Isaiah 43:18

Verse of the Day Devotion: Isaiah 43:18 

“Do not call to mind the former things or ponder things of the past.” – Isaiah 43:18         

The Lord is speaking through Isaiah regarding the things of the past.  What is he referring to in regard to the former things?  Just before this verse Isaiah starts regarding delivering them from Babylon, “Thus says the LORD your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I have sent to Babylon, and will bring them all down as fugitives, Even the Chaldeans, into the ships in which they rejoice.” Isaiah 43:14. He tells them that He sent the Medes and Persians with their king Cyrus to deliver them from Babylon.  Before that, we read “For I am the LORD your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I have given Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place.” Isaiah 43:3. Egypt as a ransom may refer to when God delivered Israel from Egypt with various plagues, especially the last one regarding the death of the first born and ultimately the charioteers and their chariots in the Red Sea.  The reference to Cush and Seba probably refers to a time when the king of Assyria diverted from Palestine and Judea to deal with Egypt and Ethiopia. 

What Isaiah is saying is that though these events were amazing and worth being remembered with thankfulness, praise and rejoicing, and no doubt bringing encouragement, they are not to be compared with what God is going to do and must not take precedent over future workings of God. “Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.”  Isaiah 43:19 God has great plans for Israel.  And He will declare them to Israel before they spring forth.  “Behold, the former things have come to pass, Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth, I proclaim them to you.” Isaiah 42:9. The metaphor here refers to plants and flowers and the springing up out of the ground from the seed.  The idea is that before there is any indication of life in a certain place, there is the seed and at this time God will proclaim it to them. 

And this new thing is the coming of the Messiah.  Note the first four verses in chapter 42.  “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise His voice, Nor make His voice heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed Until He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.” Isaiah 42:1-4.  This servant He refers to is the Messiah, and He will bring forth a future deliverance to Israel, but not as the past deliverances.  Before it was deliverance from those who held them captive but coming will be a deliverance from their sins which now holds them captive.  They were not to dwell on past deliverances but focus on the great one coming.

This speaks to us today as well.  God has done many things in our past that has helped and guided us.  But we must be careful not to dwell too much on these and assume what He will do for us will follow the pattern of the past. God may be doing brand new things in our lives that are completely different than anything He has done before.  Dwelling on what He has done may affect how we see His new work or may make us miss the new work altogether; just as Israel missed the future divergence by Jesus because it did not match past works.  If He is doing something new in our lives, then let us see it as a totally new thing, asking Him to make it clear, so we can fully understand.  I think we will be amazed by how God works in our lives. 

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries.

Isaiah 5:20

Verse of the Day Devotion: Isaiah 5:20 

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20      

This verse speaks as heavily to the culture today as it did back in Isaiah’s day.  This is the fourth woe God declared through Isaiah to the Israel.  There were men in that day who declared what was considered good was evil and what was considered evil was good.  John Wesley in his commentary on Isaiah put it this way, “To them – That take away the difference between good and evil; that justify wicked men and things and condemn piety or righteous persons.”  They glossed over evil deeds and habits and accept them as acceptable, while they look down upon those who cling to God and His works.

Isaiah goes on to add the following. “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” Isaiah 5:21.  This is how they concluded what was right and wrong.  By how they viewed the works as apposed to how God declared them.  They felt they knew better than the prophet and therefore rejected his warnings.  And in doing so, rejected God’s words in the process.  Because of this, the remainder of chapter five, verses 24-30 is the declaring the judgements upon those who sinned in this manner.  Here are verses 24-25 which gives an indication of the judgements declared by God through Isaiah.  “Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble And dry grass collapses into the flame, So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; For they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. On this account the anger of the LORD has burned against His people, And He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down. And the mountains quaked, and their corpses lay like refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this His anger is not spent, But His hand is still stretched out.” Isaiah 5:24-25.  

Today, we need to ensure that we do not fall into the same sin as our focus verse declares, those who call evil good and good evil.  There is much of this going on in our culture today.  Leaders in some of today’s churches affirming abortions as a good thing and acceptable to God.  Churches where transgenderism is taught to our children either in story times, or in church services themselves as was done in a church in Cincinnati, OH.  There are teachings heard in some church’s that are against what the scriptures teach and leads to causing members to go astray and believe false teachings. 

If we hear anything that falls into the sins of our focus verse; calling things that are good, evil and things that are evil, good, it is important that we raise this with the church leadership and have them deal with it.  We should address those who have taught it and help those who heard it to understand that this is wrong.  This is not easy to do, but to ignore and not address these issues will have the same result as accepting it.  We must stand against these things.  God did declare this woe to the people of Isaiah’s time, and I believe He will declare the same judgement to those today who do the same.  Let us be careful and study His word so we will know when others confound the distinctions of right and wrong, and we do not fall into this error ourselves. 

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries.