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

Since I am going to be on vacation from July 31-August 9 I have already written my blog posts for these days and scheduled them to be posted.  However, I may not be able to post a link to them on FaceBook, Gab.com, or MeWe.com during every day (or any day) during this time period.  So, please continue to visit my site to read my daily devotional.

Initially I intended to write about how Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 43 looks so much like what happened with the modern state of Israel:

“Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
    I will bring your children from the east
    and gather you from the west.
 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
    and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the ends of the earth—”

Those of Jewish descent have come to the modern state of Israel from the ends of the earth, wherever they were found.  In some cases, great effort was made to extract them from places which were hostile to them and where attempts were made to prevent them from leaving.  Then a little later in what appears to me to be the same prophecy, Isaiah wrote this:

“Yet you have not called on me, Jacob,
    you have not wearied yourselves for me, Israel.”

This also reminds me of the modern state of Israel, with its explicitly secular nature.

However, when I read the end of the passage I was struck by the connection between what Isaiah said at the end of today’s passage.

“those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
    let them save you from what is coming upon you.”

This reminds me of those today who tell us that this or that disaster is coming if we do not repent of sins which are not among those sins mentioned in the Bible (some of those “sins” to which I am referring are telling people about the sins which ARE mentioned in the Bible).  Isaiah warned them:

“Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you
    when you say to yourself,
    ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’
Disaster will come upon you,
    and you will not know how to conjure it away.
A calamity will fall upon you
    that you cannot ward off with a ransom;
a catastrophe you cannot foresee
    will suddenly come upon you.”

These prognosticators think that they are gods, but God tells us through Isaiah:

“I am the Lord,
    and there is no other.
I have not spoken in secret,
    from somewhere in a land of darkness;”

That last part is important.  There is no “secret” knowledge.  God has made His will known for all who care to listen.  I don’t need to be taught by someone to whom secret knowledge has been passed to know God’s will.  Nor do I need a degree from a properly accredited institution.  God has provided each of us a mind which is capable of analyzing the evidence for ourselves.  If the experts claim that you must take their word for it because you are incapable of understanding it for yourself, they are not speaking of something which comports with God’s will.

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