Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 64-66.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

The prophet warns that our wickedness will rouse God to anger if we do not repent and turn to Him.  Earlier in the Book of Isaiah the prophet called us to seek the Lord while He might be found.  In today’s passage He tells us that God calls out for people to come to Him, but they do not  seek Him.  In fact all to many of them are busy seeking their own pleasure and performing rituals of their own devising, rituals which are an abomination according to what God has commanded.  The prophet warns us against following our own rituals and thinking that we are too good for others to come near to us, that these others will make us unclean.  As God said to Peter in the vision before Peter went to Cornelius’ house, “Call nothing unclean which God has made clean.”  We need to recognize our uncleanness so that we can accept God making us clean.  God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth.  Only those who are humble and possess a contrite heart will be invited by God to this new earth.  When God calls, we must answer.  When He speaks, we must listen and choose to do that in which He delights.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 57-59.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about today.  Then I read where God said this through the prophet:  “I dwell with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit… I have seen his ways, but I will heal him,”  In between, God speaks of the iniquity and sinfulness of this person and how they kept stumbling back into sin.  God will lead and heal those whose heart is contrite, who recognizes their need for God.  The prophet goes on to speak of those who proudly approach God as if they were righteous.  They seek God and follow His instructions for worship, fasting and humbling themselves, calling on God to bring judgement against the wicked.  Yet, when they fast and humble themselves they seek their own pleasure rather than how they can serve God.  They argue with others over the correct way to serve God, rather than actually doing what He commands.  That is not what God desires.  He seeks those who wish to serve Him by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and clothing the naked.  It is not enough that we go to Church on Sunday, if we do not use our surplus to aid those in need.  It is not enough that we worship the Lord every day of the week if we take advantage of those who work for us.  It is better to go to the strip club and help your neighbor than it is to go to Church and only pay lip service to helping those in need.  God will reach out to those who sin but help those in need.  He will bring them healing and show them how to overcome their sin.  If we do not recognize our sin, we will not listen when God tells us to change.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 43-47.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

The prophecy which begins this passage is on its face for the people of Israel, but in verse seven it says that it applies to “everyone who is called by name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”  This means that it applies to everyone whom God has adopted as His sons and daughters, everyone whom God has grafted onto His vine.  It reminds me of Jesus prayer in John 17, where He prays for His disciples.  He asks the Father for many things for His disciples as He sends them into the world.  Then in verse 20, Jesus says, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,”  In both passages, God starts out making promises to a specific group of people, then He says that these promises apply to anyone willing to put their faith in Him, in anyone willing to be called by His name.

Now I want to go back to what He promises here.  God tells us that He created us, He formed us.  He tells us not to fear because He has redeemed us.  Whatever holds us captive must release us because God Himself has offered up the price necessary to redeem us.  I want to take a minute to expand on that.  We don’t really think about what the people who first heard this would have understood when Isaiah said that God redeemed us.  When someone in that society talked about redeeming someone they were talking about buying someone out of slavery.  The closest I can come to explaining what I understand the prophet to be saying here is this: Imagine someone walking onto a slave plantation in the pre-Civil War South of the United States, or into the slave markets of the Barbary Coast of North Africa in the late 1700s, pointing to a slave, and saying, “How much to let him (or her) go?  I will pay that price. Let them go.”  Then pointing to another slave and then another, until all of the slaves are free.  That is what God has done for us.  Actually, Isaiah says He has done more than that.  He walked into the slave market and called out each of our names.  He called us by name.   Then as we walked out of there, not sure if we would be re-enslaved by the slavers all around who had enslaved us in the first place, God said to us, “Fear not, I am with you.”  He said, ” They will not take you back into slavery because I am right here.  I am the one who redeemed you, and I am here.”

And as God brings each slave out of the market, He says to us whom He had previously freed, “Explain to them what I have given them.  You are my witnesses.”  He tells us that there is no god, no being, no thing which can enslave us again if we walk by His side.  God says that there is none who can deliver from His hand.  That is two sided.  Those who choose to oppose God will find that none can remove His hand of justice from them.  They will suffer God’s judgement.  And for those whom God has redeemed, there is none who can take them away from God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 39-42.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

I loved reading this aloud for my video this morning.  As Christians, we are very familiar with Isaiah 40:3-5 because John the Baptist refers to it in John 1:23 when the religious leaders of the time asked him who he was.  We see these three verses as being fulfilled in John the Baptists as he introduces Jesus.  However, we typically stop reading at verse five and miss the way in which verse six through eight continue that theme.  Verse six says “A voice says, ‘Cry!’  harkening back to verse three which said “A voice cries:”  Verses three through five tell us that we should make a path for God in the wilderness of our hearts because all flesh will see the glory of the Lord.  Then verse five ends by saying “the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”  Verses six through eight tell us that flesh quickly fades, but that the word of God will stand forever.

Actually, now that I have seen the connection between verses six through eight with John the Baptist announcing Jesus’ coming I see how the rest of today’s passage is a continuation of the prophecy which John the Baptist quoted.  In fact I think John the Baptist intended for his listeners to remember the whole prophecy.  Especially verse nine which says, “Go on up to a high mountain,
    O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength,
    O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
    lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
    ‘Behold your God!’”
John was the herald of good news telling the people of Israel to behold their God, who was, and is, Jesus.  Jesus is our God who came with might and who tends His flock like a shepherd.  Isaiah goes on to show how God is different from the idols which people worship.  He shows how all too often we worship things we have made rather than worshiping God.  Then he reminds us that if we put our trust in Jesus we need not fear, nor need we be dismayed because God will be with us and will strengthen and help us.  God will uphold us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 36-38.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

Every time I read an account of the messages which Sennacherib sends to Hezekiah I am struck by how it starts by suggesting that God would not help Hezekiah defend Jerusalem because he had removed the high places to worship God, then escalates to saying that God is not powerful enough to protect Jerusalem.  Let’s look at this a little closer.  When Sennacherib’s representative was initially talking to Hezekiah’s envoys, he warned against relying on Egypt, then he went on to question whether God would choose to support Hezekiah.  He further suggests that God had sent Sennacherib to conquer and destroy Jerusalem.  But when Hezekiah’s envoys asked him to speak in Aramaic rather than the language the common people of Jerusalem could understand, he called out that Sennacherib was stronger than any god, even stronger than God.  Gone was any claim that God would not defend Jerusalem because Hezekiah had limited where He could be worshiped.  Gone was the claim that God had called Sennacherib to come against Jerusalem.  Now he claimed that Hezekiah was attempting to deceive the people into believing that God could defend Jerusalem from the Assyrians.  Then we come to the message which Sennacherib sent to Hezekiah when he was forced to withdraw his siege of Libnah in order to face the army of Cush.  Sennacherib claimed that nothing could prevent him from conquering and destroying Jerusalem.  God said that Sennacherib would never even place Jerusalem under attack or even siege.  Looking at the events leading up to what happened here, one would be justified in thinking that Sennacherib knew what he was talking about.  There was nothing on the face of the earth which could prevent Sennacherib from doing as he wished to Jerusalem.  Yet. history records that Sennacherib returned to his capital without ever attacking Jerusalem.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.