Isaiah 8:16-22 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/…
Information is one of the most important, most coveted, and these days most taken for granted things in our world. It’s right at our fingertips. Want to know how to make chicken noodle soup (as I did last week)? Google it. Or, if that doesn’t quite give you the recipe you want you can call your mom! Information has never been so easily attainable – we are rich in words which teach, direct, and entertain. And yet though we have all the riches of this world’s words, we are desperately poor if we have not God’s Word. That’s what Isaiah is really saying here, that God’s Word – His promises are, in the end, the only things that really matter. As it is written, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our Lord Endures Forever. And this is the word which was preached to you!”
Don’t take His Word for granted: because it is certain! Isaiah notes that even though God was “hiding his face” He would trust His Word. In this world, there are often things that seem to prove God wrong. In Isaiah’s days it would be the people turning away from God and Him removing His protection, yet His promises would come true – the Savior would be born.
Today it might be evolution, called scientific fact by many even though it has never been witnessed, tested, or proven in any scientific way. Evolution seeks to tear down God’s Word but it won’t succeed. God’s Word stands and will stand even after the very heavens and earth created by God in 6 days are destroyed. God’s Word is more certain than anything that anyone could ever tell you. So when it seems like God is hiding his face, when it seems like man is right and God is wrong, listen to God!
For God’s Word also creates family. Isaiah says “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.” These words find their final fulfillment in Jesus of whom they are quoted in Hebrews 2:13. Jesus, the word made flesh, came to fulfill the Word and to preach the Word and through that Word He makes us to be His children, His brothers, His family. He forgives our sins and draws near to us in love.
This is why we should listen only to His Word as Isaiah says “And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”
Only God’s Word is really, ultimately true. We live in a world that claims there is no such thing as absolute truth (a ridiculous and self-defeating argument). But God’s Word is the light which breaks this darkness. It will remain when all man’s ideas and philosophies are gone and those who believe it, those who cling to it and the promises of grace in Jesus Christ that it offers, these will live forever by that Word.
In Christ
Pastor Ude