January 24, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“From now on I will tell you of new things, hidden things unknown to you. They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So, you cannot claim, ‘I already knew them!’.” (Isaiah 48.6b-7)

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I AM making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”(Isaiah 43.19)

“He who was seated on the throne said, “I AM making everything new!” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21.5)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Solomon taught, as was recorded in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” He stated that “everything is meaningless.” What Solomon was speaking to was the thoughts of human beings who are limited by their own vision and understanding. Or, should I say, by the lack of it. Too many people throughout the annals of history would like to believe that we have exhausted the limits of our imagination and that there can be nothing new. That thought confuses me because we are seeing “new” things all the time even if some are only variations on an “original.” How many times have you read a book and say to yourself, “I don’t remember reading that.”? The Bible is very much a book like that because 1) most people have not read it from cover to cover and 2) the Bible is fluid and passes through every age speaking to the context in which it is being read even as it was being written in the original context. I have pointed this out many times in my reflections on the Book of Isaiah. The prophecies presented speak of a time, a time that is near and a time that is yet to come further in the future than any person has ever seen. This is the beauty and the challenge of God’s Word. What do we find now in the midst of Isaiah’s prophecy given to the House of Jacob Israel but the promise of something “original.”

What does this say to me and to us? I believe it speaks deliberately to the fact “we haven’t seen anything yet.” What God is about to do is so original that no one but God is prepared for it. We know what Paul said in his letter to the Christian community of faith in Rome, “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8.28) God has made a way for believers to get back to God even in the midst of their own problems and chaos. God has made a way to reveal His desire to redeem, reconcile and restore all people back to their rightful place in the Kingdom of God whether they had been believers or not. But, here in Isaiah we are told of something more than merely improving on what has been like it is some kind of cleaning product bearing the banner of “New and Improved.” What is presented in Isaiah is not a variation of what has been but the promise of something extraordinary, unique and nearly unbelievable to the point of believability.

Will it be a new Heaven, new Earth, new Israel, new Jerusalem? That work is already being done in Heaven as we read this reflection on God’s Word. In truth, it has been under construction since Jesus returned to Heaven forty days after His resurrection so that He could retake His seat at the right hand of God. He promised it saying on the night when He would be arrested setting into motion His crucifixion, “In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, then would I say it? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back to take you with Me so that you may be where I AM going.” (John 14.2-3) So, if that is not the “new thing,” what is? What about when Jesus said just moments after that, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing. In fact, they will do even greater things than these, because I AM going to the Father.” (John 14.12) What? We will do greater things than what Jesus did? In seeking to fulfill the Great Commission, the scope of the spread of the gospel far exceeded what Jesus did in His three years of ministry. He laid the foundation of a redeemed, reconciled and restored people and called it “the Church.” It was not the anti-thesis of the Temple which God instructed David and Solomon to build nor the Tabernacle God instructed Moses and Aaron to construct. It was a “new and improved” version of what God had fully intended. A dwelling place for the people of God to worship and serve “in Spirit and in Truth.” He made that promise to the Samaritan woman at the well. Is that the “new thing never before seen” that God was talking about to Isaiah and through him to Israel in foreign and domestic exile?

No, it is not that either. So here is what I believe it will be. And we are told of it in prophetic form in Philippians 2.9-11, “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” We can go further into Revelation 19.16 to see this, “On His robe and on His thigh He has this name written: King of kings and Lord of lords.” We would not fully understand the scope of this prophetic “new thing” in the day it was written because we were not there to experience the depravity and desperation of the time. But, we can understand it in our own time. Seeing the seemingly exponential expanse of evil wreaking havoc and chaos in the world, we know it will only get worse. What will get worse? The defiling and denying of God’s Name, His sovereignty and His glory. It is becoming global in its presence and determination to say, even without literally saying it, “There is no GOD but our god.” Understand the difference here with uppercase and lowercase presentations of the same word. We are quickly moving into a time where Satan’s strategy would seem to be working as the fulfillment of Lucifer’s song of insurrection hoped in Heaven. God cannot be defeated but perhaps he can be hidden from view with a cast of billions who look away from Him, GOD, and see themselves first and only. Mighty ones, here is that something new to consider which has already been spoken: the day is coming when, in spite of all the efforts to the contrary, EVERY KNEE WILL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE WILL CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD INDEED. His coming again will be in such a way that no one on earth, above the earth, under the earth or anywhere in the vast expanse of Heaven will be able to deny nor doubt the validity and veracity of Jesus who is the Christ. We will all be in one accord with that profession of truth. However, it will be that truth which will judge each person like a double-edged sword separating the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, the good from the evil. That “new day” is coming!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more real than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free from death. So may we live by the name of Jesus our Christ. AMEN.