Wednesday 6th – Isaiah 40:1-8
Today we will start to look at some thoughts from Isaiah 40, we will return to this chapter again tomorrow and on Saturday.
I want to highlight for today verses 6-8. These few verses start off with a call for the prophet Isaiah to cry out, he asks ‘What shall I cry out’ and the response is: ‘All flesh is grass, and all it’s beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades . . .’ He then ends the cry with the words ‘but the word of our God will stand forever.’
The whole sentence is making a statement which is a comparison between the life span of mankind and the longevity of the Word of God. Man is compared to the grass of the field or to a flower – here today and gone tomorrow, but the Word of God is eternal, it will last forever. (Peter quotes this in 1 Peter 1:24-25)
It reminds us that life is fragile. If we take the comparison of the grass or the flower, we know how quickly the grass can come and grow and yet soon be affected by weather conditions which causes it to dry up and to die. The same with a flower, I love gardening, back in Rhyl I had planted hundreds of bulbs in the garden and I always looked forward to seeing the bulbs begin to show through the soil, and I would wait patiently for them to grow and for the flowers to begin to show, especially the tulips. We always had our first snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils in January and as they would be coming to an end the tulips would appear, but suddenly, after all the waiting, it seemed like the flowers had come and gone with a blink of an eye.
None of us knows how long our life span is, back in the time of the patriarchs they had a really good innings, Methuselah 969 years, but following the flood, God shortened the life span until we get to Psalm 90:10 and we read ‘The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.’
In the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 12:1 we read ‘Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days draw near and the years draw near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them.’ When we link what we read here in Ecclesiastes to what Isaiah cried out in our text, it is a call for each one of us to make time for God before it is too late!
Now, I know that I am preparing this devotion for our Church family, therefore I can assume that it is being read by those of us who have already made time for God in our lives, but what I feel led to impress in our hearts today is that we make sure that we live everyday with the realisation that eternity may only just be around the corner. We should live in the light of the revealed truth of God’s Word, his Word which is eternal, we should be living in the present with eternity in view.
The Scripture I am reminded of as I prepare this is found in Luke 12:16-21 ‘And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”’
The rich man was living only for the present, no thought for eternity, perhaps he thought he was invincible, he had overlooked the fragility of life. I remember working for a guy who was very anti-God, he was determined to build up his own little empire, one day I challenged him concerning his soul and told him the day would come when he would have to stand before God, I will never forget the look of anger on his face that I should even dare to warn him. To my knowledge he has never responded, (that was nearly 40 years ago) there are many today who live this short fragile time we have on this earth with no time whatsoever for God.
Let’s make the time we do have count, let’s make it matter, yes we have to prepare for the present, for we are living in the present, but may we never make what we do in the present have a negative impact on that which is eternal. Following on from the parable in Luke 12 we have the words of Jesus (vv22-34) that are also found in Matthew 6:25-34, I quote from Matthew, ‘But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.’ If we want to make our lives count here on earth, if we want to live life in the light of eternity, then our priority must be to seek first the kingdom of God.
Finally, the last sentence of Isaiah in these verses ‘But the Word of the Lord will stand forever.’ Can I suggest that we need to live our lives in the light of his Word, it is his Word that matters, it is his Word that counts, and it is his Word that will stand forever. In the words of an older hymn, ‘Standing on the promises of God.’
All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
Knowing you, Jesus
Knowing you, there is no greater thing
You’re my all, you’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness
And I love you, Lord
Now my heart’s desire is to know you more
To be found in you and known as yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All-surpassing gift of righteousness
Oh, to know the power of your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like you in your death, my Lord
So with you to live and never die
Graham Kendrick Copyright © 1993 Make Way Music CCLI 788682