The New Normal - C R Oliver (best value ebook reader .txt) 📗

of the people of God is to be a witness to the world-a witness of His faithfulness. That is our job in these last days!

He truly cares; notice how many expressions of "fear not," "I hold you," "I will help you."

The suffering of His people is not His delight; it is, however, His opportunity to provide supernaturally for their needs. Supernatural, that is the word. Devoid of capability to supply one's own needs, finds Him Stepping into History. In the previous instance, He stepped in with a "deliverer" from their bondage (Cyrus). Now, He steps into their trials---to attend their cry.

Isaiah 41:17-20
17 'When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongues are parched from thirst, then I will answer when they cry to me. I, Israel's God, will not ever forsake them. 18 I will open up rivers for them on high plateaus! I will give them fountains of water in the valleys! In the deserts will be pools of water, and rivers fed by springs shall flow across the dry, parched ground. 19 I will plant trees--cedars, myrtle, olive trees, the cypress, fir and pine--on barren land. 20 Everyone will see this miracle and understand that it is God who did it, Israel's Holy One.

What is needed for the hour? Has He not pledged Himself to us? An implied double negative, "I will not (n)ever forsake them," is the strongest of assurances. He has a stake in the affairs of His People. This is covenant in action; this is the unity of faith. How distant is the Isaiah passage from the Corinthian teaching?

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Notice God's thinking at this moment. It is like an afterthought; upon considering His "supernatural miracles," He challenges man's idols. God calls them to the forefront for denigration as if they were alive and could hear. He dares someone to compare them to Him. He judges them by their inability and false hope, "They are nothing."

Isaiah 41:21-24
21 'Can your idols make such claims as these? Let them come and show what they can do! says God, the King of Israel. 22 Let them try to tell us what occurred in years gone by or what the future holds. 23 Yes, that's it! If you are gods, tell what will happen in the days ahead! Or do some mighty miracle that makes us stare, amazed. 24 But no! You are less than nothing and can do nothing at all. Anyone who chooses you needs to have his head examined!

Remember, this is God talking; these are His challenges to the idolatry of the world. Until one arrives in China or Sri Lanka and sees people, with sincerity, fall down and bow to the ground before a giant Buddha, this verse may not mean too much. Until one sees a crippled man struggle up the stairway to a Hindu Temple and upon arriving at the top then shuffle his dangling legs to a position where he can present a small gift to a many armed idol and pray by bowing many times and repeating the only prayer he knows to ask for healing-this passage might just be reading material. Until one hears the war cry of a people who have put their trust in a false prophet while they worship a false god-this passage might not mean much. When one sees a beautiful cathedral with images upon every station harboring a false depiction of who Mary is, these passages might remain trivia against other Scriptures. Believe me, this is no afterthought with God it is serious enough for Him to rise up and challenge the idolatry found in every corner of the globe and in every generation. (When the Ark of the Covenant came into the same room as a false god, that idol fell!) Listen to God's appraisal of all idols. He says, every one of the idols worshipped today are, "Less than nothing and can do nothing." Alas, idols are often more than stone and wood.

The Lord reminds His listeners of how He raised up Cyrus, brought him to power, directed his activities and told them in advance. Notice this is a future event.

Isaiah 41:25-29
25 "But I have stirred up (Cyrus) from the north and east; he will come against the nations and call on my name, and I will give him victory over kings and princes. He will tread them as a potter tramples clay. 

26 "Who but I have told you this would happen? Who else predicted this, making you admit that he was right? No one else! None other said one word! 27 I was the first to tell Jerusalem, 'Look! Look! Help is on the way!' 28 Not one of your idols told you this. Not one gave any answer when I asked. 29 See, they are all foolish, worthless things; your idols are all as empty as the wind.

Jehovah stands alone. He chides the idols for their silence. Then, He discards them with an epithet: "Foolish, worthless, empty." What foolish, worthless, empty thing looms larger than your God and calls you to bow before it?

Chapter 42 : The Future King

See, it is no step for the God who revealed the future and gave the name of Cyrus, to step a bit further and give King Jesus His place in history-in advance.

Isaiah 42:1-9
42:1 'See my servant, whom I uphold; my Chosen One in whom I delight. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will reveal justice to the nations of the world. 2 He will be gentle--he will not shout nor quarrel in the streets. 3 He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame. He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged. 4 He won't be satisfied until truth and righteousness prevail throughout the earth, nor until even distant lands beyond the seas have put their trust in him.'

