
Isaiah 66:1-2 (NRSVUE)
so all these things are mine,
says the Lord.”
Instead, God has made God’s person available, intimately close.
“But this is the one to whom I will look,
Isaiah 66:2 (NRSVUE)
to the humble and contrite in spirit
who trembles at my word.”
Infinite, eternal God dwells within every person who receives the Lord by faith.
Worthy Worship
God compared this self-serving religious behavior with the repugnance of murder, cruelty to animals, abomination.
“Whoever slaughters an ox is like one who kills a human,
Isaiah 66:3-4 (NRSVUE)
whoever sacrifices a lamb like one who breaks a dog’s neck,
whoever presents a grain offering like one who offers pig’s blood,
whoever makes a memorial offering of frankincense like one who blesses an idol.
Just as these have chosen their own ways
and in their abominations they take delight,
so I will choose their punishments
and bring upon them what they fear,
because, when I called, no one answered,
when I spoke, they did not listen,
but they did what was evil in my sight
and chose what did not please me.”
This is empty ritual that is not backed up with listening to God, and choosing what God delights in. This is going through the motions without any real connection with God.
Those who give God authentic relationship understand the liberation of being forgiven, and have the generosity to forgive others, again and again. The person who has a true understanding of God, and of God’s word, has the humility to forgive and empower others. God encouraged the faithful to maintain their faithfulness even when they are rejected by religious people who do not like having the status quo disrupted.
“Hear the word of the Lord,
Isaiah 66:5 (NRSVUE)
you who tremble at his word:
Your own people who hate you
and reject you for my name’s sake
have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified,
so that we may see your joy,’
but it is they who shall be put to shame.”
God Is a Nursing Mother
Isaiah described a renaissance in Israel that will be so sudden, and so dramatic, the only explanation possible will be the power of Almighty God. There will be a roar in the city. It will be like when a pregnant woman suddenly experiences labor pains, and the baby is on the way. Shall I open the womb and not deliver? God asked.
God then compared God’s love to that of a nursing mother.
Isaiah 66:10-14 (NRSVUE, emphases added)“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,
all you who love her;
rejoice with her in joy,
all you who mourn over her—
that you may nurse and be satisfied
from her consoling breast,
that you may drink deeply with delight
from her glorious bosom.“For thus says the Lord:
I will extend prosperity to her like a river
and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream,
and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm
and bounced on her knees.
As a mother comforts her child,
so I will comfort you;
you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.“
God will comfort and take care of God’s people in the way a mother takes care of her baby. After this will come a time of judgment, painful, worldwide, while at the same time –
Isaiah prophesied about some of the Jewish remnant being sent out by God to gather in the gentile nations
“for I know their works and their thoughts.
I am coming to gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. From them I will send survivors to the nations”
Isaiah 66:18-19 (NRSVUE)
Jesus, his followers, and the apostles were those Jewish missionaries, now born anew from above, filled with God’s Spirit and the Gospel.
Eternity, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Isaiah was a realist. He explained what eternity will be. On the one hand, believers from every culture, every people group and language of the earth will come streaming into Israel
“For as the new heavens and the new earth,
Isaiah 66:22-23 (NRSVUE)
which I will make,
shall remain before me, says the Lord,
so shall your descendants and your name remain.
From new moon to new moon
and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
says the Lord.”
Yet, on the other hand,
“And they shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the people who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Isaiah 66:24 (NRSVUE)
That is the very last verse in the book of Isaiah, a somber note to end on. Isaiah seems to imply,
There are two eternal destinies based upon one’s response to God’s grace
What will eternity with the Lord be like? Isaiah described the new heavens and earth as eating, drinking, rejoicing, and singing for gladness of heart forever.
What will eternity without the Lord be like? Isaiah described those left out of this paradise as hungry, thirsty, shamed, crying out in pain, wailing, and broken of spirit in despair forever. Throughout these chapters, God said when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen.
To many people the very idea of such an eternal destiny is offensive. Will a truly loving and forgiving God, a God gracious and longsuffering, actually sanction such a reality?
When faced with such questions—good questions that cannot be fully answered, as none of us can know what that future holds—we anchor our faith on the character of God, and the truthfulness of God’s word. It seems here in Isaiah’s final message, and with certain sayings of Jesus, that there are indeed two destinies. If this reading is accurate, then we must leave this with the Lord, who alone is Judge. All we can do is trust in God’s compassion, wisdom, utter righteousness, and infinite grace to judge well.
Meanwhile, you and I are called to be the ambassadors of God’s grace, to proclaim the age of God’s favor, to praise God’s glory, and to speak the full truth of the Gospel while it is still the Age of Grace.
