I’ve been doing a deeper dive of Isaiah in my current personal devotions. As I journal, I receive more dynamic revelations about God in some sections than in others. Most recently, the context in Isaiah 43 is the Jews in captivity in Babylon. The Spirit is inspiring Isaiah to prophesy to them that although He had to send them into captivity for their sin, He still deeply loved them (as He does when He disciplines us). Paul describes this same love when he wrote, God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8, NLT2).
Through Isaiah, God tells those in captivity He is going to bring about a new exodus out of Babylon. It will be far more awesome than their exodus out of Egypt or their liberation from the Assyrians—two armies of two world empires. In each case, in a single fell swoop, God drowned the best Egyptian army and destroyed the powerful Assyrian army in one night through a plague! I couldn’t even imagine a power of that magnitude! And we stew about an election or skirmish between the Russians and Ukrainians or between the Jews and the Arabs or the economy. Let that word-picture soak into your heart and inspire your inner being!
As Isaiah was writing this prophecy, something happened to him. It appears a fresh wave of the Spirit crashed upon him. I wonder if it might be like being on the top of a very high mountain looking over the surrounding mountains. From that height you only seek the peaks, not the valleys. You are just amazed at what appears as a nearby mountain range. Isaiah got so excited that what his spirit envisioned about this new exodus began to blur with real time. He tells those in captivity to forget about those things that he just wrote about. God is going to do a new thing!
The wording could give the impression that it’s talking about their return trip from Babylon. Yet, if you take a closer look, it reveals itself as something much greater. In verses 19-20, he discusses the transformation of the wilderness into a flourishing garden with flowing rivers. This change would lead to even wild animals and birds praising God. The reality is, nothing even remotely like that happened when they came back. Was God or Isaiah misleading the people? Not at all! If you read the next verse, God refers to people He has formed for Himself, who will declare praises of Him. Stop and consider. How would you describe the spiritual state of Jews today? Most are not ‘practicing Jews’ and are far from sharing God’s values. Even so, there was a small group of Jews who remained devoted to God during that period, just as there are today. The same applies to the church in modern times. There are ‘overcomers’ who are serious about being apprentices of Christ. These are the ones who God is forming for Himself. Paul writes …as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25b-27, ESV).
Isaiah’s words became so alive and dynamic to me when I realized Isaiah was writing like Jesus talked—in parables. The words could apply to daily life, but what Jesus said was really about spiritual truths. (Matthew 13:10-13) It not only showed me God’s sovereignty, wisdom, and power, it also boosted my faith in Him resolving life’s troubling circumstances. If God has such things all planned out and under control, what is the big deal about the frightening things going on around us? They are really NO BIG DEAL in the light of our God. I can now relax and be more child-like as He said we should be.