Series: Flowers in the Desert
Isaiah 39:6-7 ESV
Isaiah 40:1-2 ESV
Isaiah 40:3-5 ESV
Daniel 3 (the furnace)
Daniel 6:26-27 ESV
Daniel 6 (the lions)
Romans 8:28 ESV
The line between the lines from Isaiah 39 to Isaiah 40 is deep and wide. We sense there is a story hidden in the crevice. Act One ends and Act Two opens to a completely different setting.
The early sections up to and including Isaiah 39 of the word of the Lord to the Prophet Isaiah, include comfort but also included a warning to the children of Israel. In Isaiah 39:6-7 the Prophet told the people, “Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
Imagine with me if you will if the same prophecy happened today and the prophet announced a day was coming when everything you and your father had worked for would be stolen from you and taken off to a foreign land. Think about how you would feel if you were told your own sons, and all the sons you know would be captured and taken off to a foreign land to serve their land and their gods.
Pause.
Pause. Take a breath.
The curtain drops.
Then as the curtain opens again to reveal the word of the Lord in Isaiah 40 the prophet begins with words of great comfort.
You can hear the crier loud and clear as the words of Isaiah 40:1-2 announce:
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to herthat her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned,that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.”
At this point the audience is wondering what year Isaiah 39 spoke about and how many years had passed when Isaiah 40 opened.
We read in Isaiah 40:3-5, “A voice cries:“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
To answer the question for the audience, about 150 years passed between the prophecy in Isaiah 39 and Isaiah 40. God sent Isaiah on a mental journey in a time capsule.
The pillage he prophesied did happen.
History tells us in 597 B.C.E. the Babylonians did come to Israel. They did attack. They did carry off the spoils. They took the brightest and the best of Israel’s young men to Babylon to serve the foreign king and presumably his gods.
But, as Isaiah 40 opens we are told, be comforted.
The brightest and the best were the brightest and the best.
They did serve the king. But as they served the king, little by little, step by step they taught the foreign king a thing or two about the God of Israel.
Once, three of the brightest and the best of Israel were thrown into a fiery furnace because they refused to bow down to the king’s image. What’s remarkable is that the three did not burn up and the mighty foreign king looked and proclaimed he saw four men in the furnace and one looked like “the Son of God”. The mighty king was astonished! They definitely got his attention about the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Hummm…the foreign king called Nebuchadnezzar started to wonder what kind of God they served? (See Daniel 3)
Then, one of the brightest and best who went by the name Daniel was thrown into a den filled with hungry lions because even after he was told he could not worship Yahweh God of Israel he continued to pray to God and pay Him homage. Even though the lions were very hungry they did not harm Daniel. As a result we learn from Daniel 6:26-27 the king was astonished and he believed in the God of Israel. The foreign king said, “I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. “For he is the living God and he endures forever;his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end.
He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth.He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.”
Hummmm…and the foreign king really really believed and proclaimed to all the people the wonder of the God of Israel. (See Daniel 6)
So, we wonder what good did God bring to Babylon when the brightest and the best (which included Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) showed up there?
THE God. THE God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob went with them.
Remember what Paul (previously a Pharisee who knew the Hebrew Scriptures by heart) wrote in Romans 8:28? “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[a] for those who are called according to his purpose.”
All things work together for good. Remember the prickly cactus (like the Glory of Texas) in the desert that has very little water produces a very beautiful flower!
Hummm…the Glory of the Lord is revealed to those who took the sons of Israel to their foreign land.
…and ever so slowly the curtain closes.
Spiritual Practice: Glory of God
Name one thing in your life you thought was very bad that worked together for good. Thank God for the good.
In God, Deborah
Comentarios