“[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say ‘Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences:’ little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
I have to ask does the human race continue on this path or is the greatest awakening in the hearts and minds of God’s children of all time stand before us as His plan unfolds!
Romans 3:12 “They have all turned away together, and they have been rejected, and there is not one who does good, not even one.”
“The cross is meant to kill all self-centered desires or ambition. You and I can make that decision once and for all, but the process is painful and can take a long time. Still, Jesus says you and I must die to self here on earth if we want to bear eternal fruit.”
“The Lord brings us into situations where displaying God’s character is going to come at great personal cost.”
“Suffering is part of earth’s experience; nobody gets away from the curses sin brought into the world.”
John 3:30-31 “He must increase; I must decrease. 31The One who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The One who comes from heaven is above all.”
“Then [Jesus] said to them all, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” Luke 9:23-24
After all isn’t the human race primarily the opposite of this in thought and actions or behaviors. Today’s world is a world where people love all the pleasures and trappings of the world over God and most seek selfish material gain and certainly not to live a life of servitude and be completely humble or chaste in all regards!
“Those who do not shoulder their own cross and follow behind Jesus cannot be considered as His disciple. The cross is necessary, not optional, for every believer.”
I ran to it and saw that it was crushed and sadly it was a very special one that I’ve known for at least a few years that had one eye missing and now I saw its only eye pushed out of its socket from the crushing injury it received by a vehicle that I’m sure the driver was as in most cases driving far too fast for the conditions and even if the rabbit was seen the driver didn’t care or wouldn’t be able to stop quickly enough to avoid killing it. I was extremely upset and crushed inside thinking how I had watched out for this rabbit over the years being sure to leave it various seeds in the predawn hours during the difficult months when the pickings are slim and I would sometimes go out to do that and while I began to leave the seeds I would suddenly see the rabbit by my side calmly watching and happy that I was there!
I realized I had to watch an old News-Reel type documentary, “War in the Pacific,” a compilation of black and white actual war recordings with narration. I watched and as I did I thought so poignantly thinking like never before what a crazy messed up human race with all of this history over the millennia of wars and killing each other and it will never end as long as people are on this earth living in this fallen state and its all falling away more obviously than ever before!
lawrencemorra.com/2022/05/30/isaiah-6-cross-of-the-believer/
Grace and Peace, Joanne
________________________________________
“Go and say to this people:
‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.’
Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes
and listen with their ears
and comprehend with their minds
and turn and be healed.”
Isaiah 6:9-10 (NRSV)
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul all quoted this exact passage. This is what Jesus faced, what the apostles faced, and what you and I face today. People often do not want to hear the truth. Jesus kept teaching that those who had ears to hear and by applying His teaching would receive more understanding. But those who rejected Jesus’s message would lose even what little understanding they’d gained thus far.
Paul added that in each generation down through the centuries there will be people who hear God’s truth and…
View original graceandpeacejoanne.com/2022/05/30/isaiah-6-cross-of-the-believer/
*God’s children of all time standing before us as His plan unfolds!
How right you are, brother Lawrence, people often shy away from the painful truth (and what a pitiful sight that little creature must have been for you, heart-wrenching). But the pain of truth in this life is far easier to bear than the painful truth to come in eternity.
Yes perfectly stated sister Joanne! I just read your response and the mention of the rabbit makes me very sad and want to cry again, I see these animals as gentle innocent babies of the wildlife; they indeed cry or scream when attacked by a hawk which some folks have accounted to me, thus this one-eyed little friend did have a friend for a while, and then I guess we can deduct that the end was at least quick or so sudden that there should have been no distress; I also gave it a good burial and said farewell little one! Of course it lives on in my memory and heart which is another example of pain, but then as you said clearly regarding God’s truth of how there is another beyond earthly pain or suffering, that continues on in eternity!
And so the moral to this story should be, why don’t people work diligently every waking hour to be on the right side of God; so they won’t possibly end up in a suffering that goes far beyond anything we ever experience here, but also, never ends! Wow, now that makes me cry and say; God in the Holy name of Jesus I’m so sorry for my sins or mistakes and being a broken human being!
But also, God’s love and mercy must be incomprehensible and boundless to have allowed all of this to go on so long as we see or perceive things, apparently making and allowing for all the options (opportunity to repent) He can provide in this process to give even the dirtiest of rags opportunity to come to Him on bent knee, and let’s say be like a Dismas at least! Boy or boy if that isn’t a Father’s and Mother’s type of love, what could be; which reminds me of the Prodigal Son!
Amen.