Isaiah 43:7-15. This is the beginning of another mini message. This message starts out with God basically challenging the world to a duel of truth. The question is who really knows what is going on in human history. Can the blind Israelites or the unbelieving nations of the world explain what is really going on? Can their idols even explain past events? No.
The Israelites were supposed to help everyone see that God is God. He had explained life and history to them so they could tell everyone. Yahwea is the personal name of God which he told to Moses (Exodus 3:14. “I AM” in Hebrew is four letters YHWH. In ancient Hebrew vowels are left out so we have Yahweh). In today’s reading in Isaiah we have Yahweh (LORD in all capitals in many English translations) telling the people of Judah that they were supposed to be his witnesses. But now he is challenging them and the world to think about who he is. He has been revealing to them what is going on, often times before it happened, so that they could prove to the world that they knew the real God. Verse 13 reminds them that he has been God forever and no one can change what he does.
In verses 14-15 God gives a prediction to prove once again that he is God. One of the main political players at the time was Babylon. In these verses God predicts a violent overthrow of the Babylonian kingdom. Some thing this was the defeat of Babylon by Cyrus in 539 BC. That was a relatively peaceful takeover and does not seem to fit the description here. Another option was the defeat of Babylon by Sennacherib in 689 BC which was quite violent. Also that would better fit the time of the writing of the book. If most of Isaiah was written around 701 BC then the overthrow of Babylon about 10 years later would be a big wake up call to the people of Israel, and the nations.
What I like about today’s reading is the way God describes himself in verses 14 and 15. He uses the word “your” three times. “Your redeemer”, “your holy one”, and “your king”. It reminds me of that verses in Romans 8:31, if God is for us who can be against us. That paragraph goes on to tell us that Jesus died for our sins and how noting can separate us from love of God. There is a lot of destruction going on in the world, always has been. We need to see that it is a mess we have made. God is working through the mess, reaching out to people form all nations, calling them to return to him. He gives a lot of proof, and keeps on giving it. Sometimes we get in the way, instead of telling people so they can see we ignore God and what he is doing. We can be lazy and selfish, too lazy to learn what he has said and tell others or selfish with our time wanting to do what we want to do. We don’t want to take the time to be witnesses for God. But God works hard at moving us toward himself and will use tough times to do it. It’s like the old line from many stories, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way”. It is much easier to do it God’s way. Jesus said we needed to take up his burden which would be easy and light (Matthew 11:28-30). Sure it’s still a burden but in the end we will have rest. For those who do not see and hear eternity will be torment forever. We need to follow Jesus now and show others the way. Lord help me be diligent in carrying the load you want me to carry. Help me follow you diligently. Thank you for making the burden light. Give me patience, perseverance, and faith. Let me be your witness. Thank you Jesus for taking the real load and paying for my sins. Thank you for the promise of rest.