Father, give us strength to follow your commands.
As I try to keep the topics we are given with a 'how does this effect us' theme, this week we'll look entirely at how does this effect us.
With prophesy we have two problems; one, that the names often are figurative and two, that more often then not the times are fairly vague. The section we've been asked to look at this week covers Isaiah 43 – 48. Instead of reading all the chapters we'll look at some of the patterns that emerge in this section.
One of the first patterns is that these prophesies are aimed at gentiles (non-Jews) as well as Jews. Isaiah 43:9 says “All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble.” Other chapters refer to Babylon or other peoples.
Yet this is the same message that was preached to the Israelites; don't worship idols, love God and help your neighbour. In fact it was the message preached by all the prophets and especially Jesus Christ himself. If we look at these chapters they almost seem to repeat themselves.
The other aspect is the destruction of all things which go against God. Namely those nations which don't please God and try to harm his people. At first it seems that this is mainly an Old Testament idea, but this is mentioned in the New Testament, very strongly in some places. It's not something that we think about as Christians, or do we? Jesus said to turn the other cheek, but was that the end of the story? Paul, in Romans 12 expands upon this. He says that God will repay. This means both good deeds and bad. It means we don't have to escalate things because God will see that justice is done. Not just temporary justice but perfect justice.
Instead of questions we'll have another short reading. Read Isaiah 43:1-22 and let me know how this relates to us.