7 June (Isaiah 46-48)

Isaiah 46

(v.4) This is a wonderful picture of God creating us, holding us and guiding us! He created each one of us for a purpose...it's up to us to find out our gifts that He gave us, and use them for His glory!

As Pastor Chuck Smith says, there are two times in one's life when you were carried and completely at other's mercy...first, when we're born, and then when we die. Isn't it comforting that God carries us the whole time?

(v.10) Skeptics seek signs and amazing miracles to believe, but God values those who see His work in His creation, and how He wrote of things to happen before they came to be. Prophecy is key to understanding God.

Isaiah 47

(v.10) When we are in darkness, we think no one can see our evil deeds or thoughts...but God can and He does! God wants to build our character, and good character is doing the right thing when no one is looking!

Isaiah 48

(v.12) God again calls Himself the First and the Last. As we see from other Scriptures, it's Jesus who said this, and it was Jesus who spoke to Moses at the burning bush.

(v.16) We see the Holy Trinity in this verse...it is the Son speaking!

And now the Lord GOD (Father) and His Spirit (Holy Spirit) have sent Me (Son).

This is supported by the next verse, where God speaks of Himself as the Redeemer. The only way man could be redeemed back to God, was for God to do it Himself! He did that on the cross!

6 June (Isaiah 43-45)

Isaiah 43

(v.1) You are Mine. God has purchased Israel, and He has purchased His Church. He is a jealous God, meaning He wants us to acknowledge His work, and praise Him for it. After all, He is the One who created us, so we should worship Him who gave us life, and can take it away.

(v.7) This answers the age-old question of, Why are we here? God created us to have fellowship with Him, and in order to do that, He had to redeem us...that is His glory! He is worthy to be praised.

(v.10) We who love and follow Jesus are His witnesses...His ambassadors on earth. 2 Cor 5:20

God wants us to reach out to the lost, and to love and serve them as Christ did for us.

(v.21) God chose Israel to reveal Himself to the world. It doesn't mean that they are more wise or spiritual than anyone else inherently, but since God was with them from the beginning, they are the light of the world. Since they rejected Jesus, America and the Gentiles have been that light, but one day when the Church has been Raptured, God will work through Israel again.

(v.25) This is an early reference to Christ. In the days of the Temple when this was written, according to what God told Moses to teach Israel, they were to sacrifice offerings to God to COVER UP their sins. The only way sin could be blotted out, was to be washed away...God did that Himself on the cross at Calvary!

Isaiah 44

(v.3) This speaks of Pentecost and of the Millennium to come...both are acts of God where His Spirit will affect the world for good.

(v.6) Who is the First and the Last? Is it the Father, Jehovah? Well, as we saw a few chapters ago, Jesus calls Himself this very same thing in Rev 1, 2 and 22. Is Jesus a liar or blasphemer? As Paul would say, "Certainly not!" Jesus is God, as John 1:1 says, and He is our Creator and Savior...a part of the Holy Trinity.

(v.28) Who is Cyrus? We shall see in the next chapter!

Isaiah 45

(v.1) Cyrus was the leader of the Medo-Persian Empire that conquered Babylon. When we get to the book of Daniel, we'll see the succession of Empires that conquered and ruled Jerusalem, but for now, we need to remember that the Persians conquered Babylon after Babylon conquered Israel.

This book was written over 200 years before Cyrus was even born, and here is God, putting in His Scriptures the very man who will rule Israel by conquest! When Cyrus eventually conquered Jerusalem, the Jewish Scribes showed him this part of the book of Isaiah, and needless to say, Cyrus was impressed and awe-struck!

(v.3) God has told Cyrus here, that God will give Cyrus wisdom and knowledge that only the Jews have been privy to before. God wanted to use Cyrus for His purposes, and He did just that!

(v.4) God is reminding Cyrus that He predicted that Cyrus would rule Jerusalem over 200 years before Cyrus was even born. God had plans for Cyrus!

I focus on this with my kids, for it gives great proof that the Bible was written outside of our time constraints. Isaiah was dead for over 150 years when Daniel presented the book of Isaiah to Cyrus, where Cyrus read that he would conquer and rule Jerusalem!

Cyrus was so impressed, he gave money and incentives to the Jewish captives from the Babylonian rule, to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple! Try to picture this...a conquering king just won over an empire, and gives freedom to those he conquered! Only someone who was empowered and influenced by God would do that!

This is all confirmed by Josephus, in his book, Antiquities XI, I, 2. Josephus was a Jewish Roman historian, whom Rome hired to document the history of Israel. Josephus also wrote of Jesus and the fact that He was arrested, crucified and rose again!

(v.23) When we all face God, every knee shall bow, which is confirmed in Phil 2:10

5 June (Isaiah 41-42)

Isaiah 43

(v.4) This is an important verse for two reasons...first, we need to realize that God always existed and always will. Second, there are cults out there that only worship the Father, and not the Son as God. If we follow the verses that mention either the title First and Last, or Alpha and Omega, which is Greek for first and last, we see that Jesus is God:

We see in Isaiah 41:4, 44:6 and 48:12, that God is saying that He is the First and the Last. Jehovah Witness belief is that this is the Father, Jehovah. By the way, Jehovah is the German translation for Yahweh, which is YHWH...the name of God at the burning bush with Moses. Exodus 3

But in Revelation, we see Jesus say the following:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last ~ Rev 1:11

But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last." ~ Rev 1:17

So who is the First and the Last? Is it Jehovah or Jesus? The answer is both. For we see that Jesus is God and definitely the First and the Last in the following verse:

And to the angel of the church of Smyrna write, "These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life."

~ Rev 2:8

So the question is, when did Jehovah, or the Father die? The answer is never...it was His Son, who is God, part of the Holy Trinity. Please use this as a tool to witness to the Jehovah's Witness people who come to your door.

(v.10) This is a great verse...if we have the Creator of the Universe, the Almighty God, and the Savior of the world on our side, then what do we really have to fear? Rom 8:31

Isaiah 42

(v.1) If we read Matt 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22 and John 1:32 we see that Isaiah is foretelling the Baptism of the Son of God. The Son had the Spirit upon Him as He ministered, and He had the power of the Father at all times...except that dreadful three hours on the cross where He became sin for us.

(v.6) God chose the people of Israel to be a light to the rest of the world, but after they rejected God so many times and ultimately at the cross, it's the Gentiles who are the light to the Jews. God says in Rom 11:11 that He will use the Christians to bring the Jews back to Him. This is happening at a more rapid pace than ever before...our LORD is coming soon!

(v.24) I remind my kids that God wants our obedience. This seems controlling, but in reality, if we walk in God's ways, we live more joyful and peaceful lives. Sure, we'll have troubles, but we have the calming knowledge that God is there with us, and He will take care of us.