Isaiah 51:1-3 stood out for me today as a reminder that God is faithful!! I found this Bible study on the passage here. A great reminder to listen, remember God's past faithfulness and trust that God can use one person (who loves HIM) to accomplish His plans.
(Isa 51:1-3) Listen: the LORD's past faithfulness is a promise of future blessing.
Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him. For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
a. Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness: The LORD here speaks to His people; but His people have had trouble listening to Him. So three times in this chapter, the exhortation is given: Listen to Me.
b. Look to the rock from which you were hewn … Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you: God counsels His people to look at His work in His people in days past. This is one of the great glories of God's Word to us; it tells us how God has dealt with His people, and gives us faith and guidance for His work in our lives - if we will listen to Him.
i. As Isaiah speaks to them here, God's people were in a discouraged place. They felt defeated, and the prophet tells them to look to God's work in and through His people in days past.
ii. "Once a Christian gets eaten up with discouragement and unbelief it takes a great deal to shake him out of it. Those two emotions are the masterstrokes of Satan. So long as the child of God maintains an attitude of praise and trust in the Lord, then he is invincible. Once the devil gets him discouraged, that poor man in really going to take a knocking!" (Redpath)
c. For I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him: Abraham was one man, from one simple family. Yet God called him alone, and increased him. This should remind His people today that God does not need many people to do a great work. He can bless and increase one man alone. Isaiah wanted God's people - in view here are the returning exiles from Babylon, and those of Israel's ultimate regathering - to not be discouraged of their small numbers, but realize that just as He did great things with Abraham and Sarah, He can do great things through them.
d. Remembering Abraham and Sarah should give them hope for this promise: For the LORD will comfort Zion … He will make her wilderness like Eden … Joy and gladness will be found in it. The promise seems too good to be true, but by faithfully remembering God's work in people like Abraham and Sarah, they would have the faith to believe God's promise to them today.
i. This shows how we can benefit through God's work in the lives of others. When we hear of what God has done and is doing in the lives of others, it can build our faith for God's work in our own lives.
ii. He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD reminds us that though these promises had a near fulfillment in the return from Babylon's captivity, their ultimate fulfillment is in a regathered, blessed, and saved Israel in the millennium.
2 comments:
Isaiah 51:8
For the moth will eat them up like a garment;
the worm will devour them like wool.
But my righteousness will last forever,
my salvation through all generations.”
God's word and His promises last forever
It is encouraging to know that His promises do last forever!
Knowing this promise, we can " Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
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