Thoughts - August 24 - Isaiah 43:19

"Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"
(Isaiah 43:19)


You may not know this, but I enjoy taking passages like this, that are often seen out of context, and putting them back into it. It's not that the interpretation is necessarily wrong, but it is incomplete.

In this whole portion of the book of Isaiah, God is giving Israel this amazing two-sided message. First, they're a bunch of rebellious evildoers who should know better. See, for example, 42:18-20, "Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord?" Basically, the chosen people, rather than being heralds of God's truth, were not just as bad as the nations around them, but worse, since they should have known better.

At the same time, though, out of His unspeakable love, God had chosen to forgive and redeem them. In 43:25, one can almost feel His anguish over them and their refusal to acknowledge Him: "I, I am He, who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." Verse 12: "I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you" to confuse you as to Who it was!

So, as our key verse says, God had decided on a new approach. Even though Judah had ignored His many, many appeals to them, He refused to give up. Being a smart guy, He knew that the same old, same old wouldn't work. So, out of His love, he went back to the drawing board. And came up with Babylon.

Now, if you're going to be corrected by the Creator, you generally want Him to speak to you and tell you. If that doesn't work, or if you're part of a large group on the same wrong path, a prophet might be nice. What you probably don't want is for a foreign nation to come in, destroy your land, and carry you off into exile!

Israel's history shows that this isn't what God wanted either. He tried for centuries to reach them in the nice way, but it just didn't work. So, did He finally tire of them and abandon them? No! He gave them what they needed, and, further, promised His help while they went through it and recovered from it (43:1-7).

Now, did it work? Somewhat. Judaism since then has been much closer to God in the millennia since then than it was before. Did it work perfectly? No - when God Himself, in Christ, came to fully claim His own, they rejected Him. But even that wasn't the last straw for them, either. Though they were destroyed again in A.D. 70, the last century has witnessed yet another restoration of Israel, and with it a significant number of the Jews finding Christ.

I would submit to you that there is a definite parallel to this in our lives. God will try to speak to you and correct you as gently as possible, because He loves you. If you ignore Him in that, though, He won't abandon you; because He loves you, He may turn up the heat. But, if He does, He'll get you through it, too, and you will come out on the other end.

So, if you're going through a time of trial, turn to Him, and see if He's trying to get through to you. If you're not, but you've been trying to ignore Him, rethink that plan before He has to try a little harder. And, in whatever happens, trust Him - He really does love you!


"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine."
- Hymn, "How Firm a Foundation"