trading for future hope

Home again, I do so love coming home.  There is nothing better than kids greeting you, your own bed, food, stuff…don’t get me wrong, I love to travel, but I love even more coming home. Thank you, Lord.

Lest you think this pondering of Isaiah 54 is going to go on forever, I believe there may be but three more posts on it after today.  Today we are going to finish the imperatives God gives us in these verses. Next post, I’d like to look at New Testament response and practical ways to proceed in our walk of hope and freedom, and then finally the way the names the Lord gives us change from the beginning to the end of the chapter.  I hope you will stick with me.

By the way, I miss seeing you guys.  I only hear from a few of you and see only a few of you. Give a call, jot a text, write a comment, drop over, send smoke-signals!  Ahem!…..let’s get to business

From the imperatives God gives us in Isaiah 54:2 to “enlarge” our tents, “stretch wide” the tent curtains, “don’t hold back”,  “strengthen and lengthen the tent cords”,  He tells us what we can anticipate.

Vs 3- “For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations, and settle in their desolate cities.” 

Remember who we are as the healed? Isaiah 61:3 calls us Oaks of righteousness called to display God’s splendor.  Is 61: 4 “they (we, the healed) will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.”  He holds out more hope! It may seem impossible, but we are the ones He commissions to go in. Warriors once again!

How do places get devastated and ruined?  By war, terrorism, death. The appearance of what we are to go in and possess are “desolate cities” (vs 3).  Have you ever gone touring some ancient ruin? Think of places like the coliseum in Rome, or the pyramids in Egypt, or Gettysburg. There is something ominous and at the same time wonderful about places where battles have been fought. You know, creepy yet exciting. How about in our lives? How do places get devastated there? Disappointment, abandonment, loss, abuse…? These are the places we and our posterity are to go in and possess!   Wonderful yet scary.

Right after this statement that the places are going to be desolate, our places perhaps, God says in Isaiah54:4, “Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame.  Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.  You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.” “Do not be afraid” and then even enumerates several of the possible ways that invoke fear: shame, disgrace, humiliation, reproach. Isn't God wonderful? He knows we are going to struggle for courage so He addresses it forthwith. 

What yoke of bondage did you trade for the yoke of freedom?  Was it one of these? Trade it back in hope and faith for freedom!

In the list of imperatives in the first four verses of this chapter, God is asking us to respond in faith to what He WILL do.  He is asking us to step out and praise Him in response to WHAT IS TO COME based on who He is and what He has already done.

Jeremiah 33:10-11 Jeremiah has just used a lot of ink prophesying of the doom to come in judgment of the unfaithful nation of Israel.  But God reveals to Jeremiah His merciful, loving heart despite Israel’s pitiful, base disregard for God and His Law.  God put a limit on His judgment and promises restoration to the nation so that “the sound of joy and gladness…the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord” rise from their lips.  He declares hope and restoration even before the bulk of judgment even gets underway!