5 The Lord God, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who created the earth and everything in it, who gives life and breath and spirit to everyone in all the world, he is the one who says [to his Servant, the Messiah], 

6 "I the Lord have called you to demonstrate my righteousness. I will guard and support you, for I have given you to my people as the personal confirmation of my covenant with them. You shall also be a light to guide the nations unto me. 7 You will open the eyes of the blind and release those who sit in prison darkness and despair. 8 I am the Lord! That is my name, and I will not give my glory to anyone else; I will not share my praise with carved idols. 9 Everything I prophesied came true, and now I will prophesy again. I will tell you the future before it happens."
          TLB

He, who called Cyrus by name before his time in history, describes now His Holy servant Jesus. Many times in Isaiah, glimpses of the Messiah appear and when He took His place in Time, he quoted often from this book. Evidence of these verses loomed large at Jesus' baptism "I have put my Spirit upon Him." When Jesus healed a man with a withered hand (Matthew 12:20), the Pharisees plotted against Him (because it was the Sabbath); His reaction was to sequester himself in a distant place in order to fulfill verse three.

Verse 4 may well include the US and Canada, and the rest of the world beyond the boundaries of Israel. (America was founded on, "In God we trust," in keeping with His prophetic word. Now, the enemies of the faith have come to our shores, but there is One who will not be satisfied, "Until truth and righteousness prevail.") Grab hold of these verses and stand on them in these perilous times; stand and occupy the "distant shore" you call home. His word will prevail-it has done marvelously well in the past and it holds for the future!

Beginning in verse 6, the Lord gives instruction to His servant, Jesus-long before His physical birth on earth. That word hung in history until the unfolding of time called for it. Prophetic words are like that! Jesus IS the personal confirmation of God's covenant. When He stood in the Temple and proclaimed Luke 4:18ff, He was fulfilling verse seven. By standing on this word and Isaiah 61:1,2 (the fullest expression of the same message), He called the prophecies from histories bank of deposit and relegated them to Himself. We can do the same with the promises of God written in His Word.

I have used bold type to highlight, "I will tell you the future before it happens." Numerous times Jesus told the Disciples things that lay just ahead of them. Then He prophesied those things of the end time reaching beyond even this day. (Notice, this prophetic word was not to Jesus; it is to us. We are not to stagger about in darkness during these final days.

John 16:13-15
13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

These promises ought to cause a shout from the people of God. So let us do what the prophet says; Let us sing to the Lord a new song. Notice, though, who is to sing: the remote, out of the way places! Everyone that surrounds Israel is to break forth into song.

Isaiah 42:10-12
10 Sing a new song to the Lord; sing his praises, all you who live in earth's remotest corners! Sing, O sea! Sing, all you who live in distant lands beyond the sea! 11 Join in the chorus, you desert cities--Kedar and Sela! And you, too, dwellers in the mountaintops. 12 Let the western coastlands glorify the Lord and sing his mighty power.

Is this the reason Revelation records a song of the redeemed? Did not every major deliverance in Israel's history have an accompanied song? The distant land folks, the remote ones, what is to be their song? (Grafted In, Grafted In, Praise the Lord, we're grafted In.)

It is these "grafted-in" ones who accomplished the purposes of God! They spread the word throughout the lands, and everywhere there is a nation on earth- they are "doing the work of the kingdom."

Initially, Israel was to be the medium of proclamation--but they were blind and rebellious: nevertheless, the Mighty God was out to "fix" their problem.

Isaiah 42:16-20
6 He will bring blind Israel along a path they have not seen before. He will make the darkness bright before them and smooth and straighten out the road ahead. He will not forsake them. 17 But those who trust in idols and call them gods will be greatly disappointed; they will be turned away.

18 Oh, how blind and deaf you are toward God! Why won't you listen? Why won't you see? 19 Who in all the world is as blind as my own people, who are designed to be my messengers of truth? Who is so blind as my "dedicated one," the "servant of the Lord"? 20 You see and understand what is right but won't heed nor do it; you hear, but you won't listen.

O' nations, in remote areas of the earth, learn from Israel and open your eyes and hear with your ears. O' Church, do not be the epitome of verse twenty! Your Redeemer draws near. With all the grace poured out